Interview with Vishal Saxena, VP Global SaaS Operations at Aktana

Vidal: Today I have Vishal Saxena here with me on the show. Welcome to Managers Club, Vishal.



VISHAL: Thank you for inviting me. I’m looking forward to our discussion. It’s great to be here.



What’s your background?



Vidal: Awesome. Maybe you could start out a little bit. Tell us a little about your current role, what you do, I guess a little bit of background on yourself.



VISHAL: Sure. I’m Vice President of Global SaaS Operations at Aktana. Aktana is an AI-based platform that enables customers to make data-driven decisions. Prior to joining Aktana, I was at Opentext for two years managing the SaaS team and before that, I was at Oracle for over 10 years.



How did you get into management?



Vidal: That’s awesome. Yes, I was looking at your background. Maybe tell us a little bit more, how did you get into management? How did you break into management? What was your motivation for getting into management and leadership?



VISHAL: It may sound like a cliche. I became a manager by accident. I started as a shipping and receiving for a local system integrator and from there moved into the help desk and a couple of years later I joined a small company Brio Software again as an individual contributor, and after two years Brio was acquired by Hyperion.



VISHAL: During that integration, I was promoted to a senior manager managing a small team including the manager. A couple of years later Hyperion was acquired by Oracle and the economies of scales changed. From managing the team of 10 I was managing each team over 50 people when I joined Oracle. And that number change to over 110 by the time I left.



Vidal: How many was it by the time you left? You said it was 50 and then I went to how many?



VISHAL: About 110.



Vidal: 110, okay thank you. Sorry, go ahead.



VISHAL: No problem. It was a very global, diverse team and it was fun to be part of the team. It did bring its own challenges, but it’s the dirt that comes with the rain. I enjoy managing the team, mentoring them and learn from them.



What are the biggest challenges you face?



Vidal: Okay, that’s great. Well, since you mentioned the challenges, maybe you could talk to us. What are some of the biggest challenges you face as an engineering leader?



VISHAL: One of the biggest challenges is that many still struggle to accept change. See, change is inevitable. It’s going to happen and sometimes you need to take a step back and understand why the change occurred and try to be in the shoes of other people. But at times it’s hard to accept and I’ve been in those shoes where it was very hard for me to accept that change. But what helps is to take a step back and see from other’s perspective, I then tried to motivate myself. Once you’re able to do that, you’re able to motivate others within your team. If you don’t agree with the change don’t stick around, it’s not good for them, it’s not good for you.



Vidal: Do you have an example that comes to mind?



VISHAL: For example, since I was part of Oracle, organization changes were very often, right? And you’re moving from one org to another role or while you are being moved into the roles and at times you don’t like to be in that role, but you are moved into that role. And for example, let’s say you are managing a data center team. All of a sudden now you are moved into managing lab rather than managing the whole data center.