Navigating Growth: The Role of Generalist CEOs in SME Development

This episode of Two by Two was first published on 17th April 2025.

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link.

Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts.

-

Today’s episode is about something you wouldn’t have heard of – search funds. Initially, we thought this would be something arcane and boring, but the more we read about it, the more it started to sound like an arrangement that sounds too good to be true.

Search funds invert and twist all our conventional ideas of how people start, build, scale and fund businesses in India. It’s an old model that has been somewhat popular in more developed markets and is just starting to get some traction in India. For the tens of thousands of small and medium businesses in India that have achieved a level of success and want to go to the next level, the answer may just be…search funds. 

This episode is about a model that’s full of contradictions. It’s about entrepreneurs who aren’t founders. It’s about VCs who spend the first few years raising money and then spend the next few years actually running the business they raise money for. It’s also about operators who decide first that they want to become CEOs and then search for the companies they are going to lead.

And plot twist…all of these are the same person.

And in today’s episode, we have two wonderful guests who are here to tell us how they’re doing this.

Anurag Sinha is the Managing Partner at Milestone Search Capital, one of the pioneers of the Search Fund model, and his bio says, “Looking to buy a great business”.

Anurag’s journey as a business leader began with entrepreneurship at the age of 17, where he spent his formative years building ventures across Healthcare, Consumer Tech, and Retail.

In his latest role, Anurag was the CEO of Raam Group, an automotive retail conglomerate in India. Anurag oversaw businesses generating a topline of $100 million and managing a workforce of over 800 people. With over 12 years of experience spanning entrepreneurship, rapid-scale startups, and leadership roles in traditional business models, Anurag is now embarking on a new chapter: acquiring and scaling a promising business.

Anurag holds an MBA from INSEAD, where he studied across both the France and Singapore campuses. Prior to that, he earned a B.Com (Hons) from Delhi University.

Rehan Netarwala is the founder and managing partner at Okintek Capital, where he’s looking for an SME business to grow and scale. His bio says, “Looking for a great SME business to acquire and grow”.

Prior to starting Okintek Capital, Rehan was the co-founder of Savage and Palmer, where he helped SME entrepreneurs run and scale their businesses with our wide range of solutions right from Digital Marketing to Accounting & Taxation. 

Rehan is a graduate of the Indian School of Business and has a B.E. from Mumbai University.

In this week’s episode of Two by Two, co-hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sit down with Anurag Sinha and Rehan Netarwala to break down why and how search funds do what they do.

Welcome to episode 38 of Two by Two.

–

Get you tickets here – https://the-ken.com/event/building-unique-career-lattices/

–

First Principles is back with a new season.

Listen to the first episode with Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/first-principles/vidit-aatrey-on-building-a-problem-first-mindset-into-meeshos-culture/

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, please share it with your friends and family who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more thoughts on the discussion, we’d love to hear your arguments as well. You can write to us at twobytwo@the-ken.com.