Krishna Kumar, Founder & Master Coach
Henry Ford has rightly said, ‘The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.’ In today’s era of larger talent gaps and smart technologies, the need for training and development of employees has never felt so important before. Gone are the days when employees stayed in their jobs for years before getting a promotion. Today, the corporate world is advancing at a much faster pace than ever before. Employers are looking for people who can do the job today with an edge towards what they might do in the future. With in-demand skills changing tremendously, training presents a prime opportunity to expand the knowledge base of all employees. Whether an organization is well-established or a brand new start-up, one thing a business cannot afford to ignore is providing their employees with the best possible training they can.
After all, it’s the scaffold that will help in growing the business and remain competitive. Krishna Kumar - an industry expert who has served as acorporate executive, an entrepreneur, a sports coach, a B-school professor, independent board member and an Executive Coach, established Intrad Consult (P) Ltd in early 1995. The Intrad School of Executive Coaching was later started, as a subsidiary of Intrad Consult, to offer Executive Coaching, Coach Certification programs and Corporate Training that will help companies meet the challenges of Change Management and Leadership Development.
A pioneer in the field of Leadership and Executive coaching in India, Krishna Kumar commenced his corporate career in the early 80s with Madura Coats - the Indian arm of British textile multinational Coats Viyella. Having been selected as the Commercial Director (Middle East) at the young age of 34, Krishna also worked in Istanbul and later Dubai, with profit centre responsibility for operations in 13 countries in the region. Following a strong career in the corporate world, soon Krishna ventured into the entrepreneurial world and set up businesses that included textile consulting, direct-to-home marketing and CRM technology service. “After a fairly long stint in the corporate sector, I decided to venture out on my own. At that time, I was the CEO for the Middle East operations for a textile transnational corporation, which was globally ranked number one by market amalgamation. With the Indian market growing at a rapid pace in the mid-to-late ’90s, it was my vision to work with businesses in the areas primarily related to market strategy that would support scaling. As the businesses grew, there was a serious dearth of quality leadership and this is when we expanded our offerings to cover the fields of leadership development, with an emphasis on executive coaching, and thus established The Intrad School of Executive Coaching (ISEC India),” speaks Krishna Kumar, Founder & Master Coach, ISEC.
A New Approach to Bringing out the Best in Learners
An active member of the international coaching community, he is currently the Presidential Ambassador of the International Association of Coaching (IAC), globally recognized as a leading coach credentialing organization. He has been the IAC’S Global President (2016-17) and a two term Member of the IAC Governing Board(2012-2018). Krishna Kumar is a tennis enthusiast, the passion for which eventually resulted in him founding the Kinesis Tennis Academy, an organization that is today rated amongst India’s premier professional tennis training institutes. Deeply influenced by the works of legendary coach, Timothy Gallwey and positive psychologist, Mike Csikszentmihalyi, Krishna began his career as an executive coach with a desire to support others in their journey towards performing to the fullest of their potential. Krishna developed his Inner Coach methodology that merged concepts and practices from sports psychology and organizational behaviour to effectively improve the performance of senior executives in the corporate and business world. “The traditional approach towards learning
and development or consultancy in this space has always been focused on workshops, offsite meetings and similar. We at ISEC are adding the technology dimension in a much deeper way by introducing simulation-based leadership games along with the regular programmes like executive coaching, both one-to-one and group. These advanced simulations, allow people to work in environments with other people who inherently pose challenges. It is very different from strategic games where you are fighting to conquer territory or retain market share; here you are trying to get people who are very competent to build a team and produce results,” utters Krishna.
"The programs and coaching assignments are based on'the inner coach and awaretm models’ that emphasize on principles,methods, and tools to assist self-learning"
The programs and coaching assignments are based on ‘The Inner Coach and AWARETM Models’that emphasize principles, methods, and tools to assist self-learning. Self-awareness using the Inner Coach methodology is the basis for enhancing the effectiveness of teams and building superior leadership capabilities. “At ISEC, personal coaches work hand in hand with their clients to clarify their developmental needs and help them improve their skill base. Our trained coaches work from a strength-based developmental process that enhances the natural attributes of an individual while helping the person working around his/her limitations. The sessions conducted are on a monthly retainer basis with a minimum guarantee of two personal interactions supplemented by one or more telephonic meetings. Under the program, the coaches also help the clients explore their options, test out ideas, helping them seek and gain clarity over their career path and passions by utilizing their strengths to the fullest. All these steps eventually lead to expansion of an individual’s horizons, helping them enhance their skills for reaching the next levels in their career,” explains Krishna.
Laying the Foundation for Future Growth
Today, the global market for L&D Consulting is hugely evolving. Organizations are facing unprecedented challenges like market complexity, hyper-competition, changing consumer expectations and technology advancements. Both private and public organizations are looking for next-generation solutions. Learning has become a business-critical priority for increasing skills, improving the leadership pipeline, and enhancing employee engagement. With the corporate learning market undergoing digital transformation, it is essential to assess the current learning environment and implement a new vision to build a corporate learning experience that touches every employee in a significant way.
The Intrad School of Executive Coaching is continuously striving to meet their requirements by providing robust executive leadership development and executive coaching framework, which offers quality coaches from India and overseas to work with our clients. Keeping up with this objective, The Intrad School of Executive Coaching has partnered with global organizations like the IAC, Aleas Sim, Silk Road Partnership, IIM Bangalore, Mannaz, Pearson, Harrison Assessments, and Coach Source. Having worked across a range of verticals such as Information Technology, Financial Services, Banking and Insurance, Engineering and Technology, Consultancy and Services and many more, ISEC has served numerous clients including Cisco, Dell, Qualcomm, Oracle, CDK Global, Legal & General (UK), Boeing, Robert Bosch, Ford, expleo, Infosys, Wipro, Tata Sky, Decathlon, Pernod Ricard and Tesco.
The Intrad School of Executive Coaching is planning to expand its reach not only in India but also across the global market by systematically growing a global reputation for performance and quality in its offerings; ISEC has already set a niche for itself in this domain. A leading Coach training institution in India, over the past decade ISEC has certified more than 100 Life and Business Coaches, many of whom still continue to work with the Institute as practicing Coaches, training faculty at their coaching school or providing support for our various coaching community activities. In the years to come, the Institute plans to expand its space of leadership development offerings by improving the holistic package of offered products that they hope will lead to growing the client base.
“You play at work or you work by playing; it doesn't matter. It's like, how a sports person or musician doesn't think that what they are doing as work, though they earn money from it. In the same way, more and more the culture of organizations will have to change by creating environments that build deeper levels of engagement in the eco-system. With the Learning and Development industry transitioning to becoming a global activity with a lot of programs being offered over the virtual platform, we plan to apply technology to coaching programmes in the future. It is the path that we intend to follow across the globe, leveraging my virtual network to expand our reach,” signs off Krishna.