Who is Kush Poonith?

Good question, thanks for asking!

Well, on my resume, it says that:

• I’m a Lawyer with over 12 years of legal practice experience, having worked at investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Barclays Capital in London.

• I have advised financial institutions and companies on how to manage compliance risks by ensuring adequate implementation of policies and procedures in line with applicable local and international regulations.

• I have extensive knowledge of Anti Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism framework, rules, and regulations.

• I have advised clients on effective fund structuring, syndicated cross border loan agreements, and asset financing.

• I worked in a legal capacity with blockchain asset companies that have set up in Mauritius.

• I am the legal counsel for the first blockchain company to be granted a Regulatory Sandbox License in Mauritius.

Having spent 16 years in London, I decided to move to Mauritius to share my experience gained abroad and help the Mauritian community and economy. I strongly believe in doing business the right way and will not compromise on integrity and honesty.

Ok great, but you ask… “Who REALLY is Kush? What’s His Story?”

I’ll tell you.

Growing up in Mauritius

My first memory is seeing the sunlight coming through the hole in the corrugated iron sheet roof of my grandma’s house and me telling her its time to wake up. Needless to say, it was not only the sunlight that came through the hole but a fair bit of rain as well on rainy days.

Money was not easy and I have grown to appreciate the value of money and not the vulgarity that it can bring in some people. On special occasions, like my birthday, my grandma would use some of her pension money to buy half a chicken. Yes, half a chicken to cook a curry as a special treat for us.

I would sometimes catch my grandma sad with tears in her eyes and I would say to her, “Don’t worry, when I grow up I will build you a house with many steps,” which for me, was equivalent to wealth at that time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to fulfill that promise as my grandma passed away while I was studying in England.

From my schooling years, I remember that my parents would rather spend money on buying me all the books and school equipment that I would need instead of buying me the cool hip trainers that most of my friends were wearing. With hindsight, I realise now that my parents saw the long term benefit of spending money on my education, the benefit of which I am reaping now. Whereas, at the time, I was in a rush to fit in with my peers.

At the age of 18, after my A-levels, I helped my dad in a business venture of his. He wanted to make cooking easy for busy people of Mauritius and he came up with the concept of making garlic and ginger paste available for consumers. He invested a lot of money and effort in his venture, but unfortunately, it didn’t take off. This was because he was too early to market (I would say about 5 years too early) and he had a poor marketing strategy. At the time, we didn’t know that the most important aspect for a startup is community engagement and buy-in.

London (UK)

I left Mauritius when I was 19 to study Law at South Bank University in London. This was the biggest challenge of my life at the time since I had to leave the comfort of home for a foreign place where I had no previous experience. However, I mentally prepared myself to be in a different environment and after the initial period of adaptation (around 3 weeks), I fully embraced my new environment and ended up loving it so much that I spent 16 years in London!

My experience gained at university and during my work in London has allowed me to adapt to new environments and become versatile and resilient.

When I finished university and before I started my barrister course (Bar Vocational Training Course), I decided to do some temp jobs to make ends meet. My first job was at a cold calling company (this is what I call them), my job was to sell wills to the older generation.

On my first day, I started at 8:30 and by 10:15 I was walking out the door asking the owner how he could sleep at night. The trigger was when a lady told me on the phone (and I’m quoting this verbatim): “I am an old person, why are you harassing me about a will? Please let me die in peace.”

That was it!!!

I needed the money, but my conviction was stronger than the monetary pull.

Back to Mauritius

As mentioned above after 16 years in London, we as a family, made a concerted decision to move to Mauritius.

To date, this has been the hardest decision and adaptation that I had to go through.

We were very settled in London with work, schooling for my daughter, as well as a good circle of friends. However, I had an opportunity to work in Mauritius as legal counsel for a bank looking after their equity trading business.

I say it was very hard because of the adaptation process which I wasn’t ready for. Being from Mauritius, I thought that I would fit back in, which was foolish of me to think that things would still be the same after 16 years.

Boy, was I wrong.

I felt like a tourist in Mauritius!

You might say, “That’s nothing to complain about, after all, Mauritius is a great holiday destination!” However, it’s one thing to holiday in one place and another thing to live and work there.

Not adapting was never an option. I uprooted my family and I HAD to make it work. (Shameless plug for my resilience again…)

Seven years later we are still here and I am glad to say, we are loving every minute of it.

What do I do at DX Team?

In a nutshell, I deal with all the regulatory intricacies.

What the hell does that mean?

Well, it means I look after all the legal and compliance matters, like making sure that the company doesn’t break any laws and that we follow the rules.

I do the same with Human Resource matters and I read and follow all the fine print in regards to company formation.

I’ve developed the resilience to deal with the endless bureaucracies of company formation, business account opening, regulatory communications, and all that “fun” stuff, so basically, I’M YOUR MAN when it comes to dealing with the bureaucracy of institutions in Mauritius!

6 Takeaways to Remember Me By.

I told you all this about me because I firmly believe all these experiences have contributed to making me who I am today.

1. I am resilient and failure in a venture doesn’t scare me.

2. What is important is my ability to learn from such failures and approach the next one with better strategies and ideas.

3. I like to engage with people and treat people fairly.

4. I am not intimidated by new challenges and unknown territories.

5. I am not scared to stand up for what I believe in and challenge the status quo.

WATCH OUT FOR MY NEXT BLOG WHERE I’LL BE TALKING ABOUT SETTING UP BUSINESSES IN MAURITIUS, IT’S A CLIFFHANGER!!!