Hesam Rahi, group CEO of Farzana: 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 Hesam Rahi (LinkedIn), group CEO of Farzana. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Hesam, and I’m the group CEO of Farzana, which is a 60+ year-old company. We import and distribute fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as poultry and dry foods. We distribute to different channels, including retail and food service. We also re-export to the GCC and Middle East. We also have subsidiaries in India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and we import from pretty much everywhere — Europe, South America, Australia, China, and the US, among others.

We’re a major importer in the UAE — among the top five in terms of bulk imports. We have more than 800 employees, and more than 150 reefer tracks, covering all of the UAE. We work 24/7, and we have exclusive agreements with farmers, producers, and growers globally.

With fresh produce, availability is key — we have to have fruit throughout the year, which involves [extensive] storage capacity that allows us to manage season to season.

The most important thing for us is to be agile as a team, with very fast processes and decision-making in moving products, because we’re dealing with perishables. It’s critical to act fast in this business when it comes to storage, handling, and delivery.

Strong IT infrastructure is also critical, and we pride ourselves in being leaders in implementing IT systems. We have everything — from procurement to HR — on one system. These are two areas in which we invest heavily — IT and our employees, to make sure they are agile enough and have the tools they need to work from anywhere, anytime.

I wake up at 7am. I check what happened overnight around the world, and do a quick review of stock markets. I also check my emails in the morning. I try to only check it once or twice throughout the day; once in the morning and once in the afternoon. We usually also plan meetings with key executives throughout the week at the end of the previous week. Each day would be dedicated to a specific segment — one day could be with sales, another with international offices.

My door is almost always open. We have to be a lean organization in this business, because you can’t afford delays; if you’re delayed, you’ll be out of the market. Problems like stuck containers or damaged ships or urgent matters like that require quick action. We also try to avoid too many approvals or having a complex hierarchy, so we all work very closely with each other and we can move quickly if anything urgent or unplanned happens.

I dedicate some time in my day for strategy and thinking, usually after 5pm. This is pure focus time, where I can have open discussions with key stakeholders.

The one exception is unplanned and urgent matters, for which I always make time. One rule we have at our company is to always answer your phone. No matter what happens or what time it is, I will pick up the phone. Because we’re a global company, and when it’s 7pm or 8pm here, it’s morning in Ecuador or in the US.

I also use task management tools that help me organize my tasks. I have a lot of projects and delegations that I need to assign and track, so I use ClickUp for that. Time management, for me, is very important, and I’m very strict with deadlines.

The nature of our work requires flexibility. There’s a lot of traveling, and a lot of changes from year to year. It’s dynamic, and you have to be fast. You can plan, but you still need to be flexible.

My goal for Farzana is to grow in the double digits every year. We grew from a AED 150 mn AED company 10 years ago to close to AED 1 bn in turnover today. The goal is to make the company more international and globally known, and to be a leader in the food supply and distribution industry in the region and globally. I think we can achieve that.

On a personal level, I think it’s important to improve yourself everyday. The way we work is changing every year. If you don’t change with it, you will be outdated or you won’t be able to keep up with the growing scale of the company. I work on myself everyday by spending a lot of time reading and researching.

I’m currently reading Reflections on Happiness and Positivity by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. I also enjoy books about trade, international stock markets, management, leadership, and commodity trends.

The best piece of advice both for your personal life and for work is to maintain a healthy balance, and keep your body healthy. That is very hard to do sometimes because of the fast pace of change, especially in modern cities like Dubai, but if you don’t do that and you forget to pay attention to other aspects of your life, you’ll end up with a lot of regrets.

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