Every day, across hospitals and clinics, lives quietly change with the delivery of a single document—a diagnostic report. For patients, it can redefine the future. For clinicians, it shapes the next decision. Yet for years, diagnostics in many regions—including parts of the GCC and Africa—has suffered not from lack of treatment, but from lack of timely, accurate testing. It is within this gap that Pankaj Sohaney chose to act. As the CEO and Founder of QLABS Clinical Laboratory, he is not simply building a business—he is building a system designed to ensure that no clinical decision is made on uncertainty. The Journey That Shaped a Visionary Pankaj did not arrive at this point overnight. He brings more than twenty years of hands-on experience in diagnostics and healthcare expansion to everything he does at QLABS. Over the course of his career, he has worked across clinical laboratory management, oncology reference programmes, cross-border diagnostic service networks, and the layered world of public-private healthcare partnerships. Pankaj has seen the industry from the inside, its strengths and its blind spots, and he has used that knowledge to ask a simple but powerful question: what would a truly great diagnostic network look like in this part of the world? That question became the foundation of QLABS. Pankaj co-founded the company with a clear-eyed assessment of what was missing. He saw a market that was fragmented, under-resourced, and slow to adopt the kind of precision technologies that were already transforming healthcare in other parts of the globe. Pankaj also saw an opportunity, so he rolled up his sleeves and got to work. Building QLABS: Precision From the Ground Up QLABS Clinical Laboratory is headquartered in Dubai and holds both CAP Accreditation and ISO 15189 Certification- two of the most rigorous quality standards in the global diagnostics industry. But for Pankaj, earning these credentials was never about ticking boxes. He pursued them because he wanted to build what he describes as a trust architecture: a system-level commitment to getting things right, every time, across every geography. Under Pankaj’s leadership, QLABS is growing into one of the region’s most advanced multi-disciplinary reference labs. The network’s capabilities span high-complexity clinical diagnostics, cancer and oncology testing, genomics and next-generation sequencing, proteomics, molecular diagnostics, and preventive and functional medicine diagnostics. Pankaj is also expanding QLABS into home health lab services and a nationwide collection network, while simultaneously developing hospital lab management and public-private partnership models. This is not a list of ambitions. These are programmes that Pankaj and his team are actively building and delivering- a distinction that matters deeply to him. “At QLABS, strategy and execution move together,” states Pankaj. Trust as a Leadership Philosophy Ask Pankaj what drives him, and he will not talk about market share or revenue targets. He will talk about trust. His leadership thesis is built on one simple idea: every diagnostic report is a clinical decision trigger. A clinician reads that report and makes a call- what medication to prescribe, whether to refer a patient for surgery, and when to tell a family that something is seriously wrong. That moment demands complete accuracy, and Pankaj holds himself and QLABS to that standard without compromise. He believes trust in diagnostics is earned in silence. It is the quiet confidence of a doctor who orders a test from QLABS and never questions the result. It is a hospital that renews its partnership year after year because the numbers hold up. It is a patient who does not have to repeat a test in a different city because the first one was not reliable. These are the moments that Pankaj builds for, and they are far harder to achieve than any certification. He is also direct about what quality means in this industry. It is not a differentiator. It is the minimum entry barrier. Everything above that baseline is what separates good from great; and that is the standard he is reaching for at QLABS. “Quality is not a differentiator in diagnostics—it is the minimum entry barrier.” Fighting Cancer With Data, Not Just Hope Of all the areas where Pankaj is making his mark, precision oncology stands out as the most personal. He believes cancer care must shift from a reactive model to one driven by early molecular insight. At QLABS, this vision is being realized through OnQcare—a dedicated oncology platform that integrates advanced diagnostics, clinical insights, and patient-centric care into a unified ecosystem. Through OnQcare, Pankaj is building centres of excellence focused on proactive molecular profiling, enabling detection of cancer signals long before symptoms appear. The platform brings genomics, next-generation sequencing, and emerging proteomic insights into routine clinical workflows—making them accessible and actionable across the GCC and Africa. “Cancer care should not begin when symptoms appear—it should begin when molecular signals emerge.” More