The Remarkable SaaS Podcast #142 - Nina Alag Suri, CEO of X0pa - On using technology to match people with the right jobs
This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to protect each of us from wasting our life by being trapped in the wrong job within the wrong company. My guest is Nina Alag Suri, founder and CEO of X0pa.
Nina is a geek at heart and an entrepreneur by choice. She grew up in India, close to Mumbai, the financial capital. She worked for large companies such as ICL and Steria, but was always determined to be an entrepreneur.
In 1997, she started her first company in India - in HR Consulting, which she expanded across three regions - Europe, Asia Pac, and North America.
She was voted Singapore Female Business Personality of the year, The European Consultancy of the year, European World Finance- Entrepreneur of the Year, and the list goes on.
Three years ago, she thought it was time to disrupt and pivot her own business before somebody else would disrupt it. That's how X0PA was formed. X0PA is on a mission to change the art of hiring and make sure that everybody is in the right space, in the right company, the right role in the right team.
This inspired me, and hence I invited Nina to my podcast. We explore how, even in today's highly automated world, people still get hired for the wrong reasons - and what's the cause of this. We address the complexity of the problem and that it goes far beyond just fixing inefficiencies.
We also explore the big lessons Nina learned on her entrepreneurial journey and what's required to create software products customers don't want to live without.
Here are some of her quotes:
I studied engineering started my career as a in a tech role. And I said, 'Oh, my God, this is totally not for me', people is what excited me, you know, dealing with different people, diversity of people, the you know, the different colours of people. And I wanted to be in a people business
The biggest thing that really kind of spoke to me was about the subjectivity in the in the nature of hiring, you know, we've had Industrial Revolution 1, 2, 3, 4 come and go. But hiring has still been a very, very subjective process.
It leads to human bias human errors. These biases tend to kind of screen people out, rather than screen people in.
And I thought it would be great to use technology to make something which is very objective, very fair. And most importantly, it finds the best match between employer and an employee.
You spent a fair bit of your time, in fact, the majority of your time at work. And if you are not in the right place, and the right job, you know, you're wasting your life.
By listening to this podcast, you will learn three things:
- That real value is delivered if we move from solving 'what is' to solving 'what might be'.
- How solving the recruitment problem in finding the perfect fit in relevance, future loyalty, and future performance provides an approach many software solutions could benefit from.
- Why software companies are better off when tech-entrepreneurs apply an 'all voices are heard' approach.
For more information about the guest from this week: