Renato Imeri, Business Development Director, SOL Group The third panelist was SOL Group's Business Development Director Renato Imeri, who is responsible for the company's businesses and acquisitions in India. As SOL is effectively a family business, the company looked for an equivalent family-run business in India. Imeri revealed that it has already found two and recently added a third to its acquisition portfolio. Mirchandani questioned the cultural challenges that arise when working with another partner that is not Indian. Imeri responded, "The key to a successful relationship is being open in discussions in order to build trust in the team," whilst Karnawat added, "K-Air benefited from both a western and eastern input as MATHESON was the driver in the relationship, but Japan always wanted to be involved in the business in order to understand the culture of India and its work ethic." Agarwala mentioned the challenges surrounding the bottom line and interpretation of the main financial goals in Indian JVs. He said it was of utmost importance to trust the partner and added that whilst better systems and processes have been put in place which helped Ellenbarrie Industrial Gases, the general decision process to move from a family owned or financially independent company to one with a major JV partner has tended to slow in recent years

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