Leadership with the weight, not the headcount.
HR solutions, fractional executives, board advisory, executive coaching. The right capability, at the level you need it, for as long as you need it.
Four ways to bring senior capability into the business without permanently expanding the org chart. HR Solutions when the business needs stronger alignment between people strategy and business outcomes. Fractional Executives when a role, function, or transformation needs experienced ownership now. Board Advisory when a high-stakes decision needs sharper thinking before it reaches the room. Executive Coaching when the leaders shaping the business need to build the impact, judgement, and presence that the next phase will demand.
The work runs through Anurag Kumar, our Managing Director. His experience as CHRO of PepsiCo MEA and Asia, together with years of working with organizations across sectors, gives him a view across business performance, organization design, leadership capability, and execution. He has worked with boards, CEOs, CFOs, commercial heads, supply chain leaders, and strategy teams, not just the HR function. He works with all of them now, on Mindfield’s behalf.
On Fractional Leadership, Anurag’s operator lens pairs with Anjali Samuel’s three decades of senior search across the region. Founder reach on one side, operator judgement on the other. That combination helps clients bring in senior capability that matches the business context, the pressure on the role, and the outcome required.
HR SOLUTIONS
People strategy tied to business outcomes.
The businesses that hold their shape under pressure are usually the ones where the people agenda is closely
linked to business reality. Growth, margin pressure, restructuring, regional expansion, capability gaps, slower
decisions, blurred accountability. These are not HR issues sitting on the side. They affect execution, productivity, and the business’ ability to move.
Mindfield’s HR Solutions work is built for that context. The focus is not advisory in the abstract. It is practical work around how the business is structured, where performance is being slowed down, where capability is not keeping pace with need, and what has to change for the organization to perform better. This includes organizations navigating nationalization requirements, Saudization, Emiratization, and Omanization mandates, where building a credible local leadership pipeline is now a board-level priority, not just a compliance exercise.
Value chain analysis is a recurring entry point. Many organizations do not lose margin because strategy is unclear. They lose it between handovers, across procurement, manufacturing, logistics, planning, sales, and commercial execution. Anurag works this terrain actively, identifying where value is leaking, where
accountability is blurred, and where complexity has grown faster than execution discipline.
WHERE THE WORK FOCUSES
- Value chain analysis across procurement, manufacturing, logistics, planning, commercial execution, BOM
complexity, cost-to-serve, and S&OP or IBP governance rhythms - HR function transformation, including operating model redesign, workforce planning, and aligning the
people function to business strategy - Organization design and operating model review, including spans, layers, reporting logic, role clarity, and
decision rights - Productivity and effectiveness, especially where complexity has grown faster than accountability and
execution discipline - Leadership capability assessment, where the business has outgrown the way roles are currently defined or
led - Succession planning and leadership pipeline development, where the real question is whether the bench
can carry the next phase of growth or change - Nationalization strategy support, helping businesses build and accelerate local talent pipelines in line with
Saudization, Emiratization, or Omanization requirements - Advisory support during transformation, restructuring, integration, and expansion, including organizations
building capability for AI-driven and digitally led operating environments
WHAT CLIENTS ARE TRYING TO SOLVE
- A business that has become more complex than its current structure can support
- Margin leaking between functions where ownership is unclear
- A function that is carrying too much dependency on a few people
- Slow or uneven execution caused by unclear ownership across teams
- Capability gaps in roles that have become commercially critical
- Succession depth that is too thin for the growth or change ahead
- Nationalization targets that require more than a compliance response
- The need to improve output without simply adding more cost or headcount
Grounded in business context, commercially aware, and built around outcomes that can be felt in how the business runs.
The people function, built to hold weight.
From policy to practice. Let's scope it together.
FRACTIONAL LEADERSHIP
Senior capability, in the seat, when the business needs traction.
Fractional Leadership is not a workaround. It is a deliberate way to bring proven operating capability into the business when the role matters, the timing matters, and waiting for a permanent hire would cost too much in momentum, stability, or execution.
