FORNAX CORPORATE SERVICES
A Business Services Platform
FORNAX CORPORATE SERVICES
A Business Services Platform
About Us
Who are We
Fornax Corporate Services takes its name from the constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere . The name of the company was conceived by the founders with a vision to create a platform that would be congregation of strong and well-managed entities with distinct service offerings that create value for customers, investors, employees and partners.
Fornax was founded in 2020 by Mr. Subrata Nag. It started operation in 2022 ( post Pandemic COVID-19) with a clear focus to build up service offerings with strong foundation - through growth strategy that relies on both organic and inorganic levers . The mission is to build a services firms that not only has scale but also establish a new paradigm in the business excellence. The team at Fornax is comprised of professionals with proven credentials in turn-around of companies and establishing them as leaders in the industry. The founding team brings in more than 100 years of cumulative experience of turn-around and operations that have not only created extraordinary value for its investors but also delivered on its commitments to Customers, Employees & Partners. The vision for the Fornax is founded in commitment for technology driven innovation and business best-practices.
Fornax Corporate Services is backed by Capediem Capital Partners. It is part of the Carpediem Capital Partners Fund II portfolio.
Core Tenets of our Culture
Entrepreneurial Ingenuity
Entrepreneurial Ingenuity
Entrepreneurial Ingenuity
Entrepreneurial Ingenuity forms the core DNA of the company and defines the underlying culture of the company. A culture that defines our work ethics to thought leadership. The ecosystem at the organisation fosters the entrepreneurial spirit and expects that every member of the organisation to demonstrate the same through their actions and decisions; rooted in their sense of ownership and accountability.
Building Trust
Entrepreneurial Ingenuity
Entrepreneurial Ingenuity
Trust is core to building an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Trust brings in transparency of purpose and actions.Transparency builds a culture of camaraderie that fosters exchange of ideas while dealing with underlying contradictions - key for developing a matured organisation. We aim to extend that trust to all the stakeholders - Customers, partners, employees, investors, markets & society.
Creating Value
Entrepreneurial Ingenuity
Creating Value
Entrepreneurship is catalyst of human progression. It creates value through human prosperity, social upliftment and betterment of life. In true embodiment of entrepreneurial spirit we aim to create value for all the stakeholders - the customers, the employees, the partners, the investors and above all the society at large. The value created through innovation, discipline and spirit of excellence.
WHAT DO WE DO
Indian GDP grew by 8.7% in FY 22 ; IMF's growth forecast for FY 23 & FY 24 are also at similar levels making it the fastest growing large economy for 3 years. As per population estimates, India is going to add 113 million people to the working age population between 2021 & 2036. As the Govt. reforms the age old labor regulations and formalises the labor market, the temp staffing is going to witness a disruptive growth. Post Covid, the making of new world order has altered the global supply chains in big way. India is going to benefit big way through increased manufacturing and thus creating millions of job in this segment. Further, the digital revolution is defining the delivery of the professional services through outsourcing and creating scale thus reducing the cost to serve. Lot of new employment creation is expected in this sector.
Workforce Management Solutions
- General Staffing : Given the above mentioned macro trends we anticipate a significant growth in the General Staffing market segment which consists of temp staffing of White collar, Blue Collar and Grey collar Jobs. The current penetration in India is 0.7% of the total labor market whereas in matured market such as UK it is 3%. We are already providing temp staff to Banks and Manufacturing in skills such Sales & Marketing, Accountancy, Engineering etc. and plan to expand it to other skill domains.
- IT Staffing : The technology landscape is going through disruptive change. The change is driven by the digital revolution. We are witness an unprecedented demand of SW skills such as UI/UX, Full Stack developers, Dev Ops, Product Architects etc. The demand driven by the huge uptake among the Global Capability Centres ( GCC) as well as rise of Unicorn start ups in India.
- Payroll & Compliance : Processing Payroll is the most critical HR activities yet most understated in Management mindshare. One wrong step can attract the regulators at the doorstep and create lot of bad press for the company. Payroll process consists of - Salary Processing; Full & Final Settlement; Tax Processing & Reimbursements.
