G M Kamrul Hassan is the Chief Executive Officer at IGLOO, the leading ice cream brand in the country. Mr. Hassan has a diverse career spanning multiple industries. Prior to joining IGLOO, he worked at some of the leading multinationals and local conglomerates including Nestlé, New Zealand Dairy, Rahimafrooz, and PRAN-RFL in various important roles.
Mr. Hassan has been awarded South Asian Business Excellence Award 2017 as the Best CEO in FMCG (Food and Beverage category) hosted by World HRD Congress and Endorsed by Asian Confederation of Businesses in October this year.
In this interview Mr. Hassan walks us through his early life and upbringing, reflects on his journey to what he is doing today, his several decades of career spanning multiple companies and important roles, trials and tribulations he has had to face throughout his career, shares his thoughts on leadership and strategy, talks about his work at IGLOO, current state of the company and his ambition for IGLOO going forward and the future of ice cream industry in Bangladesh, discusses incredible importance of building a solid culture, discusses his management philosophy and why it is important beyond measure to invest in people, explains his ideas for being an effective CEO and growing a business, and reflects on why complacent talent always fail to produce any result, limitation of shortcuts and why it taking a long view of things is incredibly important for a full life.
Future Startup
Please tell us about yourself and your journey to what you are doing today.
G M Kamrul Hassan
I’m a small town boy. I was born and brought up in Netrakona where I started my school and studied till my SSC. I came to Dhaka After my SSC and attended Dhaka College from where I completed my HSC.
I had a wonderful childhood. I was youngest among my 8 brothers and sisters. Growing up in a big family is a different experience and being the youngest in the family, I enjoyed all the privileges and love.
That said, my father was very strict about studies and made sure that we had the discipline in life. We had to rise early and be on study table by 8:00 am in the morning. Studies, prayer, respecting others - these values were very important to my parents. This disciplined upbringing has helped me throughout life.
I was quite a good student. I did very well both in my SSC and HSC exam with star marks. After my HSC, I attended Dhaka University. I did my Honors in Biochemistry in 1988 and then a Masters in Nutrition and Food Science.
There is a story here. I first took admission at BUET in Civil Engineering. At that time, there was some kind of protest going on at BUET causing a prolonged session jam and our class was scheduled to start a year later. I had taken admission in March of one year and the class was scheduled to start in March next year. I had ample time at my hand and I used to roam around with my friends and sat for admission tests in different universities around the country.
I also attended Dhaka University admission test during this time and got a chance in Biochemistry from KA unit and in Economics from GHA unit which eventually changed the trajectory of my life.
After that, I decided to study at Dhaka University. I canceled my admission in BUET and got into Biochemistry. I did not inform my family about this. My father came to know it after a few months. He was disappointed but it was done already so he could do nothing.
I am married to Dr. Nazneen who is an agriculturist at Sher-E-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka. We are blessed with a son and a daughter.
I was quite active in extracurricular activities during my university life. I worked as a teacher in different coaching centers, did private tutoring, and also worked part-time at World Vision, an NGO. I used to earn decent money for a university student at that time.
Session jam was particularly worse during our time at Dhaka University. I started my Honors in 1988. It took me almost eight years to complete my masters in 1995.
At the end of my Masters, I came across an opportunity at Nestle. Nestle was relatively new in Bangladesh at that time and was hiring for a position titled Medical Delegate. I applied and got selected after a rigorous selection process.
I joined Nestle in November 1994. After joining, I found out that it was a marketing job, more like a medical promotion officer. My responsibility was visiting doctors and convince them to prescribe our products. Nestle had a line of infant nutrition products at that time that used to go through the medical channel. It was the early stage of Nestle in Bangladesh and they did not want to start large-scale marketing from the beginning. This again changed the trajectory of my career. I studied biochemistry and nutrition and now I was doing a marketing job.
There is another interesting story here. At Nestle, I had got fired once even before starting my job. As I said, after going through a long and rigorous recruitment process, I was selected for the position along with another person. After that, we had to attend a month-long training. The condition was that we have to do well in the training in order to go to the next level. 15 days into training, I was told by one of the supervisors that I don’t have to come from the next day. I was surprised because I did very well in the exam and was also doing well in training. We’re told that we were not qualified enough for Nestle. It was my first job and I was fired even before starting it. I was devastated by the event. A friend of mine suggested me that I write a formal complaint to Nestle HQ explaining the situation. Long story short, I wrote a letter to the CEO of Nestle in Switzerland describing the unfair practice of using just 15 days in place of one month to assess our capability. To my surprise, it worked.
After about a month, I came to know that Nestle started an investigation around the mismanagement. Subsequently, I was again offered a job. In June 1995, I went and met their market manager. After taking a short interview, he offered me a job then and there as Medical Delegate at a basic salary of BDT 8500. I agreed and joined Nestle the next month. That’s how my journey started.
Wanting to work is one of the strengths. From the day one, I put my 100% into work. We were only 5 to 6 persons in Bangladesh working in the Medical Delegate team at that time. It was a demanding job both physically and mentally. I took the challenges positively and worked hard. I was equally awarded for my performance. I had quite a fast rise in medical delegate team of Nestle. Within a few years, from Medical Delegate I became Field Operations Executive and then in 2002, I became a corporate trainer of Nestle.
After working a year as a trainer, I applied for the Brand Manager position at Nestle, a job I always wanted to pursue. I had practical experience and insight gathered through working for many years in the field closely with customers. I thought I would be able to deliver better result if I work on the brand and business side.
I went to my reporting officer and expressed my interest in working in the brand department. He told me not to apply for the job because the position was for business graduates. It failed to deter me. I spoke to a few other people in the team. Then I spoke to our Sales Director at that time who was my senior from Dhaka University, who himself came from a Science background.
Then I went to our Managing Director who knew me from my training sessions and spoke about my interest in working at the brand department. He also suggested that it would not be a good idea for me to take a brand job without an MBA. Despite all these, I did not give up. The management had many informal conversations about it and after much back and forth I got the opportunity to work in the brand department as Brand Manager in late 2003. However, it came with a condition that I have to do an MBA on the side. So I did my MBA from East-West University in Marketing while working full time.
Initially, working in brand coming from a non-brand background was a challenging job. Nestle had 5 brand managers at that time. Most of them were business graduates who were working in the brand for many years. Compared to that, I was an amateur and lacked a proper understanding of architecture and workflow among other things. Many of them came from a very good background and had excellent communication skill whereas I was not that good at communication.
On top of that, my sudden shift to core marketing was not taken very warmly by some of the Brand Managers. I was sort of an outsider within the brand team. However, it made little impact on my motivation. Rather it made me even more determined to do better. I worked even harder. Asked for help from whoever I could. Also, Nestle sent me to training in China and other places. My goal was to learn as quickly as possible and I was open and aggressive about it. While my peers were enjoying vacations or socializing, I was working hard to improve myself. I did not take leave and worked on the weekends.
My belief was that if I could be the best Medical Delegate and best Supervisor of Nestle in the country by coming from the science background and learning from the scratch, then I could make it here in the brand as well. After that initial push, I became the best Brand Manager the very next year.
I worked at Nestle for 12 years before leaving in 2007 for some unwanted reasons. It was yet another challenging time for me. At that time, I got tremendous support from one of my seniors at Nestle, Late Mr. Mirza Golam Hossain. He was a tremendous support.
Around 15 days after leaving Nestle, I got an opportunity at Rahimafrooz Superstores Ltd (RSL), which is Agora, as Head of Marketing with way more benefits and opportunities than what I was getting at Nestle. It was an equally exciting learning opportunity for me.
Mr. Niaz Rahim, one of the directors of Rahimafrooz, was my reporting boss at RSL. Initially, it was a tremendous challenge for me, managing stores of over 20,000 products. And I embraced with openness and love. In 2007, Agora was passing a challenging period and was losing a lot of money.
After joining, I took a more practical approach. I introduced a custom offering for different outlets in the city based on their location. For example, Agora had a Value Week every month from 25th to 4th of the next month and used to offer a lot of free products. I proposed we reduce offering free products and instead focus on offering value and experience.
I launched customized programs to attract people to Agora in different locations. After 6 months of work, the new programs started to deliver result and our business turned into a healthy business.
At the beginning of 2008, I met Mr. Mohiuddin Monem, DMD of Abdul Monem Group of Companies in a retail conference where I was giving a keynote. After that meeting, he offered me to join IGLOO as Head of Marketing. It was a good opportunity and after much thought, I decided to take it. After working for 8 months at Rahimafrooz, I joined IGLOO as Head of Marketing.
I stayed at IGLOO for one year and then decided to leave. I went back to Mr. Niaz Rahim who finally offered me a job at their Castrol Distribution business as Head of Marketing.
The day I took the offer letter from Rahimafrooz, Mr. Mirza, my former senior colleague at Nestle, called me and said that there was an opportunity at New Zealand Dairy and I should go and meet their MD in Dhaka. I said I just took an offer letter from Rahimafrooz. He persuaded me to go to New Zealand Dairy office and I gave in. I went to NZ Dairy office in Gulshan to meet the MD. He took a long interview of me then and there and after the interview offered me a job as Group Brand Manager which was one grade lower than and with much fewer opportunities than what I was offered at Rahimafrooz.
I called Mr. Mirza and shared the situation. He explained to me that I should go to New Zealand Dairy and that it would give me better personal growth opportunity. It was a difficult decision in many ways. I had a moral dilemma as well because I took an offer letter from Rahimafrooz and now if I don’t join it would look bad. However, after much thought, I finally decided to join New Zealand Dairy. It was a truly perplexing decision.
I had a fantastic experience at NZ Dairy. 3 months into my job, I was confirmed and promoted to the Marketing Manager along with a salary raise. The next year, I became the head of marketing for one of their brands. I worked in NZ Dairy for 5 years.
When I joined NZ Dairy, the company was facing huge challenge caused by worldwide phenomenon of Melamine fear in consumer products and especially food and nutrition category products. The sales was suffering. The entire team put in the herculean effort and finally, we managed to survive the crisis and grow the business over five times. My 5 years journey at New Zealand Dairy was an intense learning opportunity for me solving problems every day.
The parent company of New Zealand Diary is Fonterra. They used to come to Bangladesh often to supervise the local operation. In 2014, I got an opportunity at Fonterra to work as their lead for Bangladesh and Nepal market for a brand called Anchor. I was put under Fonterra Singapore and used to look after Bangladesh and Nepal Operations.
After working for a year at Fonterra, I met the then DMD of PRAN-RFL group, Mr. Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, now MD and Chairman of PRAN-RFL. He offered me to join PRAN as CMO. In 2015, I left Fonterra and joined PRAN as CMO where I worked for a little less than a year. PRAN-RFL is a huge organization. I had 11 Head of Marketing reporting to me. It was a complex management and had a workforce of over 80,000 at that time. I learned a lot during my stay at PRAN.
When I left PRAN, I got an opportunity at ACI as Business Director. Around this time I received a call from AMLBD that Mr. Abdul Monem, Managing Director of the company, wanted to meet me. I came over and during the meeting, he offered me to work with him. I had a brief experience at IGLOO before as I mentioned earlier. Despite, I took some time and finally decided to give it yet another try.
I joined AMLBD later in 2015. It has been a wonderful journey so far. IGLOO is a popular ice-cream brand in the country. It has a wide brand recognition. When I joined in 2015, the business was doing good but there was room for further growth.
Over the past two years, IGLOO has experienced highest growth compared to any previous year. This is a challenging business in many ways due to its reliant on heavy logistics which I enjoy it.
IGLOO has a lot of potential as a brand to grow bigger and we plan to go beyond in the coming years.
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All the major turning points in my life till now came from difficulties and sufferings and when I decided to embrace challenges without fear.
Future Startup
Was there any particular event in your life that you consider as your turning point, that significantly changed how you look at life and work?
Kamrul Hassan
There were many turning points in my life, which I think is true for every other person.
I would rather talk about the one that was most difficult and that made the most difference. It was the day I decided to leave Nestle after working for 12 years.
The aftermath of that decision was not easy. I left Nestle without finding another job. So I was unemployed from the day I left the job. In a way, it was a valuable experience for me. I got to know how people view you when you don’t have a job.
But I was confident and took it positively instead of worrying about what would happen and all that. I told myself that this is another beginning for me and that I would overcome this challenge. Although I had to struggle for a while I eventually ended up working at some really interesting positions and I’m here today because I made that difficult decision that day.
All the major turning points in my life till now came from difficulties and sufferings and when I decided to embrace challenges without fear.
Hard work always beats talent. If you want to make progress in your personal and professional life, there is no alternative to working hard with utmost sincerity, devotion, and honesty. I have seen many talented people fail miserably just because of their complacency.
Future Startup
You have several decades of experience spanning multiple sectors, what are the biggest lessons from all those years?
Kamrul Hassan
Hard work always beats talent. If you want to make progress in your personal and professional life, there is no alternative to working hard with utmost sincerity, devotion, and honesty. I have seen many talented people fail miserably just because of their complacency.
You have to maintain honesty and integrity. Having said that, honesty and integrity have a different definition to me. I don’t consider you are honest if don’t steal or lie. I think it is also about commitment and dedication. You are honest when you properly perform your responsibility, work hard for 8 hours at work and when you deliver your best. It means you really care about your team, partners, and stakeholders. It is about whether you are honest about your responsibilities.
Most people tend to give up too early. They do things for the short run and one off and expect that their one-day effort should produce wonder. However, things don’t happen like that. You have to be consistent in order to produce a meaningful result. You have to put in hard work every day.
Although the home consumption of ice-cream is quite insignificant at this point in time, it has an immense potential going forward. As the power penetration to households increases, usage of refrigerators and freezers will also increase which will make it easier for people to keep ice cream at home and consume it more often. Moreover, if you look at the socio-economic development in the country, it clearly indicates the rise of a new middle class with increased purchasing power who are spending beyond basic necessities.
Future Startup
Please give us an overview of IGLOO.
Kamrul Hassan
AMLBD is one of largest conglomerates in Bangladesh. The company has businesses in a long list of sectors including construction, sugar, IT, EPZ among others. IGLOO is a concern of AMLBD. It is a separate company and operates independently.
When I joined IGLOO, my ambition was to take it to the next level and make ice cream synonymous with IGLOO so that whenever people think of ice cream they think of IGLOO.
Ice cream is a logistics heavy business. You have to take care of the products at every stage of the value chain. You have to maintain ideal temperature when you are delivering to the distributors and when your products at distributors place it has to again maintain the temperature requirements which means storing capacity is limited and you can’t replenish unless your previous inventory is finished. You have to maintain a constant tab with the distributor to be able to replenish timely so that you don’t lose customers.
After production and storage capacity, you have to measure the vehicle capacity for distribution as well. After managing that you have to ensure dealer’s maintenance capacity and strategy. Then the products will go to the retailers and they also have to take orders as per their capacity.
Retailers can not just buy any quantity they can only buy what they can maintain and store. The products can be replenished only if they are consumed. Which means you can’t increase your sales overnight with huge offer and promotion because every person in the channel has a limited capacity.
The Ice cream is a hugely potential sector. The market is largely untapped. We have around 7 to 8 players in the market and IGLOO is the market leader.
The household penetration of Ice cream is only about 2% as having ice cream at home is not a mainstream thing yet. We are selling almost 60% of our ice creams directly to the customers on the streets.
Although the home consumption of ice-cream is quite insignificant at this point in time, it has an immense potential going forward. As the power penetration to households increases, usage of refrigerators and freezers will also increase which will make it easier for people to keep ice cream at home and consume it more often.
Moreover, if you look at the socio-economic development in the country, it clearly indicates the rise of a new middle class with increased purchasing power who are spending beyond basic necessities.
Ice cream is more of an indulgence that people consume when they feel like it. Moreover, there is no cap on consumption either. With these changes in the market, if we can make it available to people, consumption will grow manifold.
Ice cream business is a seasonal business with limited sales in winter. Due to the climate change, we are now seeing 8 months summer which is, sadly though, good for our business.
I have been working at IGLOO for two years now. When I joined, I did not make any change in terms of people although it was expected of me that I would replace some people with new people.
