Mitul Ruparelia
Managing Partner – Interim Executive
Interim Chief Executive with >20-year track record of growing profitable, sustainable business units, defining strategy and leading sales, marketing, product, innovation, finance, raising investment and people management for established, underperforming, and scale-up technology businesses, both in listed and VC/PE backed environments.
- Spearheads commercial strategies that deliver profitable, sustainable growth; unlocks business value, deploying deep understanding of go-to-market (GTM) and enterprise sales to grow EBITDA.
- Drives innovation pipelines that future-proof businesses, pioneering new products, solutions and services that secure valuable market share and win top-tier telco, government, finance, public sector and aviation clients.
- Optimises efficiency, as a key driver of profitability and customer experience. Outstanding record of business turnaround and transformation, including significant repurposing and restructures.
Mitul’s formative career was spent with SAP in global sales, strategy and innovation roles within big data, telco and mobility, delivering record organic and inorganic growth through building expert value-based sales teams, pioneering new solutions, and integrating acquisitions. Highlights include his role as Global Head of Pre-Sales and Innovation for SAP Mobile Services (an independent business unit of SAP SE acquired from Sybase 365), where he led a transformational shift of commercial footprint from content and ringtones to enterprise customers, aligned with Mobile Operator Interconnect business, growing revenues from $40m to $350m. He was the lead innovator and sales authority for the patented solution ‘System and Method for Intelligent Routeback’, which itself delivered $150m in recurring subscription revenue from tier 1 mobile operator clients.
Mitul subsequently transitioned to SAP SE as Chief of Staff and Global Strategic Consultant for Telco & Mobility, building a GTM strategy and operating plan for a globalised business unit to deliver $1bn revenues by 2020, bringing all SAP mobile and telco businesses under one governance framework, operating model and sales force. He worked extensively with the global strategic accounts during this period, and led the inorganic growth agenda through the acquisition and development of new cloud solutions, such as Consumer Insight 365 and Telco Cloud. He was then selected to define GTM and operating plans for the healthcare industry, securing a three-year investment, and led the charge to expand SAP’s footprint in global conglomerate accounts.
Joining BlackBerry at its point of evolution into cybersecurity and IoT services, Mitul created the strategy that enabled telcos globally to resell, manage and support BlackBerry enterprise software and led the build of technologies that captured mid-market and SMB customers. Transitioning to Global Head of Service Provider and EMEA Channel Sales, he grew a scalable partner ecosystem that boosted sales by more than 80% in two years, recruiting hundreds of net-new transacting VARs and trebling net-new partner-influenced business. He was then promoted to lead sales for products and services across EMEA, delivering double-digit annual growth and boosting total contract value despite aggressive competition from freemium players.
Most recently, Mitul has been guiding PE and VC-backed enterprises to create value. As Vice President and Head of Sales for EMEA and India at Vision-Box, a digital identity management and biometric business that enables airports, airlines and governments to provide a seamless experience for connected citizens and travellers through hardware, software and services, he closed 85% of total company revenue, defying the impact of COVID-19 to win landmark client wins, including UK Border Force, Ministry of Interior Qatar, Benin, KSA, and Rwanda, TLS Contact and more. Critically, he pivoted from one-off CAPEX transactions to a SaaS revenue model, growing recurring revenue from near zero to €50m per annum, boosting the company valuation in preparation for its PE owner’s exit plan.
As Vice President of Sales for Key and Corporate European Accounts at MarTech SaaS solution, Siteimprove, Mitul set a clear commercial strategy and refined GTM that enabled him to deliver more than 50% of total company revenue and increase the average selling price by over 50%, transitioning his team to value-based selling.
Mitul founded Fortius Partners to continue to bring world-class accelerated scale and field execution strategies directly to businesses and their investors.
Mitul’s outstanding track record of driving shareholder value is underpinned by a deep understanding of GTM and solution sales in enterprise markets and an ability to build and lead large, global teams of sales and product reports. He has a clear focus on innovation to future-proof businesses and a relentless commitment to optimising efficiency as a key driver of customer experience and profitability.
Over the years, Mitul has been interviewed on CNBC and quoted in The Economist, The Times and other leading publications.