Tinu Elenjical: delivering global IT skills in Africa

Founded in 2013 by Managing Director Tinu Elenjical, Elenjical Solutions is a financial services technology consulting firm. It is a full-service consultancy that offers clients expertise in Murex consulting, cloud and data advisory and digital and IT strategy consulting.

Of all its skills, Elenjical Solutions is particularly renowned as being specialists in the highly complex financial trading platform Murex. Tinu saw a demand for Murex skills in Africa and has now become the only Murex business partner on the continent. Murex provides financial software for trading, treasury, risk, and post-trade operations for financial markets. 

Tinu explains: “Due to our very close relationship with Murex, they have given us platforms to train and upskill our staff, as well as providing services for their international clients. It is a great platform for us to grow and we have managed to create a reputation
for ourselves such that people in the international market are starting to hear about Elenjical Solutions.”

The Elenjical Solutions difference

Tinu’s decision to start a company with the whole of Africa in mind stems from his upbringing. Born in Kenya and raised in South Africa, Tinu has witnessed the immense potential and untapped talent that Africa contains. This was his motivation to focus the company’s growth in Africa.

With a workforce of highly skilled individuals who are willing to go the extra mile for customers, Tinu has built a very stable group. That is one of the benefits of teaming up with Elenjical Solutions, as its staff won’t
leave you in the lurch.

“We have enjoyed really good staff retention with the majority of staff having been trained up by us—and staying with us. Our competitors look to hire experienced staff, and the issue with that is they tend to move around because of how liquid the market is internationally. We have a fundamentally different approach. We train South African graduates from scratch and we convert them into Murex consultants. That brings with it a sense of camaraderie, loyalty, and closeness. Those are qualities that you can’t really replicate elsewhere,” Tinu explains. “So our clients use us because we provide a stable workforce and not a continuously changing workforce.”

Success is earned

Despite Elenjical Solutions being a fairly young entity, the ethos engrained by Tinu has given rise to many successes. His strong leadership rubs off on those around him, ensuring that they put in a proper shift to bring about positive results.

One such success saw Elenjical Solutions become the ninth company in the world to move a client into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment—doing so ahead of schedule and under budget.

“It was a very successful project, as a small South African company like us was able to do something that large players internationally find quite challenging,” Tinu recalls with pride.

“We have made such a good impression in the international market that AWS themselves have recognised us as only one of three partners globally to have the capabilities of moving clients from Murex physical infrastructure into the AWS cloud environment.”

Another glowing reference from a client came in the shape of Elenjical Solutions’ work in moving a client away from the legacy LIBOR rates to the new alternate reference rates. This is a high pressure job and one that Tinu and his team took on without a second thought.

Tinu, who studied engineering at the University of Pretoria, reveals: “The client was very happy with our delivery. The team pulled together during the December holidays and we had to work throughout the holidays just to make this thing happen—which we did. The
client was appreciative of our work, and now they know that they can rely on us even in a difficult situation to deliver.” A success that Tinu is working towards is helping smaller financial institutions modernise their trading, performance and risk management capabilities. He believes that a larger technology adoption in financial services can greatly improve market efficiency.

“We want to introduce efficiencies in the market. Some of the smaller players are using outdated technology to manage their operations, performance and risk. The latest technologies would enable a more efficient working market, contribute to a reduction in costs and overheads” Tinu adds.

Learning from challenges

It would be foolhardy to think that everything Elenjical Solutions touches turns to gold. The reality is, like with any venture, challenges arise
and test the structures.

For Tinu, however, he sees every challenge as a lesson and is then able to adapt to the situation accordingly. It is a very 21st Century way of thinking, and one that is proving successful in the rapidly changing dynamic that is finance.

His first big challenge came in founding Elenjical Solutions all on his own: “As a young entrepreneur starting off and working on your own, it is quite a challenge. We didn’t have any sort of support structure in place, it was all ground-up-built networks, it was a reflection
of hard work that got us entry into the market. In the early days it was very tough to firstly attract talent and then retain talent, as nobody knows who you are.

“Then from a cash flow perspective, we had to make sacrifices. We are in a different environment today, but I am glad that we had those experiences so we could learn from them and have an appreciation for where we have come from.”

With a firm base now laid out from past lessons and a unique proposition available for clients, Elenjical Solutions can expect more growth in the coming years.

What will that growth look like? For Tinu, there is only one answer: “I would like Elenjical Solutions to become a global brand. We really want to be the Murex consulting services provider for the world. That’s where we want to go. So, if someone wants those types of skills, they know that Elenjical Solutions is there to offer it to them.”

An understanding leader with great support

Tinu describes himself as a ‘transparent leader’. His belief is that being honest, open, and straight with people produces the best results.

That leadership style is clearly working, as his current complement of 75 staff members is expected to grow to 85 in the coming months, and as mentioned before, they are all enthusiastically pushing the company forward under his guidance.

One of the key aspects to that workplace happiness is down to Tinu’s understanding that people have lives outside of work.“I understand that life happens. We are not the type of organisation that watches people. We look at output and delivery. So, if the work is done, then great, that’s what really matters. We don’t look at how much time you spend in the office and we don’t really micromanage our
people,” Tinu explains.

While he may come across as a calm character, the reality is that for all leaders, stress can be a problem. Luckily for Tinu, he has a wonderful support base at home to help him deal with the pressures of work.

“I have an extremely supportive wife. Even recently, we had a little one and, despite looking after the children and coping with stresses of her own, she remains my pillar of strength. She is also good at keeping me grounded,” Tinu laughs.

And we thank her for that, as it has allowed Tinu to build Elenjical Solutions into a force to be reckoned with, which will only strengthen the way Africa does business in the future.

Leadership magazine article