Clients use Fractional when the business needs someone who can step in quickly, read the situation fast, steady the function, and move work forward. Sometimes the gap is immediate. Sometimes the business is changing shape and needs time before deciding what the long-term role should become. Sometimes a transformation needs ownership without locking in permanent cost too early. Increasingly, businesses across the GCC are using Fractional Leadership to bring in executives with experience leading through digital transformation and AI-driven change, where the internal bench does not yet carry that depth.
This is the service where Mindfield’s founder access and operator filter work together. Anjali brings a regional bench built over thirty years of senior search across the Middle East and Africa. Anurag brings the operating lens, assessing whether a candidate can actually work in the client’s context, handle the pressure on the role,
and deliver in the environment they are stepping into.
TYPICAL FRACTIONAL ROLES
- CHRO and senior HR leadership
- CFO and senior finance leadership
- CMO, commercial, and marketing leadership
- COO and operations leadership
- CSCO and supply chain leadership
- CIO, CTO, and technology leadership
- Transformation and integration leadership
- Organization effectiveness and change leadership
WHEN CLIENTS USE FRACTIONAL
- A leadership gap is exposing the business to risk
- A transformation or reset needs experienced ownership now
- A function needs to stabilise while the org structure is being reworked
- The business needs senior capability without making a permanent hire too early
- A team needs stronger direction through a period of change, growth, or transition
- The business is navigating digital transformation or AI adoption and needs an operator who has led through it before
WHAT CLIENTS GET
- Faster access to experienced operators who can contribute from day one
- Practical leadership during periods of uncertainty or change
- Better continuity in roles where delay or drift would affect business performance
- Time to define the permanent role properly, without losing momentum in the meantime
- A stronger team and clearer function by the time the assignment ends
Available across functions, across the region, scoped around the shape of the problem and the result the business needs.
BOARD ADVISORY
Better board decisions start before the meeting.
By the time a paper reaches the board, the quality of thinking behind it is already being tested. The issue is rarely the deck alone. It is whether the argument is strong enough, the trade-offs are clear enough, the risks are visible enough, and the leadership implications have been thought through with enough honesty. That is the gap Mindfield fills. Anurag works with board members, CEOs, and founders on the work that sits one step before the board meeting itself. The aim is to strengthen the quality of the discussion, not just improve the presentation.
WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE
- Board pre-reads, flagging where the case is thin, where challenge is likely to come from, and what the room will need answered
- Deck preparation support, shaping the material around the real decisions in front of the board
- Succession planning and leadership pipeline reviews, testing whether the bench is ready for what comes
next and whether succession depth is genuinely held or assumed - Leadership readiness assessment, including pressure-testing whether senior leaders are prepared for the
complexity, pace, and AI-driven demands of the next operating environment - Board composition and senior advisory introductions, where specific experience is needed around the
table - Talent strategy input for boards navigating growth, restructuring, transition, or exit
Available across functions, across the region, scoped around the shape of the problem and the result the business needs.
WHY CLIENTS USE IT
- To improve the quality of high-stakes decisions before they enter the room
- To pressure-test thinking on succession, readiness, and leadership risk
- To get neutral outside judgement on issues that are too important for internal blind spots
- To make sure board conversations are anchored in the real business question, not just the paper prepared
around it
Confidential, direct, and grounded in what the business is trying to achieve.
Sometimes you need the weight, not the headcount.
Fractional, interim, advisory, or coaching. We bring the right capability to the seat, or to the leader stepping into it.
EXECUTIVE COACHING
Coaching that meets leaders at the level they are working at.
Coaching at senior levels is not about general development. It is about helping experienced leaders build the impact, judgement, self-awareness, and presence required to work through complex business realities. Behavioural derailers that worked at one level start to cost at the next. Strategic agility becomes more important than functional depth. The ability to influence, decide, and hold weight in the room becomes the job.
