Aamir Shamsi: Recipe for success

01/10/2020

Archroma’s Aamir Shamsi says great results come from strong ‘triangle partnerships’ between brand, mill and supplier.

Aamir Shamsi is head of denim and casualwear in Pakistan at chemicals group Archroma, and is based at the group’s Karachi facility. He is also a member of the Brands Studio team, which presents Archroma’s technology and products to design teams. He has a Master’s in chemistry and business administration, and has been with Archroma for 22 years.

5.30am

I wake up and go for a 5km run. I do this to stay fit and healthy, and it sets me up for the day.

7.30am

After driving to the office, I check my emails and daily schedule. I monitor the progress of sales or other projects, and inform the teams of any changes.

9.00am

A new system or technology can take up to five years to develop. If the research and development team has a new product, my team and I arrange for tests and spend the day on the mill floor. Denim is complex compared with some other textiles; the yarn is dyed, woven and made into jeans, then we evaluate the washes. We work with vertical operations so we can monitor the full chain and feed back the results to our R&D team.

11.00am

I meet with brands online as part of my Brands Studio role as part of a global team. We explain Archroma’s solutions to design teams and coordinate the work through mills in our respective countries. Sometimes the design teams can think too far ‘outside the box’ as certain things might not be possible. We educate them on the chemistry and find solutions and then they liaise with our technical teams. Increasingly though, I see brands hiring technical people for their design teams to make it easier at supplier level. We work around time differences: if a meeting is coordinated in San Francisco it can be in the middle of the night!

1.00pm

I have a coffee and take a quick break for lunch, but only eat an apple or other fruit, as I’m keen on staying healthy.

3.00pm

Time to liaise with the mills. They are often busy in the mornings, so the afternoon is a good time to present new products or to work on projects. Our recent collaboration with Soorty (see news section) was particularly pleasing because of the turnaround speed. They asked for an antiviral or antimicrobial denim at the start of the pandemic, and we were able to provide solutions quickly, alongside our partner Sanitized, because we had been working on the products for a few years.

4.00pm

Partnerships are very important. I work with some of Pakistan’s biggest denim mills and present innovations there every quarter. Recent projects include Cleaner Indigo, based on aniline-free* Pure Indigo Flow system, for US Denim; and a Diresul EarthColor co-branded project with G-Star and Artistic Milliners. I might take a flight to see mill clients, and sometimes I travel internationally to fairs or meetings. We have seen an uptick in business in the past few weeks, with the mills getting more orders from Europe, which is very encouraging.

5.00pm

I usually try to finish on time, unless there is any urgent work. I go home to spend a few hours with family and children over our evening meal. I then head out for a 25km bike ride: I set a target of 100km a week, and meeting my targets – both in my sports and at work – makes me happy!