POSITION PLACED: Managing Director (Sales)

Executive Summary

Kasenna makes it easy for broadband service providers to deliver multi-play offerings to consumers. Headquartered in Mountain View, CA, Kasenna also has an engineering centre in Bangalore, India. Kasenna’s market and customers are players in the telecommunications industry. Kasenna’s IPTV technology is not universally adopted; in fact India is one of the countries ready to adopt it. Hence, India as a market is of strategic importance to Kasenna. Kasenna required a Managing Director (Sales) – India. Kasenna’s executive sourcing requirement was not for the traditional technology- management senior executive, but for a sales person with deep understanding of and contacts in the Indian telecom market as well as in the Indian Systems Integrators space. Therefore it was imperative that we got a mature executive with solid sales experience in the region. Also, Kasenna is a start -up, and the IPTV technology nascent, therefore selling this position to candidates was going to be a challenge. AnuPartha shortlisted candidates and kicked-off the recruitment process in about two weeks and the position was closed in three months.

About Kasenna Inc.

Kasenna IPTV technology allows broadband service providers to create new business models, brand their rich media delivery, generate increased revenue and reduce subscriber churn. Kasenna is a privately held corporation. International venture capital firms Alloy Ventures, Artiman Ventures, CIR Ventures, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Entertainment Media Ventures, Entrepreneurs Fund, Key Venture Partners and U.S.

The Search Challenge - AnuPartha's Perspective

Kasenna required a Managing Director (Sales) – India. Kasenna’s executive sourcing requirement was therefore not for the traditional technology management senior executive, but for a sales person with deep understanding of and contacts in the Indian telecom market as well as in the Indian Systems Integrators space. This person would need to have the ability to sell into senior management (CXO equivalent) of large companies, as well as maintain a good working relationship internally within Kasenna; therefore, experience in working with and in US start-ups was also necessary. This search was completed within 3 months.

We have undertaken several such assignments in the past for clients like Autodesk, SAP, Informix, etc., and hence were confident of tapping into our network of seasoned business professionals in India and Asia Pacific for this position. However, this assignment was challenging because the revenues from India would eventually be a large and significant part of Kasenna’s revenues given that IPTV was catching up fast in Asia and India. Therefore it was imperative that we got a mature executive with solid sales experience in the region. Also, Kasenna is a start-up, and the IPTV technology nascent, therefore selling this position to candidates was going to be a challenge.

Client's Feedback

Patrick Burns, President and COO, Kasenna

We were referred to AnuPartha by one of our investors and initially there was scepticism over investing in a specialised search firm instead of just picking up the phone and talking to a few of our contacts in India, but once we met with Anu and understood the nature of her company’s services, the team was convinced that we needed just such a specialised agency to get the right fit for this position.

When I first met with Anu the thing that impressed me the most about her was her client list – she provided some good references and that inspired confidence. Also, I believe Anu understood the context of the position very well – the need to have the right technology vertical context, the need for a self-motivated and driven individual who could create a market for our company from scratch and the need for this person to be familiar with the US start-up culture.

We recognised the challenges of finding the right candidate for this role. Our potential customers in India are large companies like Reliance, BSNL etc. whereas Kasenna is small. Therefore, we needed a person who could build partnership with SIs like Wipro, HP and Sun in India. Also, the person had to be a good program manager besides being a sales person because new technologies typically go through a pilot phase and are then rolled out – he would need to manage that process in a fairly hands-on manner. GET followed sound processes through the search. For instance, they did a great job of qualifying candidates – there were detailed and insightful write-ups on candidate strengths and weaknesses, and even minor details like administrative management of arranging for interviews in Mumbai were taken care of very efficiently.

Also, the process was very quick — we had our first set of short-listed candidates being interviewed in two weeks from the start of the engagement.

Notably, when we interviewed candidates, we were impressed with each one of them – all were good candidates and we needed to just pick the most suitable among them. Post our decision on a candidate, Anu was closely involved in taking the recruitment to closure, including negotiating the compensation package and taking care of other administrative issues at that point.

In all, we have been extremely satisfied with the experience of working with AnuPartha and given the need would be keen to engage with them again for our senior executive needs.

Mark Gray, Chairman and CEO, Kasenna

We are very happy with the person we found for our India office and don’t think we could have found just this profile through any other means. AnuPartha’s specialised services do add value.

Feedback on Candidate

Satish Menon, CTO, Kasenna

Things have worked out great and we have Anu to thank for finding us just the right person for this position.