Mr. Syed Safawi is a Co-Founder of Padup Ventures. He also serves as an Advisor at Aadar. He comes with almost three decades of leadership experience, with two decades growing and transforming companies in India and outside in consumer goods, beverages, telecom, infra and beauty & wellness. An Investor in technology platforms and on several Boards and Advisory Boards, he educates over ten thousand underprivileged children through his E&H Foundation. After a distinguished corporate career leading several transformations, Syed has also co-founded a business solutions platform called Optiwize, focused on family owned businesses and SMEs. He has served companies like Coca-Cola, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication, Vyom Networks (A Tata-Tele JV), VLCC etc. with specializing in turning companies around with large profitability, fundraising and exits. Syed was the CEO of Vyom Networks, a TATA-SREI-PE joint venture, where American Tower Corporation closed the acquisition of a 51% controlling ownership in 2016, thus figuring among the top-10 inbound M&A deals in India ever, across sectors. Besides the business transformation, the organizational transformation witnessed an increase in people engagement scores to 87 ( vs. 62) comparable to Top 100 companies in India. Prior to Vyom Networks, Syed was with Reliance Communication Limited as the President and CEO of the Wireless Business and Chairman of the Reliance Management Board. He worked with RCom, taking it to over 150 million customers, a US$ 4 billion revenue and US$ 1 billion EBIDTA. He is an MBA from India and alumnus of The Wharton School, USA and a certified Director from the Institute of Directors.
Individual/Angel