The comfort zone

When an organisation is a welcoming place to work, its talent is inspired to take risks and innovate, says Rohan Sharma CA, Group Head of FP&A at Aurora Energy Research. He tells CA magazine about the little things that make a big difference

WORDS JANE RENTON

A rising tide lifts all the boats – it’s a phrase that perhaps has a conflicted meaning for Rohan Sharma, Group Head of Financial Planning and Analysis at Aurora Energy Research. Working within the renewable energy sector, he’s trying to combat threats such as rising sea levels. But that is mirrored by his conviction that organisations succeed better when everyone does. As such, it is no surprise that this ICAS 2019 Top 100 Young CA has also recently joined the institute’s Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee.

“For me, it’s to give something back to a profession that’s been very kind to me in many different ways,” he says. “Giving back is a subject that is close to my heart – and [EDI is] a business case that I genuinely believe in.”

It is a personal and evidence-backed passion that he witnessed early during a varied and successful study career. From a degree in accounting and finance at Manchester University, on to his CA qualification at EY, and most recently an executive MBA in business administration and management from Warwick University’s Business School in 2022, certain key takeaways have remained with him.

“People take risks when they feel more comfortable,” says Sharma. The three years he spent training for his ICAS qualification were where the foundations for this belief were laid. “You are working with such a bright cohort, and at the same time your whole study journey is supported,” he says. “As you move through the ICAS process, you join the dots between the study and the practice, and your value input increases.”

It is the skills learned in tackling the complex TPE (Test of Professional Expertise) case study exam that, he says, still constantly serve him today: “It brings all your knowledge and skillset together. You’re able to understand the context, define the problem statement and really use a data-driven approach to come up with a recommendation. I think that skill is really powerful – and I still apply that methodology to pretty much every deliverable I have.”

Joining the dots

Sharma was previously the youngest ever Vice President at global technology platform Travelport, where he demonstrated an early aptitude for joining the dots in a strategic way by establishing the Ethnicity Resource Group. With so many empowering groups in areas such as sexuality and gender, he identified a gap in representation around ethnicity and worked to address it.

“When I was working at Travelport, it was ultimately a technology platform,” he says. “Now, technology never lies still, right? If you recruit the same type of people and have the same type of people in the organisation, groupthink becomes prevalent. You’ve got a similar kind of thinking, which has a similar kind of outcome. But in any sort of technology firm, your competition is thinking, ‘How can I disrupt your company? How can I differentiate from what you’re doing by doing things better, faster and cheaper?’”

Diversifying the workforce and benefiting from a wider range of perspectives are key to innovative thought leadership in any organisation. “If you’re bringing different types of people from different backgrounds, whether it’s ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender, it just brings about different types of thoughts that will enable you to start thinking outside the box,” says Sharma.

The case for the active promotion of EDI is not just ethical – there’s also a compelling business reason. Sharma quotes the Deloitte and World Economic Forum study that says greater diversity leads to a near-20% increase in innovation revenue, as well as a 2020 McKinsey survey which found companies in the top quartile for gender balance are 25% more likely to outperform the industry median (and 36% more likely for those in the top quartile for ethnicity balance).

“People are the biggest asset – no matter what type of business or organisation, people are the main asset,” he says. “Whether it’s your customers or your internal stakeholders – empower them, make them feel welcomed into an organisation. I think there’s huge discretionary energy that can be released. And when you come together, the output is really powerful and should be a core part of your people strategy.”

But how feasible is it to replicate and embed such a win-win strategy in other companies and organisations? Sharma’s answer is unequivocal: “It will require continuous support and maybe some minimal investment to pivot into a people strategy. But it has to come from the top down rather than the bottom up.”

He says it is a whole-team strategy, involving a core commitment to a vision statement created by a diverse group of people who come up with ideas that stem precisely from their different viewpoints. And there are key quick wins that any organisation can benefit from.

“Have diversity and inclusiveness as part of the people proposition,” says Sharma. “Then it’s not just being able to talk the talk, it’s actually being able to walk the walk. We did it through communications that went out, and also educating on different cultures that we celebrated, whether that was Diwali, Ramadan or Hanukkah, and actually being able to link that to certain teams and events so that we were able to come together to educate and celebrate.”

“In any sort of technology firm, your competition is thinking, ‘How can I disrupt your company? How can I differentiate from what you’re doing by doing things better, faster and cheaper?’”

It is about people feeling welcomed, with little things like seeing their favourite food in the canteen. It is also about seeing such strategies modelled by more senior figures within the organisation – and not just being stalled in middle-management positions. As such, he is unequivocal about the importance of mentoring: “I genuinely think, no matter where I am in my career, I wouldn’t be able to hit the heights without the right people around me and being able to leverage their experience and advice.”

This doesn’t have to mean a formal mentoring arrangement, he says. It could be informal advice, networking, professional and peer relationships. Either way, it is key to personal and professional success. “You can’t be successful alone. It comes down to your relationships and your networks. I know systems and AI have come into it, but at the moment there is always a person on the other side of the system who we need to be able to interact with,” he says.

It is through the external windows that people often get to glimpse how well an individual walks the walk in their approach to modelling positive behaviours. Keywords such as “integrity” and “ethical” figure in association with Sharma’s work practices. He is characteristically modest.

“I love that,” he says. “It’s always a journey, right? I’m not there yet. And I’m going to continue to work my best to get there. You model who you want to be. You want to be a leader that people feel engaged for, who they can be open and transparent with. Because ultimately, I cannot be successful without my team, and vice versa.

“By equipping your team with the right practices and culture, and being an ambassador for how things should be executed, I believe you will have a more motivated, engaged and willing team to provide you with that discretionary energy. We spend 60–80% of our week at work. It’s important to be able to do that with the right people, embedded in the right culture. And that is very much a team effort.”

Read more in the Championing Unique Perspectives series