Talk CXO Life

We couldn’t not have had a segment on Cars with Zac Hollis of course and here it is! We dwell on Skoda’s GreenFuture strategy, Elon Musk & attempt to demystify Cars rather our relationship with it (OMG did I just say that) in the Post-pandemic world.

Zac speaks about his love for cricket and fondly recalls his formative years raised on a poultry farm in England. He shares his experience of having been able to work from his home in England whilst helping his father with the bees on their farm and spending a day fly fishing with his dad after years.

Zac shares how he has maintained his runs, bike rides and his biking dates with friends checking all his fitness goals during this pandemic. He speaks of his initiation into running, his most memorable run which is running the London Marathon and doing the Ironman. And you don’t want to miss his formula of accomplishing every goal he sets.

Zac speaks on leading and managing one of the biggest auto players and keeping on track the Volkswagen India 2.0 strategy amidst the pandemic. He speaks about the many initiatives undertaken by Skoda to ensure the mental and physical wellbeing of the employees, taking tough decisions, working-from-home and dealing with the work-life balance conundrum during the pandemic.

In this latest edition of TalkCXOLife, we present to you an automotive leader credited with leading the Skoda brand to record market share & profit in Ireland and in a subsequent role, almost doubling Skoda's business in China within 3 years.

Currently leading one of the most critical markets for Skoda - India at a crucial juncture, backed by his three-decade-rich worldwide experience with the Volkswagen group,  Zac Hollis, Director Sales, Service, and Marketing, SKODA India is also an active sportsperson, a marathoner, an Ironman, a proud dad, an erstwhile clay pigeon shooting champion, and was a show-quality-chicken breeder as a young boy, raised on a poultry farm in England!

Well, we did save some of the best for our last episode for this year and so hop on for a delightful ride wherein we explore so many work-life facets of this witty leader - From the perspectives he garnered during this pandemic; taking tough business decisions over Skype; the importance of work-life balance; cars & cricket; his success mantras which includes having a passion beyond the cubicle; his very interesting sports-bar venture which he exited during the lockdown & the secret of acing every goal set, be it selling 100 million cars or doing an Ironman – we’ve discussed it all.

In the concluding segment, Geoff Meyer MD Ironman Asia speaks of the ways he managed to remain fit during lockdown and shares some key lessons he learned through his experience of being at the helm of the Asian operations of the largest sports participation events platform in the world.

In this fourth segment,  Geoff Meyer MD Ironman Asia speaks in-depth regarding the changes implemented across stages for ensuring physical races and events organized by Ironman, although few and far between,  are safe and adhere to all the relevant government protocols. We also discuss the physical Ironman races which are scheduled to happen in the near future. Fingers crossed!

Imagine managing & conducting a globally renowned sporting event in a foreign country from the confines of your home. Geoff Meyer, MD Ironman Asia speaks of the challenges and initiatives undertaken to keep Ironman employees engaged & motivated, the support provided to local vendors in these trying times while we also touch upon the recent takeover of Ironman by Advance.

In this second segment, Geoff speaks about the various cost-intensive virtual races & training programmes having been developed and conducted by Ironman, provided for engaging and motivating Ironman athletes across the world.

In this first segment with we dive into the measures taken by Ironman globally for conducting the handful of physical races worldwide, the learnings from these very few Ironman events conducted so far & the status of the Ironman races to be held in the immediate future.