Ankush Arora, CEO of Al Mansour Automotive: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Ankush Arora (LinkedIn), CEO of Al Mansour Automotive.

My name is Ankush Arora and I’m the CEO of Al Mansour Automotive. I’ve been in the automotive industry for over 32 years and my work has taken me to many different countries around the world. I hail from India and I've been living in Egypt for ten years, so I’m kind of a global citizen. I’d say I’m a pretty down to earth guy who loves life and family, and always likes to build new relationships.

Al Mansour Automotive has a longstanding history and a very strong foundation in Egypt— we're nearing our 50th anniversary. We’re the leading automotive distribution company in the country and arguably in the MENA region.

My current role as CEO boils down to two things. The first is to look at how we can grow and expand the business and think outside of the box. The second is to manage people and bring the best out of the team.

I'm a morning person. My day starts at 4 am every day. I'm usually up and ready by 4:30 am, and I'm on calls with China and Japan where it's late morning for them. Then, I’ll focus on any of my strategic initiatives or things that need my complete attention until around 5:30 am because I believe that this is when your mind is at its best. I get down to the golf course for a 30 minute walk and a nine hole game, either by myself or with a friend. I'm done by 7:15 am, I’ll head back home for a quick shower and breakfast — the most important meal of the day, for me — and then I’m off to work at 8 am.

My working day is pretty organized and I have a set schedule, but I like to have free slots of time during the day. I have an open door policy at work, so if I don't have a scheduled meeting, my doors are open for the team to walk in, talk, share problems, or I call people in to have a chat.

The industry is changing: These changes are taking place because of big leaps in renewable energy, artificial intelligence, and telecoms. When you combine these three elements and put them in the context of the automotive industry, the disruption takes the form of electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles. The big challenge — and at the same time, the biggest potential — for us is to really get ourselves ready for the next 50 years.

Today, vehicles are more like software on wheels than engines on wheels. The whole paradigm of how vehicles were manufactured before and how they're manufactured today is a completely different ball game. So, while before the ecosystem was typically made up of manufacturers, product developers, sellers or distributors, and of course consumers, you now have component developers, platform developers, battery developers, and that’s a phenomenal change.

Consumers and their behavior and expectations are also changing. If you take Gen Z as an example, they want to be mobile. They’re not bothered about owning a car or having a set of wheels under them. Their first priority is: how can I be mobile and how can I get from point A to point B in the fastest way? They don't want the headaches of parking, of maintaining a car, of renewing their license every year. So the whole paradigm of owning an automobile is changing and that's where the disruption is taking place.

How can we respond to this disruption? We are rejuvenating ourselves from a traditional automotive distributor to be a mobility solutions company, and there’s a multi-pronged strategy that comes with that. One of the important elements is how to ensure that we offer all kinds of mobility solutions to our consumers, depending on their needs and desires. Whether customers want to follow a subscription model, or a leasing model, or own-to-lease, or share the lease with somebody… All those elements are now being put into play so that we are ready for the future.

I would say that my work-life balance on a scale of one to ten is probably a nine. My wife might not agree with that. But I do believe it's nine out of ten. If you asked me, say, ten years ago, I would say it was probably two out of ten. There was no work-life balance. As you progress in your professional life and with age, and you become a little more sensible, you find that sweet spot of having a work-life balance. In my downtime, I’ll either watch a good movie or play some golf.

I don’t disturb any of my team members after 7 pm. I would not call anybody on the weekend unless there really is a fire that we need to put out, so to speak, because I believe everybody needs their time and space with family or themselves. I encourage a work-life balance because I've gone through that mill of a rigorous corporate life, where you're traveling six days a week and on calls 16 hours a day.

I love real stories and good autobiographies of business leaders. Good to Great by Jim Collins is a great read. The autobiography of Ford’s Lee Iacocca is inspirational. Disney CEO Bob Iger’s The Ride of a Lifetime is another great one, and other than that I really like Jack AND Suzy Welch’s The Real Life MBA.

The best pieces of advice that have been given to me were from my dad. He taught me that there are no shortcuts to achieve success, that integrity is non-negotiable, that respect is the most important virtue in life — be it of people, values, custom, or religion — and that you cannot achieve success on the shoulders of someone else.

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