My first MNC

Aventail - was the leader of SSLVPN - a remote access technology. Aventail was based in Seattle. Started operations in 97 and was acquired by Sonicwall 10years later.

Aventail interview went for a very long time - close to 2 months. They apparently looked at some 20 people and froze on 2 finalists. I was one of them. Apparently I was second and other guy took the offer but failed to join. I was offered the job and I lapped it up immediately. I was later told that he was chosen over me as the company he worked for was much bigger than Ramco and that tilted the scales in his favour. I understand he later joined Nortel.

First thing I was told while being handed over the offer letter was that I needed to be going to US, 10 days after joining to attend a kick off. I was thrilled to bits. I did not even have a passport and those days passports typically took 45 days to come. I applied in Tatkal scheme and managed to get the passport earlier than normal but failed to get my Visa on time. Thus, alas, I missed my first foreign trip.

Aventail hired me as the country manager to setup their business in India. I was the first employee and my boss was based in Singapore. As there was no SE to begin with - I picked up the tit-bits of the technology and gradually became a full fledged techno-commercial sales guy who could install and configure the appliance and the network. I enjoyed every single minute of mine at Aventail. The role was challengingly, it was with a principal (OEM), had good money and few foreign trips - what else could I have asked for coming from Ramco?

Based along with the development team - I got to work with different people like software engineers, QA folks, online support engineers etc etc. I also got to learn quite a bit of tech stuff from these guys. I was also the spokesperson for Aventail India and our agency - Mutual PR ensured that I was kept on my toes. There was press interaction every week either in form of responding to email queries or doing a interview on the phone or in person. Wow - that was superb, to see my words and photo in print and online magazines was a different high altogether.

I also got to work with channels in depth, I setup the channel for Aventail, I recruited the disti. There was quotas, sales training, tech training, demo machines, leads, joint calls and the works. I managed to get 2 to 3 small/mid size partners in each city (Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai) and 2 National partners (Wipro and HCL) and Select as Disti. I was more than successful with the channels. More than often people comment that I know the mantra to work with Channels. I guess it was the shear experience of having worked as a partner (Ramco, Bluestar) to many Principals that gave me the edge. I probably learnt from watching other Principals and their mistakes.

Aventail was a fun place - Kumar was the GM and Gokul who succeed him later, made sure there were enough fun times for the staff, there were scores of trips to resorts, out-station trips, plenty of goodies. It was great fun to be part of such a wonderful team. I rate this job, office and boss as the best ever till date. Aventail was very employee friendly.

My first year in Aventail - I worked from office almost every day, second year onwards - I started working from home and that was another high point. There was complete freedom, no one was bothered as to where I am or what I am doing, no policing at all. I enjoyed that freedom. I would be available on email and phone 24*7. I would respond to people very fast and my behavior and responses were predictable. Channel partners would call me from customers land line and put me on the conf-calls to handle any objections - sales or technical. I would always oblige and never show attitude. The channel just loved me. I am very proud of this.

Aventail tenure was loaded with several foreign trips, I have enjoyed all those trips. To top it Aventail paid us extra 50USD per day as per diem. This was outside the hotel bill. That meant each trip was an opportunity to save some money and then blow it. I loved this throughly.

I won more customers than most people anticipated I would. Though I had many orders, the discounting was always the contentious issues with US. Nevertheless a customer is a customer. I was very proud of the customer list. Wipro was the biggest win, iGate, Iflex, Bank of Baroda, ING were the other big wins and first one being Marico. Competition was steep, Portwise rogered us in many places, Juniper was another scary competition.

Net net - It was a dream job. I wish I get to do similar kind of jobs sometime in the future again and again. I miss my Aventail days.

My Boss: Mike for some time and then Richard. Both were wonderful people. Mike was senior person and had wonderful judgment. Richard was sales + technical package - very similar to me, I could connect well with him. He again had tremendous confidence in me and completely trusted my judgment. I wish I could work with people like this for the rest of my life.

All good things have to come to end, the party was over after 3 years - when Sonicwall acquired Aventail. My new boss - Biswas was the Sonicwall Country Manager. I went to US for the orientation and there I was told that I will have to work as an Account Manager for 100 identified accounts and achieve a quota from these accounts. I did not like the role. I decided to quit and started looking around.

July 07 - was the last month in Aventail. visited SL for a conf, US for orientation, KL for a Sonicwall event. These trips were interspersed with my interview in SUN. I got the job at SUN and put my papers after receving that month's salary.

Retro Look: Dream job, Great place and great people, flip side - small and unknown brand. Wish I could have worked there for ever!