importantly, OnQcare connects clinicians, laboratories, and global oncology partners, ensuring diagnostics becomes a core driver of treatment decisions—not just a supporting function. For Pankaj, this is not just innovation—it is a necessary shift toward earlier detection, smarter therapies, and better outcomes. Partnering With Governments, Serving People Pankaj understands that the biggest diagnostic challenges in emerging markets cannot be solved by the private sector alone. They require genuine collaboration between public institutions and private expertise. This is the space where his public-private partnership work lives, and he approaches it with a clarity that has earned him the trust of government partners and hospital systems alike. He frames the challenge as a dual mandate: financial sustainability on one side, public health impact on the other. Getting both right at the same time is not easy. But Pankaj believes that one without the other is not really a solution. A PPP that drains public funds is not sustainable. And a commercial model that does not serve underserved populations is not meaningful. So, he structures QLABS’ partnerships to align investor expectations with health outcomes- building layered diagnostic models that work for hospitals, governments, NGOs, and academic institutions all at once. Bold Moves, Careful Thinking Pankaj describes

Today’s business climate presents a dilemma for leaders and businesses looking to innovate. Businesses want the benefits of innovation, but at what cost? At their core, most businesses aren’t interested in the disruptive elements of growth through innovation. They fear the upheaval that said innovation may bring. While businesses require innovative and creative brains to stay relevant, innovators are often rejected or dismissed, especially if they challenge core elements of the existing business unless innovation is truly embraced in the culture of the organization. The gap between creativity and execution prevents many fresh, innovative approaches from becoming established, and some of the best business conceptions remain just that; an idea rather than a viable company or operation. Yet within this complexity, certain leaders emerge who don’t just bridge this divide; they reimagine it entirely. They architect environments where breaking things becomes a strategic choice, where failure transforms into intelligence, and where teams don’t just tolerate uncertainty, they embrace it. Chaun Powell operates in this dynamic space, leading not from a position of control but from one of orchestrated empowerment, where vision meets velocity and ambition aligns with achievement. A Leadership Philosophy Built on Empowerment As President of Elevate by Principal, Chaun has constructed a leadership framework that fundamentally challenges traditional corporate hierarchies. His approach centers on three interconnected principles that shape everything his teams accomplish. Chaun believes impact begins with vision, not safe, incremental objectives, but provocative aspirations big enough to create nervous energy yet achievable through focused effort. He creates goals that stretch teams beyond comfort zones while remaining grounded in possibility. The second pillar centers on radical empowerment. He grants every team member authority to make decisions,  openly acknowledging that mistakes are inevitable, including his own. This transparency creates psychological safety, allowing teams to act with courage. Chaun emphasizes that effective teams must make tough calls, support each other through decisions to minimize errors, and maintain agility to fix what breaks. His philosophy contains a deliberately provocative element: if teams are performing optimally, they will intentionally break some things. This calculated disruption reveals boundaries, showing what can be challenged and where restraint is necessary. This, in turn, hinges on a bias for action. When team members embrace empowerment and trust leadership support, initiative flourishes organically. He sees his greatest opportunity in painting a compelling vision and allowing teams to determine what ultimately appears on the canvas. The difference between a masterpiece and meaningless scribbles lies entirely in the trust and commitment each team member brings to the creative process. Decoding the Innovation Equation Leading a growth-and-innovation unit places Chaun in constant dialogue with complexity. He identifies three factors that doom most entrepreneurial ventures: lack of market need, insufficient capital to execute properly, and failure to focus on a well-defined minimum viable product (MVP) while managing the noise that accompanies innovation. Chaun champions structured ideation that encourages divergent exploration before converging on solutions. The divergent phase examines new approaches and external concepts, building frameworks that don’t anchor solutions to existing methodologies. He views the creativity introduced during this innovation phase as critical for leapfrogging current solutions; something that cannot be rushed. The