The mentor I met in US told me, the growth will only happen if I work hard and bring some value to the organization & customers. This gave a direction for me in the early phase of career. Built some great customer relationships, built the quality deliverables, focused on processes and lead the team with passion and empathy; which bought early success. In the second part of my corporate career; shifted the focus on growth, profitability and building great teams; which constitutes building blocks of accelerated growth.
1.Tell us about your upbringing and early career days:
I was born and raised in a small village in interior part of India; the environment gave me a true sense of freedom, opportunity to try out different things and fail. I was extremely good in academics and got much needed attention all through my education. Got out of comfort zone of home after primary school in pursuit of further education, this taught me to be independent, made me tough to face challenges and independent in managing money.
My best days are at IIT Bombay campus, in a sense these days changed my personality, by just interacting with the environment, campus and openness. My initial career was great; was mentored by best managers; had long stint in the US, which exposed me towards market needs, managing customers and elements of building the business. It was a fantastic, fast paced journey during initial part of my career.
2.How did you rise to the highest echelons in your company?
One of the mentors whom I met in US told me, the growth will only happen if I work hard and bring some value to the organization & customers. This gave a direction for me in the early phase of career. Built some great customer relationships, built the quality deliverables, focused on processes and lead the team with passion and empathy; which bought early success.
In the second part of my corporate career; shifted the focus on growth, profitability and building great teams; which constitutes building blocks of accelerated growth. At this stage, a mentor from Norway guided me towards Emphatical Leadership, which sort of became a force of my leadership style. Got an excellent opportunity to grow along with the company. I always tribute large part of my success to my mentors and team.
3.Which is one mistake you wish you did not make?
Couple of times made tactical decisions about being part of companies; which was not well thought through; learnt from that and now have more methodical approach towards decisions.
4.What does your typical day look like?
I divide my day in to three sections;
First, business growth - strategic direction towards building and scaling business, making decisions which will have strategical impact on business outcome & build these global business relationships.
Second, mentoring - spend considerable amount of time with startup entrepreneurs and learn from them, this is quite motivating and keeps me updated.
Third, spend time in building partnerships - partners constitute large part of our business success and I am always in hunt for building great partnerships. Since we have a solid team in place, my job is actually very simple.
5.What kind of a leader are you and what tips would you have for other leaders?
I am an Emphatical Leader; and I put lot of passion towards the initiatives I engage with and I look everything from that angle. This helped me to build some of the large business relationships, helped me to build great teams with whom I can go to any war and most importantly, it built a culture of belongingness in the team. Due to certain business numbers or some customer escalations I might have acted tough, but team understood that. So, my only suggestion to leaders is to combine passion and empathy and this will bring wonders to your business results.
6.How do you see the company changing in 5 to 10 years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?
The world is changing very fast; the digital adaptation is transforming how we do business. So, it is essentially becoming customer centric and we all need to evolve to positively change that customer experience journey. Also, new age technologies like AI, IOT, Digital Manufacturing and Blockchain are changing the way how we do business and presenting huge business opportunities. We need to build that ecosystem which will help our team to understand the change in business landscape, help build that innovation culture to bring differentiation to the customers and I will have to lead the change from the front.
7.Which is your favourite book and why?
It has to be Bhagavat Gita, this has really built me as a person. However, there are lot of business books which I quite liked; hard to put finger on one book in particular. I like biography of Steve Jobs to learn about his passion towards products; ‘Hit Refresh’ from Satya Nadela, to learn more about empathy, Paulo Coelho’s books for their philosophical elements, Robin Sharma’s books for motivation angle, ‘Brigital Indi’ from N. Chandrasekaran to learn about how digital will change the life. I get motivated by reading business magazines to learn more about different industries and their strategies.
- Santosh Kotnis (CEO & Managing Partner)
Santosh Kotnis is a serial entrepreneur and have co-founded technology companies, angel invested in unique business models, built/scaled-up start-ups, built a micro-VC fund, raised money, worked as Board Member, CEO and Business Unit Head and grown the global business in the span of last two decades.
Global business executive with a solid track record of IT and business management experience that involves strategic planning, operations & financial management for the business units and organizations ranging from innovative start-ups to international leading organizations. Strong change agent with focus on organizational transformation for success.
Managed a strong P&L of $25 Million while working as Offshore Business Unit head of leading Norwegian IT Services company, EVRY. After this, as CEO of a small IT services company, Santosh achieved 38% CGAR growth and expanded in to Europe and other geographies.
As CEO & Managing partner, Santosh is spearheading SpringUp Capital into a Micro-VC fund and Scale-up Accelerator. Aimed to raise $10 Million in the first round, with an average investment of up-to $500 K.
Strong accelerator program enables global technology start-ups to scale their business by providing expertise, ecosystem and capital for the growth.
- Interviewed By Pratibha Sahani
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