Sanjay Jotshi, Chief Business officer, NextWealth Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd

Sanjay Jotshi, Chief Business officer, NextWealth Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd

Sanjay is the Chief Business Officer of NextWealth Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd. Previously he worked with Experience Flow, Hewlett Packard, Avaya India, and Nortel. 

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The Brand Called You welcomes Sanjay Jotshi on the podcast today. Sanjay is the Chief Business Officer of NextWealth Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd. Previously he worked with Experience Flow, Hewlett Packard, Avaya India, and Nortel. 

In this very interesting conversation, Ashutosh and Sanjay engage in discussions about Sanjay’s career, his transition from the corporate to the social sector, small-town employment, the importance of failure, and a lot more! Sanjay’s work at NextWealth has helped thousands of people turn their life around. Sanjay believes that working with NextWealth comes very naturally to him as he resonates with the organization on a very positive level. He lists the three key milestones of his life and explains why working with the newer generations is exciting! 

Tune in for some worthwhile advice and gain a very positive perspective towards failing in life. 

About NextWealth Entrepreneurs Pvt Ltd. 

Founded about a decade ago, NextWealth is an organization that was established in order to provide employment to small & local talent across the country. To fill the employment gap in these towns, NextWealth makes it possible to bring jobs from bigger cities and countries into these smaller towns. Their vision is to generate a hundred thousand jobs which will, in turn, have a multiplier effect on millions of families! This venture has helped better the quality of life of the employees. 76% of the employees(especially women) agree that working at NextWealth has helped them boost their confidence and self-esteem! 

Profile Summary:

A senior executive with IT products, solutions, platforms, and services experience. Proven track record of starting, building, growing, and running profitable businesses (P&L, B2B, Enterprise). Strategy, Plan & Execution aimed at top and bottom-line growth.

Proficiency Highlights:

• Running Profitable Businesses: Proven track record of building, growing, and running profitable businesses (P&L, B2B, Enterprise). Strategy, Plan & Execution.
• Team Building: Passionate about building highly effective and happy teams! Believe that people are the cornerstone and basis of any business success.
•  Channel Network: Deep understanding of GTM through channel partners. Having built channel network for companies like Alteon, Nortel & Juniper in India.
• Marketing: In-depth understanding of marketing & brand building in the present digital era. Headed marketing function for Nortel & Avaya in India. Now heading marketing function in NextWealth as the CBO.
• Startup experience: Part of a dynamic start-up founding team that took an idea and made it into a product/platform. Startup experience also of opening up India operations for a US multinational company from scratch.
• Market domains: Experience across financial, government, manufacturing, IT services verticals. A particularly strong understanding of Indian healthcare vertical (especially hospitals).
• Technology Domains: Lifelong student of technology and how it is changing our lives and careers. A strong background and understanding of AI/ML, networking, telecom, communications, security, SDN, cloud & wireless technologies.

NextWealth Entrepreneurs Private Limited: Chief Business Officer – From July 2019 to present

NextWealth is a unique social entrepreneurship enterprise. Our vision is to create jobs in small towns (tier3 and 4 cities/towns) which will, in turn, create a positive impact in the lives of our associates as well as the local economy. 

There is a huge demand for talent in metro cities and the attrition is very high whereas there is an untapped talent pool available in more than 250 small towns in India. Most of these are first-time graduates with limited job opportunities who have to migrate to cities to look for job opportunities and many young graduates especially women cannot migrate to cities due to social constraints. NextWealth identified this gap in the talent demand-supply and pioneered the distributed delivery model to address this. This model involves creating a large number of small delivery centres (500-1000 people) in small towns akin to the “internet” model- as an effective model to execute the company’s vision, as opposed to a small number of large centres (8000- 10000 people) in the cities. These small-town centres are created by setting up partner companies with qualified entrepreneurs emotionally connected to, and embedded in, the local ecosystem.

Currently, NextWealth has 6 centres in Salem, Chittoor, Hubli, Bhilai, Mysore, Vellore with more than 2800 people working, out of which 60% are women.

Highlights:

• My role as a CBO is to orchestrate growth. We have already grown by 75% in FTE and 150% in revenue terms in the last 21 months despite the pandemic since I joined.
• Revamped and created a new brand and marketing strategy that supports growth and push into our target segments
• Implemented CRM and created a scalable sales process
• A big GTM push-through channel and eco-system partners. 

ExperienceFlow (yTrre Software Inc.): VP Sales & Marketing – From Jan 2014 to June 2019 (5 years and 5 months)

A very interesting SaaS start-up company that is essentially into CX (Customer Experience) and OE (Operations Excellence) enablement and focused on the healthcare domain (providers). I was brought into the company by the investors to join the founding team.

• Played a key role in “pivot” into the healthcare segment
• Was the initial interface into the healthcare provider for our start-up and have played a key role in product conception and evolution.
• Developed and articulated the value proposition. Created the sales/marketing collateral/sales content/templates etc.
• Brought in the early customers (Paying customers – India, Strong trials – SEA/US)
• Brought in key talent and partnerships for expansion into other geographies.

Hewlett Packard: Director HP Networking/ Director OEM From Nov 2011 to Dec 2013 (2years & 1 month)

Was hired to head the networking business as the Director HP Networking. Handled HP Networking business for 7 months and thereafter Cloud Sales assignment for another 3 months post-restructuring. Was made the head of the start-up OEM business in India in Dec. 2012

Highlights:

• As the head of the OEM business, overachieved the ACV target by 187%.

• Improved gross margin of the HP Networking business by 15% by improving the business and cost model.

