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- Company Secretaries play a crucial role in startups, ensuring compliance with laws and proper governance.
- In a LinkedIn post, Flathead Shoes Founder, Ganesh Balakrishnan acknowledged how instrumental a Company Secretary has been in their startup.
A new beginning after the Shark Tank India incident
If you are a fan of Shark Tank India, the business reality television series, then you may have tuned in to the episode of Flatheads.
After facing rejection on the reality show, Ganesh Balakrishnan, the Founder of Flatheads Shoes, and an IIT-IIM graduate thought it was all over.
However, after the episode aired, they received overwhelming support and encouragement from people all over the country. They didn’t give up and decided to give it one last shot.
To their surprise, the outcome has been, phenomenal. Flatheads has also recently been acquired by Styched, an Indian online fashion brand. This deal marks a new journey for the footwear brand.
While discussing what else lies ahead for Flatheads, Ganesh mentioned how a Company Secretary has helped their startup.
How a Company Secretary helped Flatheads
The biggest problem with starting up in India is that most startup founders simply don’t know about the intricacies of Indian company laws.
All around us, we see founders getting legal notices and struggling due to non-compliance. Indian corporate laws and compliances are complex, and ignorance is not an excuse for non-compliance.
As a founder, you need a competent Company Secretary to help you with everything from company registration to regular company filings and maintaining the company registers.
“Fortunately for me, Ullas Kiran B. Pai is a great friend and a great Company Secretary too!” said Ganesh.
Ullas, Partner at the CS firm CNU & Associates, has been an integral part of their startup journey.
Ganesh further mentions that as a Company Secretary, Ullas would proactively keep them informed about required compliances and filings, and would go above and beyond to advise them on the right approach wherever there were grey areas.
He always has the company’s interests in mind and has guided Flatheads through quite a few tricky situations.
“And trust me, there are a lot of grey areas that we founders need to navigate.” Said Ganesh.
Responsibilities of a Company Secretary
Company Secretaries are professionals who ensure that companies comply with the law and are well-governed.
They provide advice to boards of directors and senior management on a range of corporate governance issues. Company Secretaries play a vital role in ensuring that companies are compliant and well-governed.
Here are some of the key duties of a company secretary:
- Overseeing statutory compliance
- Providing advice to the board of directors and senior management
- Managing corporate records
- Organizing and conducting board meetings
- Communicating with shareholders
Importance of a Company Secretary in a startup
Talking about why startups should hire Company Secretaries, CS Akarshak Maheshwari, came to our mind.
The Finance Story interviewed Akarshak back in 2021 after he had joined Eruditus Executive Education, a unicorn ed-tech startup, with a valuation of $3.2 billion.
After working with all sorts of companies, including private, public, and listed, he felt it was time to explore the startup space.
In 2019, he joined Bewakoof.com, an Indian lifestyle fashion brand that was aiming for its Series A funding. He was tasked with establishing the legal and compliance department and organizing ongoing processes.
Formalizing the informal processes of the startup was the most challenging and exciting aspect of his role, which was primarily 80% legal and 20% secretarial work.
He developed standard operating procedures (SOPs) for vendor creation, onboarding, and contract management to collaborate with different brands and advertising agencies.
Akarshak was also involved in private equity funding, strategic planning, overseeing board and committee meetings, creating and managing the ESOP pool, and registering trademarks across various classes.
Bewakoof is currently one of the biggest homegrown D2C fashion companies in India, which clocked INR 160 Crore (over USD 190 million) revenue, in FY22.
