The 6 a.m. CFO: How FiveNines Group’s Ramnik Kapur starts her day
Welcome to The 6 a.m. CFO, where finance chiefs share how they jump-start their days and engage with the tasks that are in front of them.
Today, FiveNines Group’s CFO, Ramnik Kapur, shares her morning routine.
Be sure to check out the entire 6 a.m. CFO series, and if you’d like to be featured in a future post, please email us here.
FiveNines Group
- Data center and mission-critical infrastructure contractor
- Year founded: 2025
- Number of employees: 65
MORNING ROUTINE
Walk us through your normal workday morning routine: Despite working in the construction industry, I am definitely not a natural early riser. I’m a night owl at heart, although I’m usually up around 6:30 a.m. Much of my career has involved working across Europe, often with colleagues ahead of the U.K. time zone, so over the years I’ve learned to love mornings a little more.
My favorite time to work is still at the other end of the day, when everyone has left and things become quieter. That’s often when I do my best out-of-the-box, solution-driven thinking and look at challenges from a different perspective.
Morning beverage: Definitely a cup of tea!
Non-work-related morning activities: I try to start the day with some exercise, usually strength training on my Magic Mirror followed by a one-mile run. It clears my head, gives me some energy and, once it’s done, I feel ready to take on the day.
Can you share a recent morning where things didn’t go according to plan? It happens all the time — normally starting with a call from Gerry, our CEO. Even at 56, life continues to surprise me. I’ve learned that you can’t prepare for everything, but you can be prepared to adapt. For me, the key is staying calm, reassessing what matters most and finding a way forward.
Workday start time: I’ve never really had a defined start or finish time. I genuinely love what I do, and my work and personal life have always been quite intertwined. I don’t really see them as two separate worlds.
I think that comes from my upbringing. My parents ran their own businesses and we lived above the premises, so from a very young age we were part of it. They worked seven days a week, but somehow work, family and life all blended together.
That has stayed with me throughout my career. Work is a big part of my life, but because I enjoy it, it rarely feels like I’m waiting for the working day to start or finish.
How do you structure your first few hours after you log on at work? Monday mornings are very much about listening. I have individual Teams calls with each of my direct reports to understand what has changed, what the key issues are and where they need support.
I also catch up with Gerry before I even log on, followed by a more formal meeting on Monday afternoon where we align on the priorities for the week ahead.
I’ve learned that you often get a much better picture of what is really happening in a business by listening to the people closest to it. Once I understand that, I can work out where I need to get involved, where I can remove obstacles and where my time will add the most value.
Time you send out your first email: I honestly don’t look at the time. I’m probably a little old-fashioned in that I would much rather pick up the phone and talk to someone than have a long exchange of emails. You learn so much more from a conversation and often resolve things far more quickly. I’ll then follow up by email if something needs to be documented or actioned.
Mid-morning snack of choice: I don’t generally eat until lunchtime. However, if it’s been a particularly stressful morning, I’ve been known to escape the office for a walk and come back with a cheeky cappuccino and bacon roll! Sometimes that’s all the reset you need.
Advice for writing an effective email: Keep it short, clear, to the point and always polite. But my best advice? If something is important or complicated, pick up the phone or, even better, meet in person. A five-minute conversation will achieve far more than 20 emails.
LEADERSHIP AND INSPIRATION
Favorite quote or mantra: “There is always a solution to every problem… you just have to find it.”
That’s genuinely how I approach both business and life. I don’t like accepting that something can’t be done. There may not always be an obvious solution, and sometimes you have to look at the problem completely differently, but there is nearly always a way forward.
Favorite leadership lesson: One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that you can’t lead everyone in the same way. People are individuals they have different strengths, different motivations and different ways of working.
Some people need encouragement, some need to be challenged and others thrive when you simply give them the space and trust to get on with it. As a leader, I think your job is to understand what makes each person tick and adapt your approach to bring out the best in them.
Fairness isn’t necessarily treating everyone the same, it’s giving people what they need to succeed.
Something important to know about you that you wouldn’t know from your business bio: I absolutely love cooking and entertaining. Saturday morning is probably my favorite part of the week, the house is still quiet, everyone else is asleep, I put the music on and start cooking for whatever family and friends we’re entertaining that weekend.
For me, there’s something really special about bringing people together around a table. It’s my way of switching off.
The last job you did at your company that fell outside your traditional scope of work: I genuinely get involved in everything. In a growing business, job titles only take you so far. if something needs doing, we all get stuck in.
Recently that has included organizing conferences, building leadership programs and getting involved in PR and branding, which is particularly interesting given that creativity is definitely not my natural strength. I’m much more comfortable with a spreadsheet than choosing fonts, colors or stand designs, but I’ll still have an opinion on all of them.
How have you have learned to manage work-induced stress: Exercise every day is my first line of defense against stress. But I’ve also learned that sometimes you need to completely disconnect.
I try to take time out for once a year to a retreat where I can detox from everything — work, technology and the constant noise of everyday life. Completely switching off gives me the space to reset, regain perspective and come back with a much clearer head.
I think we’re very good at recharging our phones, but not always quite as good at remembering to recharge ourselves.
Favorite number: 42 — without question. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a must-read, and as anyone who has read it will know, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.
As a CFO, I spend my life looking for answers in numbers, so it seems particularly appropriate that the most important answer of all is 42.
Most noteworthy items in your workspace: Probably the most noteworthy thing about my workspace at home is that my desk is actually in my gym. I deliberately put it there because it gives me very few excuses not to exercise.
When the treadmill and weights are staring at you while you’re answering emails, it becomes considerably harder to pretend you didn’t have time for a workout.
Favorite phone app that is unrelated to work: Definitely Spotify. Music is a big part of my life, whether I’m exercising, driving, cooking or entertaining, there is usually something playing.
I also use music when I really need to focus. If I have something particularly intense to work through, I’ll put my headphones on, shut everything else out and get completely into the zone.
I do have one slightly annoying habit though — if I find a song I love, I can quite happily put it on repeat and listen to it over and over again. Fortunately, headphones have probably saved my family and colleagues.
Make and model of your first car: A Citroën AX. I loved it so much that we actually ended up buying two. I think that probably says everything about how attached I was to my first car.
The most important book you’ve recently read: Anything by Paulo Coelho, but particularly The Alchemist. It’s one of those books I can go back to at different stages of my life and take something different from it each time.
What stays with me most is the idea of trusting the journey, being open to opportunities and not being afraid when the path changes unexpectedly. Life rarely follows the plan you originally had for it, but sometimes the unexpected turns are the ones that take you somewhere you could never have planned.
That feels particularly relevant to me today and to the journey with FiveNines. It certainly wasn’t a chapter I could have predicted a few years ago, and there have been plenty of unexpected turns along the way. But I’m incredibly excited about what we are building and where the journey could take us next.
Perhaps that’s why The Alchemist continues to resonate with me; I’m still ambitious, still learning and still very much enjoying the adventure.
