SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, welcome everyone to another episode of Beyond the Case. This is a podcast where global leaders from Howard Business School's OPM community join in a personal capacity to share the real lessons, life principles, mental models which go behind building enduring companies. We have a lot of diversity on this show, and that's what makes it so special. We bring different uh perspectives from all over the world. Today's guest is uh from my cohort OPM67. It's Kaya. Hey Kaya, how are you? Good, good. Sohin, it's a big pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah. Hi everyone. Yeah, please please introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yeah, I'm from Kazakhstan. I'm working in uh BA Group. It's uh largest construction holding in Central Asia. And last year we just built 2.4 million square meters of infrastructure projects and residential projects. Yeah, and I'm one of shareholders of BA Group. So inside of our holding, we have five businesses, five different companies. And I'm responsible for property management, the company named BI Service.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Got it. Okay. How did you become a shareholder in the company? Is this ancestral or do you, you know, is this are you first generation or no?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

No, it's not a family business. So actually, we are a private company, and uh it's actually a very strong corporate culture, and you can grow inside the company. So I joined the company 10 years ago, like an average manager. So if you show a good results, company invests a lot in your development, and you can grow, you can get some opportunities inside. So, and the shareholder, it's like the final step. Yes, you have first step, it's like minor shareholder, major, and so on and so on. So, right now we are working in nine countries. Uh, we are going abroad, so it's like part of our strategy, and our first priority is our customers. That's why we have a lot of repetitive uh sales uh in residential business, and we have a very strong focus on team development.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Uh let's go back to your childhood. Were there any principles you had as a as a young person which you think have carried forward in the way you operate professionally today?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, I think so. So the strong impact for me was the sport because I used to play for Kazakhstan national team, water polo team. Do you know water polo? It's like a mix of rugby and football on the water. Yes, I used to play for national team for six years. Yes, and actually it was a tough time. Uh, I used to join when I was 15 and quit in when I was 21. Yes, and it was like eight hours training every day, and it developed very strong self-discipline, competitive character, hardworking, and actually it was a good basement for me to develop.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Was there a moment of failure or setback that you could think of, which in hindsight turned out to be one of the best things that might have happened to you?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah, I uh actually I finished one of technical universities in Elmety, and my first profession was like I finished IT and uh software development, but then I started my career in Chinese companies, the TE, Huawei, maybe you know. And after that I ch decided to transfer to construction business. Yes. And uh I had a good position in uh Huawei and ZTE, but then it was like downshift for me, like in position when I moved to BA Group. But right now I I understand that it it is a great company that gives a lot of opportunities, and here we are right now.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Now you mentioned you you you spent six years playing water polo for Kazakhstan. You mentioned eight hours of training, which built a lot of discipline. How does that discipline show up every day in your life today?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

So actually the working style in BI Group is very tough. So we are working like from 8 a.m. till 8, 9 p.m. Yes, and it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. And I think that kind of basement, that uh foundation that I get due to sport, I'm using right now. And we have a strong team, it's more than 7,000 uh employees right now, and everybody is very involved, and discipline is like a part of our work.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

You know, in in competitive sports at the higher level, a few seconds can make a break a game. And so you played water polo under immense pressure. Do you think that is helping you today in any ways in your work? And if so, how?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, I think uh first of all, sport it's about losing games, winning games, and uh having some retrospective about that. Also, it it's uh very strong in a teamwork, so you know how to cooperate with your colleagues, with your team members. Actually, it's helping a lot. And uh in sport, you are not satisfied. Every time you win something, you set a new target, and uh actually it's it's the same in the in the business. That's why I think everyone, if you have a kid, so you should participate in some sport or involve your kids to some sport, it will help a lot in your in your life.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

How did you choose water water polo as a sport? There's so many other sports, and water polo, I don't think I know a lot of people, but I didn't swim t uh till 10 years old, and it was like my phobia.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yes. And actually I decided so I should fight with that, I should try to learn how to swim. Then I went to a swimming pool, and I find I find out that it's very boring, and I saw it's like in the next uh swimming pool, the kids playing with the ball, and I decided to switch to water polo, and actually it was very interesting interesting, and this is why.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Do you feel somewhere you underestimated your own potential, you know, not knowing how to swim for 10 years, attempting it and then joining the national team?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah, actually, uh I have a big impact from our coach, so it gives a lot of credit to you, credibility, uh trust, give a lot of advice, and uh actually my my first coach didn't uh only learn me how to play and how to swim. He gave me uh g gave me a lot like uh behavior, a lot of experience like uh in life. He shared me a lot. That's why it's not a school only for sport, it's a school of life. That's why I I'm very uh appreciated to my uh coach.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

