Growth Architect · Commercial Transformation Leader · Founder, gembaIQ
34+ Years Across Asia Pacific
Helping CEOs, Founders and PE-Backed Companies Accelerate Profitable Growth Through Commercial Excellence, Leadership Development and Execution Discipline.
Why Dhiraj Sood
34+ years leading real businesses, managing real P&Ls, building real organisations. My advice is grounded in having sat in the chair you sit in.
"I have sat in the chair you sit in. I know the weight of a P&L, the pressure of a board, and the reality of leading people through transformation. That is where my advice comes from."
Deep practitioner of the Danaher Business System — the world's most rigorous execution operating model. Not a student of it. A practitioner at scale, across multiple businesses and markets throughout Asia Pacific. Certified DBS Leader with hands-on kaizen and transformation experience.
Built and led a $100M+ healthcare diagnostics business across India and South Asia. Managed a 400+ person commercial and operational organisation. Delivered consistent double-digit revenue growth through commercial excellence, rigorous execution and culture transformation.
Transformed a $50M+ industrial business from a product-led to a solution-led commercial model. Restructured the channel strategy, rebuilt the sales organisation and embedded DBS operating principles. Delivered sustained double-digit growth in one of the world's most competitive industrial markets.
Built, led and grown businesses across India, South Asia, South East Asia, Japan, Korea and Australia. Real market knowledge, real cultural fluency, real relationships and real accountability for results — across every major Asia Pacific economy.
Operated in PE-owned environments where investor expectations are non-negotiable. Board-level perspective combined with operational depth — the rare combination that translates between shareholder ambition, strategic intent and frontline execution reality.
Founded gembaIQ to formalise a methodology developed across three decades: start at the frontline, diagnose with honesty, design with rigour, build with discipline and develop leaders who own their results. Transformation grounded in truth — not theory.
Education
XLRI
NIT Rourkela
Harvard University
Mayo College
Executive Impact
These are not projections. These are the results of 34 years of executing from the front.
Who I Help
My work is most impactful when the stakes are real, the ambition is significant and the commitment to execution is non-negotiable.
Growth Architect for PE sponsors requiring deep commercial and operational support across portfolio companies in Asia Pacific and globally.
Interim and advisory support for management teams accelerating growth, building execution capability and preparing for value creation milestones.
Commercial transformation, GTM strategy and organisational leadership for healthcare and diagnostics businesses navigating competitive or high-growth markets.
Execution excellence and commercial capability building for industrial businesses, applying DBS-inspired rigour to drive consistent performance.
Strategic clarity, commercial architecture and leadership development for founders scaling from product-market fit to operational maturity.
Trusted advisor and thought partner for CEOs navigating strategy execution, commercial underperformance and organisational scaling challenges.
Independent perspective and operating expertise for boards requiring strategic oversight, CEO succession and governance of execution performance.
Operational support for VC-backed businesses in healthcare and industrial technology requiring commercial expertise and DBS-inspired growth frameworks.
What Problems I Solve
These are the patterns I have seen—and solved—repeatedly across industries, geographies and ownership structures.
The symptom: Beautifully crafted strategies that remain stuck in PowerPoint. The consequence: Investor confidence erodes, market opportunities are missed and leadership credibility suffers. Growth stays theoretical rather than real.
The symptom: Revenue consistently misses plan despite apparent market opportunity. The consequence: Margin compression, management distraction and PE sponsor pressure. The organisation loses confidence in its own commercial capability.
The symptom: Sales effort is high but conversion is low. Channels are misaligned. Pricing is reactive. The consequence: Revenue leakage, high cost of sale and a commercial organisation that works hard but achieves little.
The symptom: Leaders who are technically capable but unable to drive accountability, manage performance or build high-output teams. The consequence: Organisational drag, talent attrition and inability to scale past current size.
The symptom: No rigorous cadence of performance management, KPI ownership or strategic accountability. The consequence: The business drifts. Problems are discovered late. Board meetings become rearview mirrors rather than steering mechanisms.
The symptom: Large sales teams with low output per head. High activity, low results. The consequence: Elevated cost structures, declining win rates and a commercial machine that consumes capital without delivering growth.
The symptom: Revenue grows but profitability stagnates or declines. Pricing power is weak. Discounting is rampant. The consequence: Value destruction that undermines equity returns and limits reinvestment capacity.
The symptom: Processes that have grown organically without design. Waste in every function. The consequence: Slow response, high cost, frustrated customers and a business that cannot scale without pain.
The symptom: A business with genuine value that struggles to articulate and demonstrate it to PE or VC investors. The consequence: Undervalued exits, difficult fundraises and missed windows for strategic capital.
Advisory Services
Six integrated capabilities — each grounded in decades of operating reality, not advisory theory.
Embedded or advisory Growth Architect support for PE funds and portfolio companies. I help management teams build the execution engines that turn investment theses into realised returns.
Revenue acceleration, go-to-market redesign and sales excellence for businesses where commercial performance has become the critical constraint on growth and value creation.
Applying the principles of the Danaher Business System to build execution management systems, daily accountability rhythms and continuous improvement cultures in non-Danaher businesses.
Building execution-focused leaders who can own accountability, build high-performance teams and translate strategy into measurable results — the human infrastructure of any high-performance organisation.
Growth strategy development, market entry, geographic expansion and adjacency identification for businesses ready to move beyond their current scale with a structured and executable growth architecture.
Insight-led transformation rooted in frontline realities. The gemba — the real place where work happens — holds the truth about why businesses underperform. We go there first, before prescribing solutions.
The gembaIQ Approach
A six-step methodology grounded in frontline truth — because the gemba never lies.
Start at the frontline. See the real. Understand the root causes, not the symptoms.
Map the commercial, operational and leadership gaps between current state and full potential.
Build a commercial and operational blueprint that is executable, measurable and ambitious.
Embed the daily rhythms, KPIs and accountability structures that drive consistent performance.
Elevate the leadership capability required to sustain, accelerate and own the transformation.
Create the conditions for compounding growth — commercially, operationally and culturally.
"Go to the gemba. See the real. Lead from the front. Execution is not a strategy. It is a discipline."
Industry Experience
Deep operating experience across healthcare, industrial and commercial sectors throughout Asia Pacific.
Thought Leadership
Unfiltered perspectives from 34 years at the frontline of commercial leadership, execution and transformation.
Coming Soon
The investment thesis is sound. The strategy is solid. But the execution machine doesn't exist. Here is what I have seen — and what to do about it.
Unfiltered with Dhiraj
Seventeen years inside one of the world's greatest operating companies. What the DBS really is — and why most companies can never replicate it without the discipline to live it.
Executive Perspectives
Asia Pacific is not one market. It is eight, twelve, twenty markets with distinct dynamics. The commercial leaders who win here think differently. Here is how.
Follow on LinkedIn for regular insights on commercial transformation, execution and leadership.
Follow on LinkedInTestimonials
Dhiraj has the rare ability to see both the strategic picture and the execution detail simultaneously. He helped us transform our commercial organisation and the results were immediately visible in our pipeline and revenue performance.
What sets Dhiraj apart is that he has actually done it. He has led a $100M business, managed a P&L under PE ownership and delivered growth in tough markets. His advice comes with proof, not just theory.
The gembaIQ methodology is different. Dhiraj starts at the frontline and works backwards. The insights he uncovered in the first two weeks changed the direction of our entire commercial strategy for the year.
Get In Touch
Whether you are a PE fund exploring Growth Architect support, a CEO navigating a critical inflection point or a board requiring an experienced voice — let's have a conversation.
Based In
India · Asia Pacific
Available for global engagements