The interview was originally published in Czech on the Forbes website. The English translation has been edited for clarity. The original can be found here:
https://forbes.cz/cesi-si-neuvedomuji-jak-dobre-se-maji-rika-indicky-manazer-balesh-sharma-z-ppf/
Petr Kellner himself identified Balesh Sharma to head PPF’s telecommunications division, but he didn’t live to see him take up the post. Mr. Sharma, a seasoned executive, recalls the former wealthiest man in the Czech Republic and his conversations with him with enthusiasm. Mr. Sharma brings the same enthusiasm to everything else in life.
Even after decades in a single field, he isn’t bored by his work and is rather looking for ways to use it to move the world forward. This is certainly not the wish of a naive newcomer, as Mr. Sharma has already managed Vodafone’s telecommunications operations in the Czech Republic, South Africa, India, and Malta. But then came the job offer of a lifetime.
By accepting a job at PPF, owned by the wealthiest Czech woman, Renata Kellnerová, he entered a business that recently included the acquisition of the fixed telecommunications and cable TV operator Serbia Broadband for CZK 20.7 billion.
When PPF spun off its telecommunications assets outside the Czech Republic last year, Mr. Sharma transitioned to the management of the newly formed company e& PPF Telecom Group, in which the telecommunications giant Emirates Telecommunication Group Company (e&) from the United Arab Emirates acquired a stake. The decisions made by this smiling man now influence the performance of telecommunications assets not only in Serbia but also in Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. PPF Group retained full ownership of the Czech Republic’s O2 and Cetin.
Mr. Sharma’s office, however, remains at PPF’s Prague headquarters, from where he runs e& PPF Telecom that under his leadership, could boast €550 million in EBITDA operating profit for the first half of this year, which is 11% more than in the same period last year. Of all the places he has worked during his career, Prague is simply one of his favorites.
“At the time, I lived here for about three and a half years since 2013. My family stayed here for another year and a half because my son was in his last year of school. I was traveling back and forth at the time. This was my fourteenth move, and Prague is one of the best places I’ve ever lived.”
Fourteenth move?
Yes. And it’s not just from one side of Prague to the other. My travels take me from India to South Africa, London, the Czech Republic, and Malta.
What’s so great about Prague?
Prague has all the good things big cities have, but none of their negative aspects. The people who live here complain, but that’s only because they don’t know the rest of the world. While some locals might disagree, the fact is that there are rarely major traffic jams in Prague.
The same goes for housing. The experience has been a little more worrying lately, but otherwise, there is a whole range of good housing available.
Take education, for example, where it is not so difficult to get children into the best schools. This is different from London, where you apparently have to register your child before they are even born. In other parts of the world, you have to pay huge sums of money or know someone who knows someone to get your child into a school.
And then there’s medical care. I haven’t needed it much yet, but I can see that it’s also quite good here. That’s why I call it a place that’s easy on the nerves.
And you see that as very positive, don’t you?
Twelve years ago, I did an interview for Czech Television, and the woman who interviewed me asked me about my best and worst experiences. One of the things I mentioned at the time was that you don’t have school buses here.
She thought I was talking about it as a negative experience, so she started talking about the recent communist past and a developing country. And I said to her, “No, you misunderstood me. That’s the most positive experience. How many places in the world can you send your children to school by public transport?”
In Prague, young school children regularly use public transit on their own. This isn’t so common elsewhere. It shows that Prague is a very safe city, and people don’t even realize it.
When I arrived here, I also used public transport. I did it deliberately to get a feel for the place. When you’re sitting in a car, all cities are the same, but when you’re sitting on the subway or tram, you can talk to people, understand how they behave, to see what they wear.
Do you have the same positive view of Czech telecommunications?
The quality of networks and services is among the best in the world. I’m telling you that you can complain anywhere in the world, but just cross the border to see how good it is here.
You work closely with mobile phones, but what is your personal relationship with them?
I think I have a very balanced approach to phones. I use them as a tool to increase productivity, and I have two—one for work and one for personal use.
People ask me why I need two phones when I can just create profiles. But this way, I only use one when I have time. All my personal friends can send me messages, swear at me, joke around, cry, but they can’t call me. Also, all the games I like to play are only on this second phone.
