About Anit Patel
I stopped advising businesses and started running them.
More than a decade in strategy and transformation, and now running four businesses. Now I help other owners get more from every hour they work, and work fewer of them.
The short version
From the boardroom to the rosters
For about ten years I worked in strategy and transformation, including nearly five years at McKinsey & Company, where I coached senior leaders on strategy and performance. The clients were big: Fortune 500 companies, major Australian banks, a national airline, retail groups, and start-ups in supply chain and education.
Then I left, and started running businesses instead of advising them. Today I run four, all in Sydney. They are in the same industries as many of the owners I coach, and they have the same problems: too much admin, not enough hours, and no budget for another person.
For the last two years I have been working out which AI tools genuinely fix that, and which ones waste a Saturday. Not as an experiment, but inside my own businesses, where getting it wrong costs real money.
What came out of it is a practical way of coaching owners, and a set of systems I now help them build.
Four businesses, not four case studies
When you describe the problem, I have usually lived it
I run businesses in four industries. When you describe a variation dispute, a roster falling apart or a compliance obligation eating a week, I am usually not hearing it for the first time.
Home care
Regulated, rostered and audited. What compliance really costs in hours.
Construction
Quotes, variations, subcontractors and weather. Cash that arrives late.
Marketing & IT
What agencies charge for, and what it is actually worth.
Hospitality
Rosters, suppliers, thin margins, and the difference a bad Saturday makes.
Career
The credentialled half
It matters less than the four businesses, but it is why the frameworks hold up.
2024 – 2025
Executive coach, technology strategy
Commonwealth Bank
Coached executives and their senior teams through quarterly planning, strategy and delivery: turning a stated strategy into commitments a leadership team can hold each other to.
2019 – 2024
Engagement lead and executive coach
McKinsey & Company
Led enterprise transformations and coached senior leaders through digital, product and agile change across financial services, banking and energy.
2018 – 2019
Transformation and digital delivery lead
Qantas
Led a key domain of Qantas Digital during its digital transformation, including organisation redesign and leadership coaching.
2011 – 2017
Product delivery lead
1-Stop Connections
Delivered cloud products that digitise the shipping container logistics chain, from test program management to product delivery.
Qualifications
Credentials and training
- ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC)
- McKinsey Senior Consultant & Executive Coach
- Product & Transformation Coach & Consultant
- Enterprise Business Transformation Strategist
- ICAgile Authorised Professional Trainer
- Masters of IT & Project Management, Swinburne University
Speaks English, Hindi and Gujarati
And a team behind me
Ascentix has a team of specialists in development, marketing, IT and implementation. When the thing holding your business back needs building, not just planning, there is a way to get it done.
See how we help
“Strategy is rarely the constraint. Rhythm, clarity of ownership and the leader's own behaviour usually are.”
Anit Patel
Let's talk about your business
Thirty minutes, free. You tell me what is going on; I tell you honestly whether coaching is the right answer.