Something about our leader in waiting!--Govind Pani
Govind was born and brought up in India and is from a family of prominent bankers. His father was the managing director of the State Bank of Travancore which had about 1000 branches across India.
Govind graduated with a B.com from the prestigious Loyola College at the University of Madras in 1983 and then qualified as a Chartered Accountant and as a Company Secretary. In 1986 when he first moved to New Zealand he also completed his Masters in Taxation at the University of Auckland.
‘Our soon to be leader’ started his career with an affiliate of Deloitte in India and then moved to Shaw Wallace, a very large established company where at the age of 24 he found himself in charge of their corporate treasury.
In 1989 he moved to Bangkok and joined the President Park Group. Initially as financial controller at the age of 27 and after four years became their Chief Financial Officer. The group was a large player in property development, serviced apartment and hotel space.
In 1997 Govind moved back to New Zealand and joined Wireplus/Steel Plus as their financial controller. He was heavily committed in accounting work whereas his passion had always really been finance. This took him back to India in 2003 where he took over the head of finance role of Best and Crompton Engineering Ltd.
In 2005 Govind joined Damac as Head of Finance in Dubai. This company was one of the largest players in the Middle East, in terms of property development space. At the time the company was involved in a dozen middle Eastern countries including several iconic projects- the company having an annual turnover of about US3billion,
The family moved back to Auckland in 2009 when Govind took over as the CEO of DEC Australia in 2010 and was promoted to CEO in 2012 serving until July 2022 when he decided to step down . However, he remains a consultant to DEC.
Govind met his sweetheart Sandhya in 1987 and they were married in Bangkok in 1990. Together they have 3 high achieving children. Sandhya has a masters in French literature and a few years ago became interested in Naturopathy, qualifying as a Naturopath and now practicing as well as writing articles for newspapers on natural medicine. Govind has himself written books and had published memoirs of his parents including his mother’s favourite recipes but his favourite passion is CRICKET!- which this scribe is extremely pleased to note