challenge then becomes securing stakeholder alignment on the buildout phases and cultivating the team’s discipline to ignore ongoing ideation noise until basic MVP testing concludes. Once initial iterations are complete, Chaun insists on obtaining genuine market feedback to validate value for intended audiences. He recognizes that leaders ultimately place bets on priorities, but markets rarely mislead those who listen carefully. Success leaves distinct patterns, and strong innovation teams with dual capabilities in ideation and creation can extract priorities from market signals, ultimately determining whether projects soar or stumble. Orchestrating Vision with Operational Rigor Chaun demonstrates refreshing self-awareness about his leadership approach. He relies heavily on exceptional operational leaders who support his various teams. Rather than spreading himself across all functions, he concentrates energy on creating provocative yet credible visions. When teams see pathways to bring disruptive solutions to market, ideas that inspire and potentially transform their industries, Chaun finds his leadership sweet spot. This approach requires acknowledging interdependencies. Innovation without execution remains pure ideation. While ideation energizes teams, it only becomes valuable when it translates into tangible creation. Chaun deliberately surrounds himself with leaders whose operational expertise complements his vision-oriented approach, creating a balanced leadership ecosystem. Innovating Within Regulatory Frameworks Throughout his career, Chaun has operated in healthcare and financial services- two industries facing some of the most stringent regulatory oversight. He understands that innovation in these spaces happens continuously, but typically in smaller increments on individual products rather than revolutionary new models. He frequently invokes Machiavelli’s wisdom: “It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” Chaun balances innovative visions with practical understanding of incremental execution steps. He regularly reminds his teams that shavings make a pile; every effort yielding micro innovations eventually aggregates into macro transformation. The key is maintaining focus on the broader picture while operating within regulatory parameters for each incremental innovation along the journey. Forging Strategic Institutional Partnerships When engaging institutional clients, Chaun models leadership behaviours ensuring his teams deliver both strategic insight and operational credibility. He references the nautical wisdom that boats remain safe in harbours but aren’t built for harbours. He encourages institutional partnerships to embrace incremental intrapreneurship that complements their core business operations. Having collaborated with multiple Fortune 500 companies, Chaun understands they must maintain their foundational business. However, innovation remains essential to avoid disintermediation. This is where Chaun advocates investment in potentially transformative innovation. The human mind craves novelty- equally true for investors and employees. Failing to introduce novelty with deliberate intent breeds stagnation across teams, organizations, and capital markets. Redefining Leadership Metrics Chaun views financial metrics as lag indicators for other critical success signals. Lead indicators he embeds into annual planning start with desired outcomes, working

Leadership rarely announces itself. It creeps in quietly, born not from ambition but from frustration with the status quo. Anuj Narula, Founder of Techhub & Teckkonnect, understands this truth intimately. Years spent working across India’s infrastructure sector showed him a persistent and troubling gap the distance between the country’s aspirations for world-class infrastructure and the actual quality and consistency of its execution on the ground. That gap became his calling. India currently pours resources into roads, highways, railways, tunnels, and hydropower projects at an unprecedented scale. Narula sees this national push not merely as a construction opportunity but as a chance to build something far more durable: human capital. He views leadership as the bridge connecting India’s infrastructure ambitions to the technical expertise, innovation, and trained professionals needed to deliver them. “I see leadership as an opportunity to bridge that gap: by combining technical expertise, innovation, and capability development to create better projects and stronger professionals,” he explains. A Fragmented Industry, A Focused Response The infrastructure sector Anuj operates within carries deep structural challenges. It remains fragmented, and in many pockets, poorly organised. Weak planning routinely produces delayed projects, ballooning costs, and strained resources. Compounding this problem is an educational disconnect civil engineering graduates frequently step into the workforce without the practical judgment, critical thinking, or decision-making skills that real project delivery demands. Narula chose to attack this problem at its root. Rather