
Spotlight: Anil Lanba
- Tell us about you, your experience, and your time in the Middle East.
I am Anil Lanba, the Executive Vice President of Pyramid Consulting, Inc. I am an Indian veteran and served in the Navy for almost 2.5 decades before starting my entrepreneurship journey. My time during the service has shaped my life and has had a lasting impact on my work ethic, leadership style, and attributes like a knack for strategy and planning. We started about 27 years ago from a quaint office in Triangle Parkway in Atlanta and have become one the most recognized talent and technology services brands in the US, Europe, and South Asia. Today, we service 108 Fortune 500 companies and have a presence in 20+ countries. We have just entered the market in the Middle East as a part of our expansion in the region. While we don’t have a physical office there yet, we support the Human resource and L&D professionals (through IT & Non-IT Staffing) based in that region via an offshoring model from our India office. However, we are happy and content with our overall experience and how things have been unfolding here. The market here is stable – compared to many European countries and offers good grounds for business. The infrastructure is robust, policies are favorable to doing business, and the region has one of the finest talent pools in the world and a well-educated workforce. The latter is critical for a company like ours that earns our bread and butter from staffing and IT services.
- How would you describe the culture of your business?
We are a staffing and technology solutions company servicing customers worldwide through onshoring, offshoring, and nearshoring models. We are a minority-owned business and one of the leading and most reliable sources of skilled talent from diverse backgrounds. We have a large pool of professional, IT, and non-IT talent and serve customers in industries including but not limited to banking and financial services, insurance, telecommunications, and aviation. In the Middle East, healthcare has been one of the primary areas of interest. Being in the staffing business, we take pride in being known as a people-oriented company. Our core values spell out the word “CHAIRS” to represent and signify our utmost belief in providing everyone a chair and a seat at the table. Moreover, we have a significant focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) at our company. We are proud to be an intentionally inclusive organization where everyone gets equal and fair opportunities to realize their full potential and excel in their careers. We believe that a willingness to be intentional with our actions enables us to accept all people. When we are Intentionally Inclusive, we make the conscious decision to unite and connect.
- What are your biggest challenges in the next 5 years?
The first challenge would be to close the skill gap in the market. Technology has been changing at the speed of light in recent years. Take the example of artificial intelligence and machine learning. They were already booming in the last decade, but the onset of the pandemic has boosted their demand. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough people in the market who understand the nuances of these techs. There is a prevalent skill shortage, and we need to do our best to bridge it via training and development. The second challenge would be to start ensuring the inclusion of Generation Z into the current workforce. It is no secret that our workforce is ageing. In fact, the number of employed people aged 60 and above has almost doubled in the last two decades. Generation Z is the workforce of tomorrow, and we need to start preparing to hand over the mantle. However, Gen Z is very different from the previous generations and has a distinct approach to things. It is the most diverse and inclusive generation and very sound with digital technologies. We need to make sure they are trained well and get the right opportunities.
- What are the skills and competencies that you would need to train in order to meet the region’s talent requirements?
The last few years have been tough for our industry due to challenges like an unstable economy and labor shortages. It is time we start making approaches like upskilling and reskilling as standard practice. The world is changing, and so is the nature of jobs. We need to train talent today for the workforce of tomorrow. Through our in-house training approaches and hire-train-deploy model, we are lighting up pathways to career success for individuals from diverse backgrounds. We have trained your technology professional in 100+ technologies like automation, AI, Java Full-Stack, Microsoft .NET, Mainframe, AWS, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and more. We are trying to accelerate equity in the workplace and society while bridging the skill gap most effectively and efficiently.