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Stability doesn’t Excite Young Execs Anymore, Startups Do
Young
professionals chucking jobs at big cos to join fledgling firms
More and more young professionals, even those with a fair bit of
experience, are willing to pass up the job security of a large, established
company in favour of the thrill of innovation,senseof ownership, meaty
roles and flat structures young startups have on offer.
This explains why Bangalorebased startup Wooqer, with a turnover of only .
20 crore, already hasabunchof seniorcorporate executives, some with Ivy
League backgrounds, on its payrolls. Its business head (financial services)
Harmendra Gandhi (45) was earlier a V-P at Nomura Securities. Sarika Pandey
(38), director (customer advocacy), was an assistant V-P with Kotak Wealth
Management. Business head (retail) Nishant Malhotra (35), a graduate from
University of Pennsylvania-TheWhartonSchool,has been an investment banker.
And Karthik Kumar (35), the sales head, who is from Duke University-The
Fuqua School of Business, was earlier the head of India client solutions at
Corporate Executive Board.
“Each one of them was at a stage in their careers where they wanted to do
something more exciting, aligned with their goals of making a difference in
the way we live and work,” says Vishal Purohit, the 40-year-old CEO of
Wooqer.
Startups say experienced professionals aged 30-40 are prime poaching
targets since they are willing to take risks and have notbecometoousedtothe
perks of an established employer. Excitement Around Startups
Thirty-one-year-old Prashant Parmar took a 25% pay cut and became the first
employee of online training and professional certification courses provider
Simplilearn. The IIM-Kozhikode graduate had worked with HP before his MBA
and L&T after passing out. Parmar wanted to be part of the
decisionmaking process and knew that as a marketing manager he could not
take any such calls. “I got ESOPs and knew that they will get me more
income than salary by the larger firms. Also, the IIM tag helped because I
knew that if I failed after one year, getting a job would not be that
difficult,” says Parmar.
Simplilearn today has 400 employees; 300 are lateral hires from the
industry. The startup gives 0.25-0.5% of company stocks. About 0.25% of
company stock is now worth Rs 60 lakh, its CEO Krishna Kumar hints. “The
future of India is in its startups, and there is an excitement around
them,” says Sharad Sharma, an angel investor and the former head of Yahoo
India R&D. “Many professionals around 45 years of age have climbed the
peak of their careers in an MNC and now want to be part of another ‘S’
curve in a startup,” he adds. Sharma helped launch iSpirt, a think tank for
software product firms.
More venture capital money flowing into startups and rising valuations are
helping these companies offer both better cash compensation and more
lucrative stock options to woo young professionals.
Revant Bhate, who joined a startup after working in the banking industry
because he wanted a more hands-on role in building a firm, is another
example. Bhate gave up offers from FMCG companies and investment banks and
signed up with Sequoia-backed food chain Faaso’s instead.
Faaso’s then needed professionals, who would run a store, juggle other
functions for 3-6 months and then assume P&L responsibility of either
running 15-20 stores or opening new markets or run a function like
marketing or HR. The 30-year-old says he would have had to wait for at
least five years before he got P&L responsibility at YES Bank, his
former employer. “The Faaso’s Entrepreneur in Residence (FER) programme
conjoined both of my requirements of working in an industry I came to
admire and be part of an aggressive, nimble startup where life would be an
adventure,” says Bhate.
Many in Mumbai-based startup BookMyShow’s top brass are from established
companies. Four project managers left the startup to join larger firms such
as Accenture and Oracle, but they all came back. “One has more influence on
the projects. Time taken to start a process is 10 days compared with at
least a month in the established firms,” says Manu Rana, V-P (product) for
the company. The 40-year-old IIT-Delhi alumni had lived in the US for many
years, but wanted to work in a startup rather than join Google or Microsoft
like his friends.
“In a corporate world, young leaders tend to lose out as the pyramid tapers
at the top,” says K Sudarshan, managing partner (India & regional vice-president)-Asia,
EMA Partners International. The ambitious among them often start looking
for greater responsibilities in startups. The desire for a stable and
permanent job has also waned over the years, says Sudarshan. It also helps
that startups have been recruiting aggressively, not just at the IITs and
IIMs but other leading B-schools as well. VK Menon, senior director
(admissions & career advancement services) at ISB says interest in
startups has grown over the past three years. “Joinees are getting
extremely meaty roles, backed with plenty of authority. Their base salaries
are protected and there is a very high upside (through stock options),”
says Menon.
This year, ISB has set aside two days in its placement season exclusively
for startups. “Three years ago, hardly any of our graduates wanted to get
into startups and hardly any of these companies visited the campus either.
Last year, we had 30-plus startups; so much so, that we had an exclusive
day for them. Twenty-six students accepted these offers,” he adds.
IIM-Bangalore too had set aside a day exclusively for startups for its
executive post-graduate programme in management (the one-year MBA
programme) this February.
DEVINA
SENGUPTA & SREERADHA D BASU ET140106
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