CEO Insights Magazine

Strong financial leaders play a critical role in ensuring that organizations stay financially adaptable and are able to build resilience & sustainability in today’s fierce market. These leaders have a sophisticated and thorough understanding of their organization’s financial health, and they make decisions grounded in financial realities. Vivek Kapoor the Chief Financial Officer of Guardant Health AMEA is one of them.

Vivek has 27+ years of experience in developing financial structures for various organizations from complex processes as well as creating sustainable financial success in businesses. He began his professional journey in 1995 in Singapore in a company named Sime Darby as its Senior Internal Audit Executive. After a few years, he progressed from being an Internal Auditor to becoming the Finance Director of EMC2 Computer Systems handling operations across South Asia, India & Emerging Markets. With Pitney Bowes, Vivek received his first opportunity to lead as a CFO where he was responsible for Financial Management, Budgeting, Forecasting, and Cash Management for Asia, Japan, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The financial expert has a deep understanding of the banking relationships and business models and has been setting financial policies, delivering profitable growth by optimizing operational metrics, managing cash flows, driving strategic partnerships, managing acquisitions, mergers, fund-raise, budgeting, and forecasting, and creating a financial safety net for organizations like Pitney Bowes, IQVIA, and now Guardant Health.

At Guardant Health, Vivek is adeptly protecting the long-term assets of the organization through a commitment to moral, ethical, and prudent financial decision-making. In a recent interaction with CEO Insights Magazine, Vivek talks about his journey, experiences, and more. Let’s hear it from him.

Define Guardant Health as an organization and its position in the market. What is the unique proposition that your organization offers to clients?

Guardant Health is a 10+-year-old organization growing at a rapid rate. AMEA operations started four years ago to introduce our healthcare products into AMEA markets. Guardant Health is a leader in liquid precision for Oncology, we provide liquid biopsy for cancer patients. Our late-stage Cancer detection product, G360 is the first FDA-approved product in the global market. Guardant also announced the launch of blood tests for Cancer Screening. This would be a game changer as insurance companies and corporates can use this in their executive health screening programs for any early signs of cancer. Over the years, Guardant has evolved from just being a late-stage liquid biopsy company to providing end-to-end cancer detection products from Screening to Early-detection to Late- stage. We also offer Tissue Biopsy tests also.

What keeps you motivated on a daily basis?

I have been working in the healthcare industry for more than a decade supporting and helping patients in their clinical trials and it is extremely motivating to be able to bring new technologies for the benefit of mankind and make our products available in new markets to wider medicine practitioners thereby increasing the reach of our treatments to more patients.

As the CFO, how do you determine the profitability of an investment in the company?

Over the years, the roles of CFOs have become much broader. Today CFOs cannot just have a short-term view of profitability; they need to have a short-term as well as a long-term view to balance investments and profitability accordingly. I believe we should not sacrifice investments for future growth to achieve short-term profitability. At Guardant Health, we refresh our long-range plan annually to reflect the change in the business environment. We allocate our resources to initiatives where we can make a bigger difference to patients and secondly investments with better ROI. Ranging from the launch of a new product to entering into a new territory, we build our business plan to understand the ROI. However, I believe a CFO must maintain the flexibility to divert some of the savings from operations to invest for future growth. Certain investments may not work out as projected yet overall, the process pays off.

What are the changes in market behavior that you anticipate and what are the opportunities that you foresee?

The way central banks are approaching the inflationary and supply chain pressures, from an overall economic outlook, I do not expect the market to be very optimistic for the next two years. For a few years, the funds were easily available at a high valuation and low-interest rates but now that situation will experience some limitations; hence businesses must be cautious with their spending and must try to find a path to profitability or a path to positive cash flow. Companies that have extended themselves will face challenges. At the same time, well-managed businesses will see an opportunity to improve their market share either via M&As or expansion into new markets. During Covid, companies in the healthcare sector were able to raise a lot of funding. Such companies will be able to utilize their funds to develop new products & technology to serve patients.

Vivek Kapoor, CFO, Guardant Health AMEA

Vivek oversees the finance functions at Guardant Health AMEA as the Chief Financial Officer. Vivek considers himself as one part steward, two parts strategist, and a dash of computational spirit guide. Pushing the needle from strategic intent to business and financial value. Mastering the grid, turning over the boxes, taming the data, and keeping track of what goes where, when, and to whom. Making the decisions that allow the business to remain competitive and able to control our destiny – all in the pursuit of win-win scenarios for us and all key stakeholders.

Vivek has more than 27 years of experience in the Healthcare and Information Technology industries. He specializes in M&A, Fund Raise, Operational Excellence & building Centres of Excellence. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Certified Internal Auditor. He has worked with IQVIA, EMC Computer Systems, and Pitney Bowes in regional finance leadership roles.

•Hobbies: Learning about new technologies and investments

•Favorite Cuisine: Thai delicacies

•Favorite Book: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson

•Favorite Travel Destination: Any beautiful beach with sun and sand