Learnings of a Lifetime with Anil Rego at KE’s Founders’ Fiesta

Kanara Entrepreneurs (KE) members gathered early Saturday morning, 11th January 2025, to capture the essence and highlights of Right Horizons Financial Services Pvt Ltd Founder, Anil Francis Rego’s entrepreneurial journey at their office. After a generous breakfast, and keeping strictly to time, the members set off 2025 with a story to savour, appreciate and find inspiration from.

Anil beautifully expressed key highlights of his childhood and youth, sprinkled with stories of his mother who raised her family single handedly. Working as a teacher, tutoring and later moving on to being an insurance agent, she sowed the seeds of independence and entrepreneurial grit in her son from a very young age. Anil further credits the me he was given the responsibility of holding on to his mother’s savings as a significant one – all he had was a table with a lock from where he started thinking about savings and, later, ideating on how to make money grow.

Anil’s dream was to retire by 35 – however, as he reached out to financial advisors while working at Wipro, he realised there were no products that catered to achieving this dream as a young employee, eventually propelling Anil to evolve into his core philosophy to plan everything for the future. His words, ‘If you want to achieve what you want, what do you do to achieve that?’ was a resonant queson for me. This was quickly followed by, ‘What can we do differently?’

Anil clearly recognized the influence of two of his seniors with different styles – one who shielded their team, and another who actively put the introvert Anil out into the limelight – both developing key skills in leadership, networking and relationship management. Incidentally, it was here that he also had the stirrings of branching off on his own. He even created a business plan with a colleague only to understand another core lesson: ‘Recognize someone else’ shifting goalpost, and don’t depend on someone else.’

Anil credits his entrepreneurship firmly to the steady support of his wife, Rachna Rego – whom he consistently refers to as his pillar, and sounding board for all ideas and initiatives. Despite being polar opposites in personality and traits, their compatibility has stood the test of time, especially as Rachna complements the business as a Director. Anil took the firm step into building a business by turning his passion for managing markets into his profession.

The entrepreneurial journey had many lessons – some from successes and many from mistakes. Some key thoughts that he shared:

• The buck stops with you – there is no one to push you; motivate yourself.
• Create a business plan every year.
• Know your strengths and your weaknesses – Anil is great at planning; Rachna is brilliant at execution.
• Focus on the solution to the problem at hand.
• Let others fail – they’ll learn in the process.
• Tough times show us who stands with us.
• Consensus is detrimental to moving forward – differing opinions are invaluable to growth.

There were some other insights that Anil shared from both life and his learnings as a business person:

• Look for miracles in life daily – they are a source of strength during difficult times.
• True joy comes from seeing a smile on another’s face.
• Dream big, but take incremental small steps.
• Planning & execution is vital.
• Focus on the future.
• Teach your children the value of money
• Touch the lives of others.

Anil highlighted his deeper value of extending the fruits of their success towards the community through their Foundation that supports the education of the needy. This completes the circle of generosity that Anil shared at the start of his story when he acknowledged the contribution of near and dear ones in supporting his mother to raise and educate her children. Gratitude and giving back was a priceless highlight.

As we closed with a minute to spare – I must appreciate Anil’s seamless time management – we were pleased to applaud Right Horizons on being certified as a Great Place To Work® indicating the top down values that are shared by the entire team. This was also visible in our interaction with their staff right from the me we entered the parking lot to how kindly we were treated as the staff’s own guests. The sense of proactive ownership was felt by all. The enriching Q&A that followed was the perfect close to a very insightful morning.

A special mention to Jasmine Pinto for moderating the session and to Rufus Monteiro for presenting the special memento to Anil for hosting a warm and enlightening morning for the KE community.

Founders’ Fiesta, once again, was an experience by itself and absolutely worth waking up to a chilly Bangalore morning. Seeing familiar faces with whom our network and net worth evolves every day may actually lead us to create the KE 7am Breakfast Club. This, in turn, is a testament to the power of relationships and support we experience within the KE fold.

Many thanks to Rachna and Anil Rego and the staff at Right Horizons for their hospitality. We wish them all the best for many more successes!