Anurag leads Mindfield’s coaching practice as a Hogan-accredited and ICF-certified coach, drawing on his own years in the CHRO seat and across transformation, organization design, and leadership development. The coaching is grounded in operator reality, not theory. The work is direct, confidential, and built around the
business context the leader is operating in.
WHERE THE COACHING FOCUSES
- Coaching for positive impact, behavioural intervention to curb derailers, sharpen communication, and
strengthen leadership presence - Coaching for strategic agility, helping leaders see the larger picture, connect issues, and build sustainable
plans - Coaching for organisation savvy, supporting transitions into more senior roles and helping leaders navigate
complex corporate realities - Coaching for bright and promising employees, strategic career management and accelerated development
for high-potential talent - Coaching for HR leaders, helping HR leaders hold weight in the C-suite and influence business decisions, not just process them
WHEN CLIENTS USE IT
- A senior leader stepping into a bigger or more complex role
- A high-performing executive whose behavioural pattern is starting to limit impact
- A hi-potential being built for a future C-suite seat
- An HR leader who needs to operate with more commercial weight at the leadership table
- A leadership team where the bench needs sharpening before the next phase of growth
Grounded in operator experience. Honest, confidential, and built around the leader’s business context.
The leader in the seat shapes what the function can carry
Executive coaching led by Anurag Kumar. Hogan-accredited, ICF-certified. Built around the leader's business context, not a framework.
WHY MINDFIELD
Three strengths, built for senior advisory work.
Anjali Samuel brings founder-led access to senior talent and three decades of executive search across the Middle East and Africa. Her relationships, market reach, and judgement give the practice its senior access and credibility.
Anurag Kumar leads the Leadership and Advisory practice, bringing operator judgement from senior CHRO, transformation, productivity, organization design, performance, and board-facing roles.
Samuel anchors the firm’s governance, confidentiality, and assignment discipline, the operating spine that allows sensitive senior mandates to be run properly.
The result: senior access, sharper judgement, and controlled execution.
FAQS
Got Questions?
Four lines of senior support, each tied to business need. HR Solutions helps companies align people strategy, structure, capability, and execution with business outcomes, including nationalization strategy and succession
planning. Fractional Leadership brings experienced operators into critical roles on a defined basis. Board Advisory helps CEOs, founders, and boards sharpen high-stakes decisions before they are made. Executive Coaching helps senior leaders build the impact, judgement, and presence the next phase of their role will require.
No. The work may begin with a leadership, people, or organization question, but it is anchored in business context. The focus is on performance, productivity, capability, structure, succession, and better decision
making, not generic HR process work.
Usually when growth has outpaced structure, execution is slowing, accountability is blurred, capability is thin in key roles, succession depth is weak, nationalization targets are creating pressure on the leadership pipeline, or the business needs stronger leadership through transformation, restructuring, or expansion.
Fractional Leadership brings in a senior operator on a defined, part-time, or interim basis when the business needs traction, stability, or change leadership without moving too early into a permanent hire. It is useful
when the role matters now, but the long-term shape of the seat is still evolving. Increasingly used by GCC businesses managing digital transformation and AI-led change where the permanent bench is still being built.
It is the work that happens before the meeting. Pressure-testing the board paper, strengthening the logic, surfacing likely challenge, reviewing succession and leadership pipeline depth, and making sure the discussion in the room is built around the real decision that needs to be made.
Coaching is led by Anurag, who is Hogan-accredited and ICF-certified, and grounded in his own CHRO and transformation experience. The work covers behavioural impact, strategic agility, organisation savvy, hi potential acceleration, and HR leadership development. It is built around the leader’s actual business context, not generic frameworks.
CEOs, founders, CHROs, boards, and senior business heads dealing with growth, complexity, leadership gaps, transformation, nationalization mandates, succession depth, or decisions that carry real commercial weight.
Across the GCC, the wider Middle East, and Africa, with work led from Dubai and shaped around the realities of regional businesses and leadership markets.