Do you talk to people a lot?
I’m a social person. I’m very happy when I’m alone in my room and can spend my days working by myself, but I’m also happy when I find myself in a room with strangers. Within a few minutes, I feel at home there.
When I go to eat in the cafeteria on the ground floor, for example, I take a tray and look for a table with as many people I don’t know as possible. That’s the difference between most people, who choose where to sit by looking to see where their friends are sitting. I say to myself, “Leoš is sitting over there. But I know Leoš (Leoš Rousek, PPF spokesperson). I’ll go and meet someone else I don’t know”.
Are you always like that, or do you need some time to yourself?
I can manage to be like that, but I also have my own life. However, I can switch between the two very easily and manage my time. When things get too chaotic, yoga helps me. I practice three to four times a week, which includes fifteen to twenty minutes of meditation.
Have you been doing this for a long time?
About twenty years.
So almost as long as you’ve been involved in the telecommunications business?
I’ve worked in the telco a lot longer, since 1996, that is almost 30 years.
What is it like to spend thirty years in a single industry?
That’s the fun part. It’s not just a single industry. It’s not just a single sector. If you look at telecommunications, it’s as if it touches everything in life. It’s ubiquitous and continually changing.
If you ask me what my goals are, which I write down every year in relation to my work, they will be significantly different from previous years. Every year, there is a whole new game.
You aren’t bored yet and tempted to use your management experience elsewhere?
Not at all. Because what I like most about telecommunications is that you really change the world. Over the last three decades that I’ve been working in telecommunications, we, along with other operators, have changed the world for the better.
How did you communicate before the advent of mobile phones, and how much?
Today, if I took your phone away for three days, you would probably have to go to the Himalayas and pray, because you can’t live without your phone.
The arrival of the mobile internet was also revolutionary. It gave phones wings. We may not realize it in the Czech Republic, but in India and Africa, ninety percent of people experienced the internet for the first time on a phone, not a computer. They never had a computer. The same goes for the camera on the phone.
Telecommunications have transformed every part of people’s lives, and that gives you positive energy. In more than thirty years, I’ve never been bored.
So even today’s rapid changes in technology haven’t discouraged you?
I turned sixty last year, and I feel that one day I’ll probably have to hang up my boots. But at the moment, I’m nowhere near ready to do that. I’m fully immersed in the flow of things and enjoying it to the fullest.
Some people are afraid of change. I’m not. I welcome it with open arms; things have to change. And I agree with them.
How did you get involved with PPF?
My son attended the International School of Prague, as did Petr Kellner’s (editor’s note: founder of PPF Group) daughter. We weren’t in touch back then, we may have seen each other twice at most, but always for a very short time.
But one day in the summer 2019, when my son was graduating and I was no longer living in the Czech Republic, we bumped into each other at the graduation dinner, and I introduced myself. He said, “Oh, you’reBalesh,” because he probably knew me as a competitor, and we hit it off. From that handshake, we talked for a long time, and after that, whenever Petr Kellner came to India or I came to the Czech Republic, we would meet. Unfortunately, it was a very short but wonderful relationship.
At the end of 2019, he asked me where I was. I was in London for a few days, and he said, “Why don’t you fly to Prague?” Well, I had time, so why not? So, I flew in for a talk. During our discussion, he asked whether I would join PPF.
What was that decision like?
I was happily doing my job, and then Petr said this to me. We discussed the profile, and it sounded very interesting and very different, so to speak, but during a few meetings I had with him in my life, I was also impressed by his approach to things. So, the reason I was keen was because of him.
But then COVID came along, and the discussion was put on hold. And then, unfortunately, we lost Petr, and I thought that was the end of it. I was CEO of Vodacom in South Africa at the time when Ladislav Bartoníček suddenly contacted me and said, “I know you and Petr talked about it, and we still want you to come.” He needed a successor to run a telecommunication business.
And why did you come here?
That’s a slightly different story. Before working in telecommunications, I spent about five years with Xerox copiers and similar equipment. When I came here, I already had thirty years in the corporate world behind me, and after that time, you start to feel a little restricted.