than treating training as an afterthought, his organisation built continuous learning and in-house capability development into its foundation from day one. The training programmes extend well past technical instruction, deliberately cultivating leadership, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and ownership among young engineers. He insists that delivering successful infrastructure demands far more than technical knowledge alone it requires professionals who can think, decide, and lead under pressure. Staying the Course Through Difficult Periods Every leader experiences dips in energy and motivation, and Narula does not pretend otherwise. What separates sustained leaders from the rest, in his view, is not the absence of low points but the refusal to let those low points define the journey for too long. He deliberately curates his environment, surrounding himself with people who carry a growth mindset and push him to think beyond the obvious, while regularly reading material that reinforces resilience. When circumstances turn genuinely difficult, Narula leans on something larger than the immediate obstacle. “Ultimately, during difficult periods, it is my belief in the larger vision that keeps me moving forward. When the purpose is clear, temporary challenges become part of the journey rather than reasons to abandon it,” he says. That clarity of purpose, he suggests, is what converts short-term setbacks into simple waypoints rather than dead ends. Calculated Risk Over Reckless Ambition Risk sits at the heart of entrepreneurial growth, but Narula draws a firm distinction between courage and recklessness. Genuine leadership, in his framework, is not about chasing bold moves for their own sake it is about making risk manageable through preparation. Before committing to a major decision, he researches thoroughly, maps the variables at play, identifies where failure is most likely to occur, and builds contingencies for multiple scenarios. People matter just as much as process in this equation. Narula credits his team’s involvement in critical assignments, coupled with open communication and shared clarity around objectives and obstacles, as the mechanism that turns uncertainty into calculated opportunity rather than blind gambling. A well-prepared team, he has found, can absorb volatility that would otherwise derail a project. Innovation as a Perspective, not a Product Ask Narula to define innovation, and he resists the conventional answer tied to technology or disruption. Instead, he frames it as something closer to a mindset. “To me, innovation is a ‘Perspective of Possibilities,”he states. For him, the term describes a refusal to accept convention simply because convention exists a habit of pausing to ask whether a better possibility might be hiding behind the obvious approach. Innovation, in this reading, has less to do with tools and more to do with the willingness to interrogate assumptions and keep searching for improvement. Learning Milestones and the Discipline of Delegation Narula describes the accumulated lessons of his career as “Learning Milestones” moments that quietly became stepping stones in how he leads today. Clear communication, delegating responsibility to the right person, staying proactive instead of reactive, and preparing thoroughly before important meetings rank among the most formative lessons he carries. Perhaps most significantly, he has come to see leadership not as a solo performance but as an exercise in creating clarity, trusting capable people, and stepping back to let them take ownership. A Rotary in Rishikesh, and a Lesson in Human Stakes Among the moments that have stayed with him, Narula points to a road safety assignment in Rishikesh, where he served as a third-party Road Safety Auditor. The site had a troubling accident history, driven largely by flaws in the geometry and layout of an existing rotary. After conducting a detailed audit, he recommended a set of targeted interventions removing the rotary, introducing speed-calming measures such as a speed table, upgrading hazard markings, and installing clearer traffic signage. These changes made the junction noticeably more visible and considerably safer for road users. The outcome left a lasting impression. He later learned from a road user that accidents at the site had reportedly dropped by roughly 98 percent following the redesign. Beyond the technical satisfaction of a job well done, the experience crystallised something deeper for Narula: engineering decisions carry the power to directly shape human lives. That realisation, he notes, reinforced his conviction that infrastructure engineering ultimately exists in service of society, not merely in service of blueprints and budgets. The Discipline Behind the Ideas Behind Narula’s public output sits a set of quiet, deliberate habits. Each day begins with writing down his priority tasks, a small ritual that sharpens his focus and organises his decision-making from the outset. He protects blocks of undivided attention for his most demanding work, operating on the belief that meaningful