• Set the networking business up for rapid growth by

• Cleaning up aging inventory with the channels
• Increased the emphasis on top tier SI channel
• Improving the technical and business skills of the sales team and improving the per head productivity through a training program called “HPN Pathshala”               

Avaya India (P) Ltd. – Country Director Marketing from May 2011 to Oct 2011 (6 months)

The mandate was to provide marketing leadership that would support and supplement the ambitious growth plan of Avaya in India. 

Highlights:

• Started many new initiatives like a) Consultant coverage program b) Avaya schools program c) “Gurukul” – an internal skill enhancement program

• Used Digital Marketing push for lead generation as well as brand building for Avaya India. We were the first region to use Web 2.0, SEM/SEO. 

Juniper Networks – Director Enterprise Business – Oct 2006 to Dec 2010 (4 years 2 months)

The mandate given to me was to start and grow the enterprise business for Juniper in India. Traditionally, Juniper was a service provider focused and they had a negligible presence in the enterprise segment.

Highlights:

• Grew the enterprise business from less than $0.5M to $30M in 4 years. 

• • Put a new vertical-based structure to focus solution selling into large accounts. 

• Put in place a new channel network. Established relationships with top SIs on the one hand and Tier-2 resellers and distributors on the other. With a base of 120+ channel partners, made Juniper the preferred choice of the networking SIs in India.

Did business with all the top SIs of India including HP, TCS, IBM, and Wipro.

• Grew the number of Juniper Certified engineering professionals from a negligible base to more than 20000. 

• Started and grew business in the neighboring markets of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by building a reliable channel partner base in these two countries.

Nortel Networks – VP Marketing/ Director New Initiatives/Director Channels – Sept 2000 to Sept 2006 (6 years)

I was hired as the Country Manager India for Alteon Web systems. Alteon was bought by Nortel for $7.8 B immediately after I joined and that is how I became a part of Nortel. Within Nortel, I took on various challenges and roles and grew to be the VP of marketing reporting to MD India and a dotted line to APAC marketing & PR head. In parallel and additionally, I took on two more assignments 1) Director Channels for Enterprise Business and 2) Director New Initiatives. These were short-term assignments with specific goals.

Highlights:

• • Director New Initiatives: (July 2005 to Sept. 2006)
    Orchestrated a big push into the Government & Defence segment which led to Nortel achieving a revenue volume in excess of $20M.
  • Director Channels:

• Started the Tier 2 business (SMB through smaller resellers ). Reached out to a reseller partner base of around 100 across the country. Handed this over to a dedicated team in the second year once this business achieved a critical mass of around $4M.

• • • Started Nortel partner base in SriLankan market. 

• VP Marketing: ( June 2001 to Sept 2006)

• Played the role of the prime Nortel spokesperson in India. Played a key role in ensuring net positive coverage at a very bad time for Nortel.

• Created many event properties and Nortel programs. Notable ones were “CEO Forum” for customer CXOs, “Nortel Overdrive Rewards Program” for channel partner sales teams, “Nortel Consultant program” for consultant coverage and to improve consideration rates.

• Alteon Web Systems – Country Manager India & SAARC – (Aug 2000 to June 2001)

• Launched India operations for Alteon Web systems.

• Within a period of 3 quarters captured more than 80% market share in the L4-L7 switching market in India and a strong mind share for Alteon Webswitches in the ISP, IDC space. 

• Established a strong channel partner base with partners like IBM, Wipro & HP

Wipro Infotech – Business Manager NSG (Network Solutions Group) – April 1994 to Aug 2000 (6 years 4 months)

Joined Wipro Infotech in the Networking division as a Territory Manager and was heading the business and operations of this division at the time of leaving in Aug. 2000. As business manager for the division, I was responsible for growing and running the Network Solutions Group business with P&L responsibility.

Highlights:

• Tripled the business in 3 years – from a turnover of INR 370 Million ( April-March 96-97 ) to INR 1.2 Billion ( April-March 99-00 ) 

• While doing the above, Wipro grew to no.1 position in the Network Integration market from no.3 beating the competition from Datacraft (Dimension Data) and Netsol (later IBM). We maintained number one position throughout my stint.

Godrej & Boyce – Sales Executive – Jan 1993 to March 1994 (1year 2 months)

This was the largest IT product distribution company in India. This is where I learned distribution/ channel management. We sold HP printers and were the largest HP printer sellers in the country.

Highlights:

• Achieved 130% of revenue target & 200% of margin target.

• The key to the above was to start new selling channels by selling through “Super Bazar” and “Kendriya Bhandar” which were the key suppliers to the government departments.

IXL Limited: Territory Manager – May 1990 to Jan 1993 ( 2 years 9 months)

This was a company that sold very niche communication solutions to enterprise customers. Joined as a Management Trainee and got promoted to a TM at the time of leaving.

Highlights:

• Was one of the top sales performers in the company
• Acquired many new and marquee customers for the company. IOCL, Department of Oceanography, NFL (National Fertilizers Limited) were a few of these

Education & Training:

• BE Electronics & Communication from Regional Engineering College Srinagar now called National Institute of Technology (NIT) – 1985 batch passed out in 1990 
• ISB – A short program for senior executives on Brand & Marketing
• Wipro Leadership Program – A training program for identified “fast track” leaders
• Finance for non-finance professionals – Wipro
• 6-sigma “Green Belt” – project leader for one of the initiatives at Wipro
• Advanced presentation skills – Wipro, Juniper
• Advanced interviewing skills – Wipro, Nortel
• Siebel training program on “Large Enterprise Sales” – Nortel
• “Authentic Selling” – Juniper
• “Voice of a Leader” – Leadership communication – Nortel

Interests:

• A lifelong practitioner of TM (Transcendental Meditation)

• Indian classical and devotional music

• Kashmiri music

• Reading

Others: 

Languages – Hindi, Kashmiri, Urdu, English, Punjabi

Endorsements & skills – LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjay-jotshi-7045b525/