I loved those thirty years, and I’m not complaining, but being outside the formal corporate world is a completely different world, a completely different space, and liberating freedom. You’re not trying to achieve one specific KPI at all costs, but you’re doing what’s right for the business.
How do you grow the business? How do you develop your employees? How do you improve customer service? In a corporation, you report to your shareholders every three months. You make promises. You make statements in three months, six months, nine months.
“Hey, Balesh, what happened to this?” Damn. Now you have to explain what happened, so you have your hands full. You are driven by the KPIs that you set for yourself or that the world dictates to you, and therefore, you don’t know whether you’re doing what’s right for you in the long run.
The business at PPF is specific in that it reflects the way Petr Kellner made it. Each of us in the management of PPF’s business units has enormous scope to do what we want, but that also means we have much greater responsibility. When you work in a large corporation, five people are involved in every decision, so you’re covered.
But not here?
Here at PPF, you’re personally responsible; you have unlimited responsibility in a sense. On the other hand, you have unlimited possibilities, unlimited space, and you do what you want. What do you think is right? I don’t have to ask people so many questions that I would have to ask in the corporate world.
So yes, at this stage of my life, I felt that I wanted to do something where I could really make a difference. Leaving the corporate structure enticed me. I like that PPF offers me freedom to do things quickly, make decisions swiftly. I am happy that what I find around me here is exactly this culture.
Is the culture at PPF different in any other way?
People here are patient, but also very agile. Patient in the sense that we don’t do business like private equity funds, where you invest money in a water bottle manufacturing plant today and within five years, you have to sell it somehow to get out and return the money to the fund.
PPF is exclusively family money, so we don’t work with fund life cycles. If we’re sure it’s the right decision, we can invest in telecommunications with an expected return in the long run. That is patience.
Was it an easy decision to take a job at PPF back then?
Not at all. When I was thirty, if something went wrong, I could always go back to my career. You make a mistake, you leave, you join someone else, you don’t like it there, you go back to your former boss and say, “Hey, I’m still a good person.” And maybe he’ll take you back.
When I decided to switch jobs and join PPF, I was already 57. It was an important decision, but at the same time, I was very confident in what I was doing.
Do you ask anyone for advice in such situations?
Not really for this kind of decision. The only person who would have been involved was my wife, because it directly affects her, and also my sons, because they’re adults now and are my closest friends. The younger is 22, and the older is 31.
I also shared it with some very close friends, but that was after I’d made my decision. I don’t remember consulting anyone else about this idea. Once I decided to go for it, it just seemed like the obvious thing to do.
What if you are faced with a business decision? Do you have a close circle of advisors, or do you try to resolve things yourself, because ultimately you are the CEO and you have the responsibility?
Yes, because I’m a manager who likes to consult. I’m not authoritarian. There are topics and situations where you have to give instructions, but those are very few. In war, you can’t try to call a meeting to decide whether to shoot today or tomorrow; that’s the commander’s job. At the same time, most situations in life are not war, so I fully trust my team and delegate to them.
My CEOs in each country have full autonomy to deliver on what we have agreed or what they have said they will do. I’m more available to those who want help or to resolve exceptions, as well as for my day-to-day management.
I meet with each of my direct reports once a week. Otherwise, we have a weekly meeting with everyone together, but the rest of the time, they can do what they want.
So, in most cases, decision-making is very consultative, which is very useful, especially in this situation where you have two shareholders.
How does this division between PPF and Emirates Telecommunication Group Company (known under the brand name e&) manifest itself?
You have one shareholder who has known you for five years and is involved in the business. Then there is someone new who has paid a huge amount (editor’s note: up to EUR 2.5 billion, including a possible bonus of EUR 350 million) to acquire a 50% stake plus one share and therefore has different expectations and considerations, because these are two different companies with different approaches.
And this is where my style comes in handy, because I’m able to convince people and ultimately make the decision myself. Both sides understand why I do it. But it isn’t like I just do it and then tell them later that we’ve decided to do it. I usually just explain it to them, so they understand the rational context of what I’m saying.
Do you feel the pressure of numbers? There aren’t many CEOs in the Czech Republic who run a company with such a large annual turnover...