When I joined, I consciously made a decision not to make any major change around people although many of my colleagues are not that qualified on paper because I realized that some of them are working here for 20 years, some are for 15 years and many of them have developed invaluable expertise on this industry. My job is to make them more productive and align them to do good work.
Over the last two years, we worked hard to build a solid foundation for our future growth. In 2018, we will be seeing the actual result of our efforts.
We have now one factory where over 300 people work. We are a team of about 853 people in operations. We have around 270 distributors across the country.
When I started I was a foreigner in this company. Many people expected that I would not last long. But I managed to survive for two years. The first challenge for me was building a relationship of trust with my team. I think I have been able to do that.
I have worked hard to engage people and work as a team in order to achieve our goals. If you want to grow as a business, you can’t grow alone. You have to work as a team. I’ve made it clear to my people that if they work hard and produce results, I am always here to give the right compensation for that.
Over the past two years, we have been able to build a solid teamwork culture which has helped us to grow the company.
Future Startup
How much has the company evolved over the past two years?
Kamrul Hassan
Ice cream is a part of the food culture in many parts of the world. However, it is not part of the food culture yet in our country but it is on the way to become.
Over the past years, we have invested in innovation to grow customer acceptance by introducing a host of new variations of ice creams. We have recently launched an ice-cream combining the flavor of Horlicks. We had added variations like Rasmalai, Kheer Malai among others. In the last two years, we have introduced around 14 different ice-creams with about 50% success rate. We have launched products for different age and families.
There is a latent demand for innovation and different flavors of ice cream in the market which we regularly try to take into account by introducing new products and flavors.
While we have evolved significantly over the past few years, I think we are far from reaching our market potential and have a long way to go.
Future Startup
We have seen a host of new brands entering the market in a span of one year which is an indication that competition will grow in the future. What do you think about competition in the market?
Kamrul Hassan
Ice cream is a growing industry. Currently, the size of branded ice cream market is somewhere around BDT 1200 crore annually.
Competition is always good for the business, particularly when the industry is growing. It helps in building consumer awareness, increase demand and grow the market.
That said, competition is good as long as you are the leader and your business is not affected by the competition. And at the end of the day, you have to make sure that when customers are buying an ice cream they are buying yours over competitors.
The challenge is ensuring that customers identify your brand as the best value for money. And that has always been our priority - to ensure that we are providing the best value for money to our customers regardless of competition.
Going forward, we are focusing on three areas: bringing in more innovations in every aspect of our operations, improving our distributions and investing in the skill development of our people.
Future Startup
What are the challenges for IGLOO now? What challenges do you see down the line 5 to 7 years?
Kamrul Hassan
First of all, people. Finding and retaining good people is a challenge for every organization.
Anyone can make ice cream, determine prices and start selling in the market. But in order to succeed you have to understand the business, your customer, their demand and have a holistic view of things.
You can do that efficiently and effectively when you have great people. That’s a challenge for us.
When people in your team want to grow themselves they push the business forward because they understand that if the business grows then their career will grow as well.
Future Startup
What are the future plans for IGLOO?
Kamrul Hassan
Distribution is an important factor in this line of business. We have been working hard to make sure that we are always available and close to our customers.
Going forward, we are focusing on three areas: bringing in more innovations in every aspect of our operations, improving our distributions and investing in the skill development of our people.
Future Startup
What is your management philosophy?
Kamrul Hassan
I strongly believe in the participatory management style. I engage with everyone in my team regardless of their position.
My door is always open for everyone and I listen to their ideas, thoughts, and challenges and share mine. This often leads to interesting outcomes.
It is easier to manage people by setting an example. I genuinely try to drive from the front seat, doing things myself that I ask people to do.
One of my key strengths is that I love my people. When I’m dealing with my colleagues or our stakeholders I always try to put myself in their shoes to see things from their perspective and understand their challenges and motivation.
I keep people pushing forward. I try to see whether they are trying enough or not. I never mind when people fail but I have a problem when you don’t try.
You can do a lot of things and talk about difficult jargons but growth comes from doing the basic things right which is understanding your business, your customers, and your market and delivering accordingly.
Future Startup
What do you think about leadership?
