At our last full meeting of they are our own Govind was the presenter. Govind was born and raised in India and came from a family of bankers, his father holding the position of managing director of the State Bank of Travancore, a bank with about 1500 branches across India.
He did his schooling in Delhi in Delhi Public school followed by a B Com from Loyola College a part of the University of Madras.
Govind enjoyed rapid advancement in his career moving from an assistant audit manager, via finance manager positions to CFO positions in a wide range of companies, industries and countries.
By the late 1980's he was working as CFO for the Park Group a company that engaged in very large scale building developments including but certainly not limited to, 14 high rise condominium towers.
In his role with the group he spearheaded the public listing effort which was halted by the Asian crash of 97. That setback required bringing in strategic investors including the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore as 13.3% shareholders and successfully restructuring the companies debt.
In 1998 Govind and family moved to NZ where he joined Wireplus and Steelplus as a financial controller, a very different scale and nature of business.
In 2003 it was back to India, joining Best & Crompton as head of finance 2003-2005 a position that saw him actively involved in the restructuring and reinvigorating of a company that had fallen on troubled times.
Another move in 2005 saw Govind working in Dubai for Damac Propertie, first as there Senior Vice President Finance and then as their CFO. Damac was in those days a new player in the market with a turnover of around $300 million US but over the next five years the company expanded operations to include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Egypt, Erbil, UK and the neighbouring Abu Dhabi with a turnover exceeding 3 billion dollars.
In late 2009 the family decided to move back to New Zealand and he took up the position as Group CFO of DEC Australia in Melbourne.The group is involved in property development around the CBD fringe in Melbourne becoming CEO in 2012 and heading the company since then.
He is married to Sandhya [herself worthy of a presentation] and has three children. Both Sandhya and Govind are from families that are involved in philanthropic works and that is an area that they want to continue to contribute in.