Premraj
Menon

I started my corporate career in 1987 as a Sales Trainee at Usha International. That ground-level beginning taught me early that real business insight comes from being where the customer is, not from a head office.

Over the next three decades, I moved through consumer durables, automotive tyres, telecom, and SaaS—managing Sales & Distribution, Marketing, Product Management, Growth, and Customer Operations, with full P&L responsibility across large geographies. Building and leading major teams taught me that alignment is what turns good strategy into execution.

Beyond the job titles, my daily reality was working directly with founder-run distributors, dealers, and retailers turning over ₹12–150 crore—in their offices, analyzing stock, credit cycles, margins, and succession planning. At Airtel, I managed a ₹120 crore business across 2,500 corporate and SME accounts. Though I worked within corporations, the businesses I actually built were the exact size of the ones I advise today.

That path led to Chief Operating Officer of the Kerala Circle at Tata Docomo, after helping launch Tata Docomo in Karnataka and building it into the country’s largest circle. As Ethics Counselor there, I reinforced a core belief: trust precedes market share.

At 50, I pivoted deliberately to entrepreneurship—co-founding Viworks Ventures and heading product and growth at Neoffice.ai—learning what it takes to scale from near-zero. Having operated with both deep corporate resources and startup constraints, I know what actually moves the needle versus what merely looks like progress.

Simpleworks Consulting is the natural outcome of that journey: practical, independent management consulting for Indian MSME founders and family business owners who know their company has more potential, but need the right lever to unlock its next phase of growth.