No, because I was a CEO in India. There, when you do anything, it’s like adding three zeros. I had 50,000 employees and 273,000 base stations, which is probably Germany and the UK, and God knows how many other countries combined in one company.
I’ve also been CEO of various telecommunications companies at different stages of their lives, in leadership positions versus market challenger positions, and so on. Eighteen years as CEO, so I’ve seen it, I know it, and I know how to do it.
We also have the best people as CEOs in each country and at the headquarters, so I’m confident that each of them is doing the right thing and will come to me when they need help. My job is to make sure they can do their job and have support.
Now we have two shareholders. e& PPF Telecom has two turbo engines, fully supporting each other and perfectly synchronized. The direction is clear; they both think alike. And that’s great. It makes my job much easier because the shareholders are completely in sync and both very strong. You go into it knowing you can do it because you have full support from all sides.
Now we’ve bought Serbia Broadband for EUR 825 million. We’ve thought everything through, the strategy is clear, and it makes sense to us.
Do you feel that having two owners with a clear strategy gives you more room to maneuver than the previous arrangement?
Yes, but I will answer a little differently. We had the option not to do it, but we went ahead with it. Why? Because as PPF, we have two parts of our telecommunications business—Czech and international—that have very different strategies and approaches.
So, we were at a crossroads, looking for further growth. The mindset was that we would explore more geographic areas and maybe buy into additional markets where it made sense.
Then, when you start looking at the opportunities that arise, you find others who are also interested in the same opportunities. One of them was e& CEO Hatem Dowidar. It certainly helped that I had worked with him before.
On the very first day, I made it clear to him that we weren’t interested in diluting our focus because at PPF, we believe in telecommunications and Central Europe. We were absolutely certain that telecommunications in our region offered much better opportunities than Western Europe.
We were focused on Central Europe and would grow in this area, so we had no intention of allowing PPF Telecom Group to be diluted into e&. However, if you want to join forces, let’s do so and achieve more than either of us could achieve alone.
PPF Telecom Group used to be at most a mid-sized company in telecommunications, but e& operates in twenty countries.
Given that size matters in telecommunications, this gives me access to their size and expertise. In turn, they gain access to our knowledge in this area, particularly in Central Europe, which is somewhat different from the environment where they operate.
They respect us for what we bring to the table. We’ve proven this in the companies we’ve acquired, developed, and grown in completely different trajectories than they were in before. So, they know we understand. They know we understand our business. At the same time, we know we need them because of their size and scope, and together we’re obviously much stronger.
What are you focusing on now?
Central Europe is growing faster than Western Europe. There are still income differences between regions, but as Europe becomes an increasingly unified market, you should see growing competition here. We’ve been seeing this for the past seven years.
Disposable income is also growing faster in Central Europe than in Western Europe, while prices are still much lower. There’s room for growth.
In three of these countries, we’ve created enormous capacity on which we sell FWA, which is fixed wireless access. We also provide television services under the same model.
In Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia, we have 5G, which gives us enormous capacity. Only Serbia doesn’t have it yet because the auction hasn’t happened there.
What do you plan for the near future?
Right now, the game is very simple. We’re not seeking market share or growth at the expense of someone else, but trying to develop the market. We know that acquiring users is much more difficult, because if everyone has a cell phone, why would they switch operators?
I would have to sell it more cheaply, and that’s not what I want to do. I want it to be the best product for the price I deserve so that I can reinvest in getting a better product for the customer.
So, we have a relationship with a customer who likes us. How can we provide them with more and more services at prices they like, with the simplicity and convenience they want, and with their trust?
We use this approach to sell them more. Leveraging our customer-focused approach, we now sell banking services, for example.
To what extent can you take an approach from one country and apply it to another?
Markets differ, people differ, competitive scenarios differ, requirements differ, market phases differ.
However, there are some basic principles that can be easily transferred from one market to another. For example, when we entered the fixed-line market in Serbia, we already knew it from the Czech Republic. It’s possible, but it isn’t just a matter of imitating.
We’re now trying to create platforms. Instead of creating a TV platform in five markets, we created a single platform for all five markets where we operate. So, it’s necessary to adapt to each market, but not by building five different platforms.