Professional Services Delivery
- Business Process Outsourcing : The legacy BPO industry has gone through significant change in last few years due to introduction of emerging technology that has significantly changed the service delivery process as well as introduction of new business process that can be outsourced to achieve cost optimisation and service excellence through large scale operations. While traditional services such as Finance and Accounting, HR process etc still have lot of opportunities for new players; the new process such as Legal Process Outsourcing, Electronic Health Records maintenance etc. have emerged as candidates for large scale outsourcing and offshoring. The services backed by technologies such as Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence is providing new dimension to the service delivery.
- Knowledge Process Outsourcing : As India moves up the talent value chain, the availability of talent pool for some of the high end work as led to emergence of KPO as new industry in the outsourcing domain. Some of the key domains has been Market research, Strategy research, Financial research, Engineering Design, Architectural designs, Process design etc.
Growth Strategy
Our Approach
Our growth philosophy is driven by core tenets of our culture and our goal to create a business platform characterised by sustainable long term growth and value creation. We at Fornax believe that building a successful business requires a right blend of organic and inorganic growth strategic to build / acquire capabilities as well as strong execution and operational discipline to scale the business to achieve its aspirational goals.
Our organic growth strategy for building new business are guided by :
- Opportunity arising out of latent demand among existing customer
- Availability of in-house talent to build the business around the identified opportunity.
- Asset light model
- Value creation.
The decision framework for inorganic acquisitions would be driven by following tenets :
- Attractive Markets : Assess the market opportunity for growth, including secular growth drivers and opportunities for consolidation
- Company Profile: Due diligence done on integrity, compliance promoter profiles and corporate governance.
- Sustainable Business Model : Evaluate the targets revenue characteristics (annuity based), market position and potential, including repeatability & continuity of revenue streams as well margin expansion opportunities.
- Asset Light model with low working capital & high conversion potential : Consciously invest in the ‘People’ & “Process’ based services and refrain from the Facility Management sector (‘Premise’ based) as the working capital cycles are usually 50 to 90 days
- Value Creation : Consider potential with of value creation based on the proposed Hold Co.’s management credential and expertise
We believe that our business will achieve their differentiation through our execution philosophy which is driven by :
- Customer Centricity
- Operational Excellence
- Nurturing Talent
- Financial Discipline
Board of Directors
Abhishek Sharman
Non-Executive Chairman
Abhishek Sharman is Founder and Managing Director at Carpediem Capital Partners , an SME focused private equity firm targeting investments in consumer and services focused themes. Mr. Sharman is the founder and Managing Director of Carpediem Advisors Private Limited (Investment Manager to the Fund). He is responsible for driving the overall strategy and investment decisions, while also spearheading fund-raising activities. He has over a decade of experience in private equity In India. He is deeply entrenched in the Indian financial services industry and has a track record of sourcing proprietary deals and concluding profitable exits.
Mr Sharman was an investment professional with SUN group a private equity firm focussed on emerging markets, primarily Russia and India, with USD 2 Bn investments. Mr. Sharman was previously Principal at India Equity Partners (“IEP”), an India-focused private equity fund with approximately USD 350 Mn in AUM. During his tenure at IEP, he worked across diverse sectors such as healthcare, education, managed services, consumer services, and financial services.
Mr. Sharman has served on the boards of Quess Corp Limited, IL&FS Education, Sagar Ratna Restaurants Private Limited, R.G Scientific Enterprises Private Limited , Axiss Dental and Gadgetwood eServices Private Limited (Yaantra)
Currently he also serves on the board of Collateral Medical Private Limited and Sindhuja Microcredit Private Limited.
Mr. Sharman received a management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and an engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Subrata Nag
Managing Director
&
Chief Executive Officer
Subrata is one of the pioneers of Indian Staffing Industry. He has 32 of years of Industry experience . He was Group CEO of Quess Corp during his last assignment. He spent 12 years with Quess Corp starting as as Group CFO and was Group CEO & Executive Director when he left Quess. During his tenure, he scaled the few month old start up into a staffing behemoth of India with more than 4 lac employees and one of the most successful IPOs in history Indian public market listings. He led the Quess Corp's growth driven through more than 25 mergers & acquisitions. Under his leadership, Quess Corp was Acquired by Fairfax for INR 3,500mn in 2013; Listed on BSE through an IPO raising INR 4,000mn in 2016; Followed by a QIP in 2017 raising INR 8,739mn via IPP & INR 4,603mn via MIS issue; Primary investment of INR 510mn by Amazon in 2019 . The idea of Fornax and the roadmap has been conceived by him.
