CEO Insights Magazine

Given the prolific advantages of microfinance in promoting economic development and employment rate by supporting microentrepreneurs and small businesses, the microfinance sector in India has the potential to grow at a CAGR of 40 percent by 2025. Gangadhar Pandey, CEO of Mahuli Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha  a microfinance company, is an acknowledgeable leader who is extensively contributing to this growth.

An MBA graduate (2010) and a Scholar of Ph.D. at Lincoln University, Gangadhar kick-started his journey about 15 years back and holds diverse experience in banking, entrepreneurship, and building a startup ecosystem in Nepal. Let’s get to know more about him through the CEO Insights ASIA interview discussion!

Tell us about your leadership approach and what are the guidelines/methodologies you follow.
I mostly hold a participatory approach to address the issues, promote downlines, and unite each level into mainstream based on a standard set of institutional missions. Addressing the challenges during a crisis within or an outside environment is my forte. Previewing the past and present business environment, I prefer listing upcoming issues (short and long run) and solving those by devising a standard set of structural mechanisms.

So, I think the leadership corner largely depends on the degree of problem resolved previously according to the behavioral, fundamental, and technical know-how approach the person evolves into goal set journey. Precisely, understanding this and making positive efforts is the only way to deliver value to society.

Define Mahuli Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha as a microfinance institution.
Mahuli Microfinance is a national-level MFI covering all seven provinces of Nepal. We have more than 63,000 rural women who borrowed funds with us for agriculture, small business, farming, solar energy, and agriculture program and for rural women entrepreneurs looking for scaling up their present and proposed businesses or any kind of start-up program. We encourage youth and rural communities to get involved and take the best financial opportunity. Since, MSLB is providing loans to clients at one of the lowest interests in Asia, our client getting benefited through training, skill development, social welfare, insurance security, client protection fund, children’s education facility, safe shelter housing, marketing of the product, connecting with the market of the produced product. Similarly, we have a great ally with ADB, Habitat of Humanity, and different foreign social enabling institutions. We had provided a loan of about Rs 6 billion ($58 million) small credit to our client’s previous fiscal year and plan to provide more this FY.

What are the factors you look into when developing effective corporate growth strategies?
Corporate growth largely depends on a person who has accepted those challenges and predicts better scalability, streamlines the team and performs within a limited time framework. Also, the right decisions at the time and action afterward with a complete understanding of each issue with motivation, inspiration, and self-determination are equally important. Strategies can have a significant impact, thus even team brainstorming series can benefit until the finite principle is set to take off. Rather than conducting an in-depth study of issues, events & consequences along with possible risks and opportunities, one should also analyze and decide from client perception, choices, habits, and buying behavior and incubate them into a series of scalability impacts. Subsequently, the effective growth of any institution largely depends on the choices of leaders who evolve.

Under your leadership, how have you been guiding the team to draw valuable insights from the market and help the company stay a float?
Three important steps each business takes place an important role; the marketplace, the team spirit, and their impact creation. Valuable client always loves to take more benefit and expect the best service delivery and recurring of same with their own best choices. Similarly, the team always looks for better growth, benefit, and opportunities on the other side investor expect better financial benefits so these three things required patience, leadership role, dedication, and self-motivation. I always try my best to guide, encourage and provide opportunities for each stakeholder with meaningful insights so there is always a possibility of growing the entire organization.

Where do you see yourself headed in the future? Delineate your future roadmap.
I am receiving an opportunity to visit remote areas of both mountain and Terai regions. I feel still people need basic human livelihood support. The government is more focused on infrastructure but the development principle applied doesn’t address the country’s needs, so the recent political recourse, youth participation in Nepalese politics, and campaign development agenda must guide and apply fundamental needs. Nepal is a holy and spiritual place for Buddhism and Hindus. We have the world’s largest population of China and India on both sides and most people are willing to visit Nepal, so I look forward to working on these agendas. Similarly, the country needs a leader who can work with the public for the public and have strong self-determination to encourage SMEs, entrepreneurs, and innovators so I prefer something with a new approach within the microfinance industry and other important areas too. Supply chain management, market connectivity, product pricing, creation of large demand, connecting consumers, building user satisfaction, and addressing institutional overall growth are always among my priority areas and I will do it joint hand together.

What is your advice to budding leaders while hacking new opportunities going forward?​
Leaders always look for valid reasons for growth and act of perceiving things around them with a better understanding of each circumstance which will able to prevail over hardship or a crisis. Three important aspects of leaders include; driving with purpose, making sure each individual is on track with account ability, and courage with brevity during hardship. Similarly, the most important is the level of vision you evolve by uniting the team to create effects within a given time frame. Leaders need to step ahead, keep the flow and show the direction ahead by bringing the team to the front.

Gangadhar Pandey, CEO, Mahuli Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha
Hailing from a small village in Nepal (Syangja District, Kaligandaki Rural Development-04), Gangadhar, is an efficient professional who holds diverse experience in business, banking, and entrepreneurship.

•Hobbies: Medication, Writing articles, and Travelling
•Favorite Cuisine: Nepali
•Favorite Book: The Lord of the Rings
•Favorite Travel Destination: Mountain Region of Nepal
•Awards & Recognition: Nationally and internationally for providing the best guidance and support into entrepreneurship in Nepal