The impact of artificial intelligence on business today is also a frequent question. What’s your view of it?
AI today is like when companies started having IT or computer departments in the 1990s. Every area of our business and every individual who works there will be increasingly influenced by AI.
Its potential comes from the combination of three different words: big data, analytics, and robotics for process automation. When these three elements come together, you get an exponential curve of return, simplification, or a better customer experience, no matter what KPI you focus on, because you apply knowledge from the vast amount of data you have at your disposal.
If as humans, we try to process this data, it would take years to achieve. If you use it without understanding the data and try to implement automation, it won’t work. If you try to get people to make real-time decisions based on this data, it won’t work.
But when you apply large language models to this data and add automation tools to it, you suddenly see the power of how it all comes together. Even though we have employees who talk to customers.
Instead of trying to open ten different pages, there are robots that listen to conversations and open windows automatically, answering your question right away. This reduces the workload of employees, and they can now serve more customers.
What do you use artificial intelligence for?
You can do a lot of things with ChatGPT. We’re sitting in a meeting discussing a legal situation. If we do something, we may have a problem. While we’re still discussing and trying to resolve it with the help of lawyers, one of my colleagues uploads four legal documents and asks ChatGPT for an answer.
Within seconds, a complete analysis of these documents is ready, saying that if you do this, you won’t be in the right, but because you’re not doing it this way and you’re doing this, you’re absolutely right and the other party is in trouble. Lawyers will try to explain all the nuances, but AI gives a clear analysis.
You don’t even have to summarize meetings because artificial intelligence listens to them and provides you with summaries and email summaries.
What do you think the future of the telecommunications industry will be?
The future of telecommunications still lies in high-quality connections that can provide sufficient bandwidth for everyone around the world. That’s something people in Prague may not feel.
There are driverless cars, remote operations, and other applications and activities so critical that a millisecond or microsecond delay can mean an accident. One small mistake in communication and you can kill a patient on the operating table because the surgeon is sitting thousands of miles away.
When you talk about such applications, connectivity itself becomes much more critical and never-ending in terms of what we need to deliver. So, fiber optics everywhere is a given. We need to get there, but we’re far from it. Then there’s security, which is becoming much more important.
What we called telecommunications in the 1990s didn’t include the internet. What we called telecommunications in the early 2000s didn’t include music, video, games, or films. What you still call telecommunications increasingly includes things like financial services.
Telecommunications are beginning to encompass more and more adjacent areas, so the opportunities for growth are huge because there are disruptions happening all over the world, more and more things are being digitized, and more and more things are becoming borderless. We could play the role of what I call a system integrator for the average person.
What do you mean by that?
It’s very easy for us to talk about all the great gadgets that are coming. But if I stop a woman on the street, will she be able to figure it all out for herself? No, she won’t. She might go and buy a gadget somewhere else, but will she be able to put it together?
She needs someone who knows how to do it. For example, the Czech company O2 has launched new tariffs called Connect. You can now add a tariff for tracking devices for your pets or add another SIM card to your tablet on top of your regular telecommunications tariff. Of course, you can add a SIM card for your watch or for your children’s watches.
Geopolitics aside, what would you say is the biggest threat to your business right now?
It’s people. How do you ensure that the best people for the job are with you? How do you train them, because they don’t grow on trees? How do you recruit newcomers and develop the right mindset and skills in them? That’s the challenge.
Is there anything that worries you personally?
In general, I’m an optimist, so I don’t worry too much. There are things you can prepare for, and then there are things that will happen anyway.
I talk about this with my boys and tell them to think about three things. One is to think about and prepare for everything you can, whether it’s insurance or writing a will. I wrote my will when I was very young, when people don’t usually worry about such things. But what would happen tomorrow morning if I got hit by a truck?
The second part is that you have to live in the present. Calm down. Today is just today. Tomorrow will be tomorrow. That’s a day later. Make the most of what comes today.
And third, understand that when things go wrong, it just happens. Accept and move on, because another day will come. It’s a simple philosophy, right? Things go wrong, but it’s best to think about what I can do with those mistakes today to get back on track.