Hithendra Ramachandran
Non-Executive Director
Mr. Ramachandran has over 17 years of operating and entrepreneurial experience and brings a deep knowledge in managed services. In the past, he has been a key member of two highly successful ventures from incubation to exit.
As a key member of the founding team at Quess Corp, Mr. Ramachandran was member of the board and was instrumental in driving management decisions that helped the company grow from inception to its current status as India’s largest HR services company. Mr. Ramachandran was earlier part of the initial team of
PeopleOne Consulting (Now, Adecco India), which was sold to Adecco, the world’s largest HR services company, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.
Mr. Ramachandran is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Carpediem Advisors Private Limited (Investment Manager). He is responsible for the operations and drives the transformation agenda and people strategy at the portfolio companies.
In past Mr Ramachandran has served on the board of Quess Corp Limited and Avon Facility Management Services Limited.
Currently he serves on the board of Carpediem Capital Partners Fund I portfolio companies - Nyasa Retail Private Limited, Adinath Agro Processed Foods Private Limited, Flipspaces Technology Labs Private Limited and Sukhi Online Private Limited. He also serves on the board of Ivangel Sales and Services Private Limited and Woovly India Private Limited.
Mr. Ramachandran has received a management degree from IMD Lausanne.
Advisory Board
Anish Jain
Anish is currently working with ATIF (Africa Transformation and Industrialization Fund) as the Group CEO. He is responsible for managing more than $3 bn AUM in subsidiary and portfolio companies of ATIF. Anish has been a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist where he has invested, incubated, scaled, and exited multiple businesses to international investors. Prior to joining ATIF, Anish was the co-founder and CEO of Pesa Capital, which is a supply chain and trade finance fund focused on emerging markets. Previously Anish served ETG as a member of Group Executive Committee (EXCO) and CEO of NuForth, trade and distribution vertical of ETG. Before joining ETG, Anish worked in various leadership roles with Accenture consulting and HPCLMittal Energy (a JV between HPCL and the family office of L. N. Mittal). Over a career span of two decades, Anish has raised more than USD 20 bn for various projects and business ventures across the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Anish completed his Executive Leadership Program from INSEAD, MBA from Indian School of Business (ISB) with Magna-cum-laude, and under-graduation from University of Delhi with major in Economics and Accounts. He is currently based in Dubai.
Kamal Ramani
Kamal Ramani has been trading CLOs (Fixed Income Securities) in New York for the last 15 years for institutions such as Citadel, Goldman Sachs etc. His last assignment was with Goldman Sachs as the head of their US CLO and Hard Asset Trading Desk. He is a graduate of IIT Delhi and Columbia University. As a board advisor he brings experiencein people management, client interaction and risk management to the Fornax platform
Vikram Bhatia
Vikram brings with him over 28 years of experience in the Information Technology services industry, working across India and United States, and the last 13 years have been in leadership role with a leading Retail firm in India. He has worked with large US based firms in leading teams, designing solutions, business process improvements and getting solutions developed and implemented with teams spread across US and India.
In his current role, Vikram works closely with business functions, and has built the technology function from a very small scale to a large size, supporting and building solutions for all parts of the organization, including Supply Chain, Human Resources, Store Operations and others.
Vikram lives in Mumbai with his family, and loves adventure sports and enjoys trekking, cycling and other activities with friends.
He holds B.Tech in Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi and Executive Masters from Instituto de Empresa, Madrid
Vivek Desai
Vivek Desai, currently serving as the CEO and Board Member at eligarf Technologies (www.eligarf.tech), is a seasoned professional with an illustrious career in the IT sector spanning over three decades. His entrepreneurial journey has been marked by the establishment and strategic guidance of various companies, playing a pivotal role in steering them towards growth and success.
Commencing his professional odyssey as a management trainee, Vivek's ascent led him to the position of Director and Head of European Operations at Sonata Software, showcasing his leadership acumen and dedication. A trailblazer in the technology realm, Vivek founded his own technology business over a decade ago, contributing significantly to the industry's evolution. Beyond his corporate endeavours, Vivek is deeply committed to philanthropy. He spearheads the Desai Charitable Foundation, a noble initiative aimed at providing education to girls in India, reflecting his dedication to social causes and community development.