Kamrul Hassan
Leadership is a journey, not a designation. Nobody is born a leader, they become leaders through hard work, sacrifice, struggle, and experience. It is our action that makes us a leader.
The other thing is that a leader can inspire his people and rally them to achieve a vision. He/she understands his people well and can efficiently manage their skills, emotions, and personalities.
Future Startup
How do you deal with stress and challenges that come with your profession?
Kamrul Hassan
I focus, calm my mind and sit firmly. Then I try to understand the reason behind my stress. Stresses often come from an unmet challenge or problem or need. I evaluate the dimensions of the challenges. When you understand a situation well, it gets easier to solve it.
Broadly, there are two types of challenges. One is internal and the other is external that is beyond our control. Many time we worry about things that are beyond our control. I try to see things closely and respond accordingly.
I maintain a rather stoic belief regarding challenges and difficulties. In life and business, challenge is the only constant that does not change. There will be challenges and there will be stress. You can’t change that. Our job is to find the best possible course of action within the limitation. The entire point of facing a challenge is that we need to find a way to tackle it.
Finally, there is no alternative to hard work and taking responsibility. In today’s workplace roles are getting ambiguous by the day and you have to be skilled at navigating these complexities and win.
Future Startup
You have the experience of working in a diverse sector and help companies grow. What does it take to grow a business?
Kamrul Hassan
You can do a lot of things and talk about difficult jargons but growth comes from doing the basic things right which is understanding your business, your customers, and your market and delivering accordingly.
When you understand your customers and their problems and offer relevant solutions, it works and that is what drives growth. When you solve their problem, customers ultimately give your business. Without understanding your customers, you can not build a business.
Now growth is easy to achieve but difficult to maintain. In order to maintain your growth for a long time you have to be vigilant about changes in the market, be able to identify trends before everyone else and evolve according to the demand of the market.
You have to innovate and relentlessly add value. It does not necessarily have to be product innovation, it can be process or other things but you have to innovate. You have to make sure that you are thinking 3 to 4 years ahead of the competition.
Finally, a great business is about great people. You need to have the right people on your team and you should also be able to manage and drive your people.
Future Startup
What type of people will do better in the future workplace?
Kamrul Hassan
Having a growth mindset is critical in today’s workplaces. Growth mindset means you consider yourself as a product in progress instead of something fixed with almost no opportunity to grow. Rather you believe you can change your life by working hard and investing in yourself.
This is important because when you have a growth mindset you will push yourself no matter what is the outcome. You will fail, you will break and the next day you will stand up again and run. This is an ability needed most in today’s workplace than anytime before.
There is no shortcut to success. You have to endure difficulties and take challenges for a long time in order to move forward. You can change your pace or route but your goal should not change in the face of challenge or a sudden opportunity. Often anything worthwhile takes a long time to achieve.
Finally, there is no alternative to hard work and taking responsibility. In today’s workplace roles are getting ambiguous by the day and you have to be skilled at navigating these complexities and win.
Many young people I come across these days are not interested in depth. They are superficial and try to resist challenges and difficulties. They do not want to attend to the details. They seem to be impatient and always into many things at once. A growing number of people seek a shortcut to things. This is a recipe for suicide.
Future Startup
What advice would you give to the people who are just starting out?
Kamrul Hassan
Career is a journey and you have put your 100% every day. What you did yesterday is seldom matter. Your performance today is what matters. First thing is, start afresh every day. Apply yourself daily.
Many young people I come across these days are not interested in depth. They are superficial and try to resist challenges and difficulties. They do not want to attend to the details. They seem to be impatient and always into many things at once.
A growing number of people seek a shortcut to things. This is a recipe for suicide. First of all, you have to explore things in-depth so that you develop a better understanding of things. Then you should be patient because things take a long time to happen.
Develop a relentless learning attitude. Be sincere and passionate about your work.
Be humble. We are mere humans and we will not be here for long. Moreover, many of the things that we feel proud of in life does not last long. Sometimes we get lucky and win. There is no harm in being humble.
Be confident. But don’t be overconfident. No matter how better you understand things, it is better not undermining your superior. People are driven by many things and it may come back to you differently. Sometimes, playing small does more good than harm.