And did your coach focus more on technique or uh on the mindset?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Both of them, both. And in national team, we have a lot of like psychology doctors who was working with your mindset. Uh when you didn't score a goal or you didn't shoot in a in a good position, he talked to you a lot. So why what was what was your thoughts in that moment and so on? It was a big work with the mindset, also, not only physical and tactical.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Right. And so, what in your journey made you consider the OPM program at Harvard?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Just to get a new experience, new knowledges, and uh to come in a good community of students. So, actually, we have a lot of challenges right now, so mostly in my business. So, right now, residential company building almost 35,000 apartments a year. It's a huge amount of uh customers, huge amount of projects are coming to me and my team. And right now we are managing more than 700 residential buildings in seven cities, and it's almost one million people, tenants living in our apartments. And uh, we're not only doing working on maintenance and customer service, we have a big app mobile application, so we integrate a lot of technologies, uh, we integrate a lot of additional services. So, if you want, you can buy an apartment in BA Group in five minutes online. You can set a mortgage, so all customer journey is like digital. And last year we started to build communities inside of our residential buildings. It's like yoga clubs, football championships between uh different communities, uh, some some kind of longevity programs, and it's like a new level of uh service that we are implementing right now. Maybe you saw the documentary series on Netflix, blue zones. Did you see that?

SPEAKER_00 8:36

A word of it, I've not seen it yet.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a documentary series about five locations in the world where uh the highest, the highest amount of people who reach 100 years, and it's about longevity, about some different behavior, and they have a lot of similar things like active, active uh lifestyle, uh like mission, own mission, uh communities, uh food the right food. So, right now we try to implement such kind of project inside of our residential buildings to make every hoje like a blue zone where our customers will be happy. And uh also in Big App we develop such kind of uh social network for tenants where they can connect, participate in different events, and so on and so on.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Talk to me about some of the takeaways from OPM. Any cases, any professors, the words that might have still stuck with you?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah, a lot of takeaways. I think one of them is customer cooperation. So that's total taught uh a lot of cases above that. Last year we organized a forum with our customers, and we understand that we have our corporate culture, we have five values inside of our company, but we don't have values for our customers to man to create some culture in our residential products. So we invite one of HBS professors, is Boris Groisberg, and we did case studies with our customers. And after that, we had a workshop to create values for our communities, and our customers were very satisfied, very impressed. So, right now we are scaling these values inside of our communities. Another thing we in uh it's about uh do you remember remember this concept of make your customer a hero? So, in our mobile application, we are showing the NPS score of the building to our customers, financial report, and community uh score, and we involve them to improve that. So when we measure NPS, they see what is the problems in the residential building, what kind of suggestions they can make, what they can improve. So we are working on that together with our customers right now, and it's like some part of customer cooperation.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

What about books? Is there any book that you've read which has influenced you a lot that you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Let me think. Actually, a lot of books, but I can mention uh the short one. It's uh John Kechel, maybe you know, it's about uh positive thinking. Yes, and it's I think it's very important for every leader or every person to be positive, yes, to set good goals, to use right words in your life to uh create positive atmosphere around. So it's about mindset. If you're positive here, ever since the good things will happen. That's that is the main point.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

And lastly, uh given the shape your career has taken from being afraid of water to learning how to swim, being a national level hot player in water polo, and now rising through the ranks to be one of the shareholders in BI Group. If you could go back in time, talk to the younger version of yourself and give some advice, what advice would you give?

SPEAKER_01 11:53

So today we had a Best Talent Pool Forum. It's for our like high potential employees, and I shared my career journey from the front manager to top level. And uh some kind of advice that I gave to my colleagues. It's like first to have a good mentor. So during these 10 years in my MBA group, I have I had uh good uh managers, I had good mentors, and they were very different. One was about operations and systems, another was about people management and leadership. The third one was about energy and speed and uh different kinds of matters shaping you during this uh time, and choosing the right mentor is very important. And uh another thing, not only trying to build your career, you can move not only on the next level, but like horizontal to, for example, I started in construction project, then I moved to we had a Kaisen department to improve the processes and so on. Then I moved to IT department. So we have a BI Innovation, very big IT department who develops the software for construction and for customers. Then I moved to sales department, and you can move like horizontally and vertically, and uh the most important is experience and different kinds of view from to the company and processes, and you shape your experience around the whole company.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Thank you. This has been a great conversation. Um, I appreciate the time and uh look forward to seeing you again in unit two. Yeah, see you, see you, Sokin. Thank you so much. See you in in November. Yeah, see you in November. Bye. Bye bye.