Passionate about preserving heritage and family ties, Vivek co-founded iMeUsWe, an Indian Genealogy Platform. This innovative platform not only facilitates the research and creation of family trees but also serves as a repository for sharing and preserving family stories for future generations (www.imeuswe.in).
Vivek Desai's multifaceted journey, characterised by leadership, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy, brings a wealth of experience and insight to our Advisory Board. We are privileged to welcome him to our team, confident that his strategic vision and wealth of experience will significantly contribute to the success of our company
Management Team
Subrata Nag
Managing Director
&
Chief Executive Officer
Subrata is one of the pioneers of Indian Staffing Industry. He has 32 of years of Industry experience . He was Group CEO of Quess Corp during his last assignment. He spent 12 years with Quess Corp starting as as Group CFO and was Group CEO & Executive Director when he left Quess. During his tenure, he scaled the few month old start up into a staffing behemoth of India with more than 4 lac employees and one of the most successful IPOs in history Indian public market listings. He led the Quess Corp's growth driven through more than 25 mergers & acquisitions. Under his leadership, Quess Corp was Acquired by Fairfax for INR 3,500mn in 2013; Listed on BSE through an IPO raising INR 4,000mn in 2016; Followed by a QIP in 2017 raising INR 8,739mn via IPP & INR 4,603mn via MIS issue; Primary investment of INR 510mn by Amazon in 2019 . The idea of Fornax and the roadmap has been conceived by him.
Saurav R Lenka
Chief Operating Officer
&
CEO - Technology Staffing & Services
Saurav is one of the leaders in the India staffing Industry with unique blend of Staffing, Technology, Finance & Operations. He has more than 23 years of experience that spans across Staffing, IT & Management Consulting. In last assignment at Quess Corp he has played multiple role. He started as the Chief Delivery Officer for Magna Infotech ( now call Quess IT Staffing) in 2014. In 2015 he was Sr. VP - Strategy & Operations leading the Corporate Strategy and Central planning functions. In this role he was involved with multiple M&A transactions and post acquisition integration. He worked closely with operating unit leadership to ensure that each of the operating unit achieved its quarterly and annual goals. Saurav then in 2018 took over the role of CEO for Smart city & Utility business of Quess and built a ₹2000 Cr order book, before leaving Quess Corp to start own ventures. Saurav is B.E. from NIT Rourkela and MBA from Indian School of Business ( ISB).
Praful Yerwankar
Chief Executive Officer - Staffing
Praful is an exceptional leader in the Indian staffing industry, with a professional journey that is a unique blend of professional and entrepreneurial pursuits. Though he began his career in the BPO industry, he quickly transitioned to the staffing industry, where he gained extensive experience and knowledge and steadily climbed the ranks. He has had illustrious stints at Innovsource, Teamlease, and Yoma, making notable contributions to the industry.
In 2018, Praful answered his entrepreneurial calling and founded Hands-On Management Services, a staffing firm that later merged with UNH to form the Sourceitt brand in 2019. Since the merger, Praful has served as the CEO of the combined company, where he has demonstrated exceptional leadership skills. His ability to merge the two firms seamlessly has been highly commendable. Under his leadership, the combined entity has scaled from deploying a few hundred staff at a handful of clients to deploying over 30000 staff at 150+ clients.
Sanjay Kothari
Group Finance Controller
Sanjay currently holds the position of Group Controller Finance at Fornax Corporate Services, where he draws on his extensive qualifications as a Chartered Accountant and his nearly 25 years of experience in the corporate sector. Before joining Fornax, Sanjay was Vice President of Finance at Quess Corp, where he was a founding member of the company's finance practice. Over the course of his 16-year tenure at Quess, Sanjay took on numerous leadership roles across finance functions, including serving as Finance Controller for the Facility Management business, CFO for Magna Infotech (Quess IT Staffing business), Controller for Conneqt (Business Process Management), and Group Controller for Quess Corp. His broad-based expertise and knowledge of corporate finance and controllership are invaluable assets to Fornax.