POSITION PLACED: VP–Engineering

Executive Summary

In this engagement, AnuPartha helped a venture-funded software start-up fill a key and strategic leadership position. As with most start-ups, its Founder CEO, Anukool Lakhina, had to simultaneously focus on many strategic issues- raising funds, building a brand presence and acquiring new customers. In addition, he had to ensure that a reliable platform was built from the existing prototype. Realizing the need to strengthen the engineering organization, Guavus approached AnuPartha to help the company hire a Vice President (VP) of Engineering. We were aware that there was no easy formula to finding someone with solid product building experience with a passion for creating and nurturing a high quality team.. Guavus’s location in Gurgaon was another challenge as it was not a product development hub unlike a Bangalore or Pune. Thus AnuPartha had to really think out of the box to come up with a winning hiring strategy.

About Guavus Incorporated

Venture-backed Guavus Incorporated, offers dynamic decision making solutions for communications service providers that help augment revenues, improve profits and expand to new markets. Guavus’ managed solutions work off a patented cross-silo streaming analytics technology platform. Founded by Anukool Lakhina, a doctorate from Boston University, Guavus operates out of India, US and France. The company has secured Series-A funding from Artiman Ventures and Soffinova Ventures.

Background

The VP–Engineering mandate posed several challenges. This business model was a little uncommon with India then, being known better as a services-led, IT-outsourcing hub. Thus, making prospective candidates understand the vision of Guavus proved to be a not-so-simple exercise. In addition, the role envisaged for the VP-Engineering was one of a technology evangelist combined with organization building. The right candidate would have solid product building experience and would display a passion for creating and nurturing a high quality team. Consequently, finding the right talent was also difficult. To make matters worse, Gurgaon, the Guavus’ headquarters, was not a product development hub, unlike Bangalore or Pune. Moreover, culturally, Gurgaon had been the destination for well-known multinational companies. As such, local candidates were brand conscious and showed little interest in working for an unknown start-up.

Guavus’ hiring mandate is a classic example of AnuPartha’s expertise in partnering start-ups in a cross-border environment. As Guavus’ founder-promoter’s Silicon Valley experience was completely different from the way Indian companies and candidates functioned, it became AnuPartha’s responsibility to bridge the “market understanding” gap.

The Search Challenge - AnuPartha's Perspective

Anu Parthasarathy, Chief Executive Officer

“It was critical to find an individual who had the right domain (networking) and functional understanding (business analytics). While this is in itself a hurdle in a small search market like Gurgaon, the bigger concern was to find someone who could build and scale up the engineering team locally. I analysed the need and concluded that we had to look for an organically-grown individual who understood the Gurgaon/Delhi hiring market and had the ability to spot and convince the right talent.

I conducted several brainstorming sessions with the leadership team to understand the work culture and hone in on the candidate profile. We contacted more than 40 candidates, short-listed around 30 and finally narrowed the selection to seven candidates. Of these, three made it to the final shortlistOur meticulous approach paid off- Jaskaran Singh Bawa, the first choice for the role accepted the offer and joined Guavus in Oct 2009. We completed the search process in a period of just 83 days despite the many constraints that we started with. Today, Jaskaran Singh is considered one of the strongest pillars of Guavus. His hiring has helped Anukool Lakhina move back to the U.S and focus on important strategic and funding issues.”

Anukool Lakhina, Founder and President, Guavus Incorporated

“The idea of Guavus as a software platform based company took shape in the mid-2000s and received venture capital backing in 2007-2008. A year later, we decided to hire a VP-Engineering. Having spent several years studying and working in the U.S., I was all at sea when I returned to establish Guavus in India. For one, the socio-economic and cultural scenario, work environment and career aspirations had changed dramatically since I left, but it was completely different from the US. I realized that it would be impossible to fill the position without a search partner who understood the Indian employment market. I am happy to acknowledge that Anu not only understood the market dynamics, but also the pros and cons of working with start-up organizations. As she had partnered U.S-based companies before, her appreciation of cross-border working styles and culture was a big asset. Guavus approached Anu with an exclusive mandate to hire VP-Engineering at a time when we were getting our vision and objective in focus.

She took the time to understand our core values. Anu did a remarkable job of dealing with the ambiguities and assimilating the job role even as it was evolving. She skilfully handled demanding stakeholders, sifted through seemingly conflicting briefs and put things in perspective. While most international search firms follow a “transactional” approach, Anu’s USP was her unique methodology of understanding candidate psychology.”

Ramesh Radhakrishnan, Partner – Artiman Ventures

“Guavus was about two and a half years old when the leadership team and the strategic investors felt that the need to hire a VP-Engineering to scale and build the delivery organization. Although Anu was acquainted with some of the partners at Artiman Ventures, we decided to approach her for the exclusive VP-Engineering search assignment after I moved from the US to India. We had a clear mandate – to hire a “hands-on”, “local” person, who was not only passionate about developing technology products, but also excited about working in a start-up environment and building an organization from scratch.

It was heartening to note that Anu’s understanding and approach were perfectly in-sync with our requirement and vision. She came with strong understanding of the business analytics space; more importantly, she went beyond the standard job description to create a job profile that had the right mix of domain experience, industry expertise and personality traits. She insisted on several detailed conversations with the stakeholders to understand the intangibles associated with the role. Anu had a well-balanced approach to the search mandate and applied multiple perspectives to position the job. She also comes with the rare understanding of the requirements of cross-border companies.”

Brian Wilcove – Partner, Technology Investments – Soffinova Ventures

“Our decision to hire a VP for theEngineering Function was based on the need to formalize our strategic and tactical processes and scale up the team in India. Being a start-up company promoted by an U.S-based Indian, we knew that the brand conscious Gurgaon market would pose several hiring challenges. Therefore, we wanted a search partner who understood technology start-ups and the dynamics of the local market. We found the perfect match in Anu Parthasarathy.

I will attribute the success of the VP-Engineering hire to Anu’s total acceptance of Guavus being a start-up, her step-by-step, process-driven work methodology and most importantly, her “what will work” approach to the hiring mandate. Her presentation of “right-fit” candidates and strong role/company briefing indicated her respect and value for stakeholders’ time. She worked hard at understanding the goals, aspirations and work culture at Guavus, which I think is the fundamental building block in the “candidate-company” marriage. I give her full credit for gauging and understanding candidates beyond their CVs. In retrospect, I feel that we would not have succeeded in accomplishing the VP-Engineering hire at such a short time with any other search firm.”

Jaskaran Singh Bawa – candidate who joined Guavus as VP-Engineering

“Anu Parthasarathy approached me through a reference for the VP-Engineering role with Guavus. I instantly took to her professional and methodical approach. Unlike other search firms, Anu was not in a hurry to provide details on the company and role. Our initial discussions were focused on understanding my career aspirations. Later, she gave me details on Guavus and the role. Her grasp of the organization, culture, plans and the requirement was impressive. Further, we also did a Strength-Weakness-Opportunities-Threat (SWOT) analysis of the role/company vis-à-vis my profile. Anu’s detailed candidate assessment is commendable. I will rate my interaction with Anu as one of the best HR discussions I have had in my career.”