Experience

Jack of all trades, master of many!

Jack of all trades, master of none- may be an idiom predominantly used as an insult. In my case, it sure does look like, if you would have had a chance to go through my LinkedIn profile, at least on the surface level. If you have a closer look at the puzzle picture above, you’ll notice an interesting pattern.

The last piece of the puzzle is my current job with one of the top Global 500 Managed Services Provider (MSP), in Toronto, Canada. I work as marketing manager for Pythian’s Databases, Infrastructure, and ERP (SAP and Oracle) services. I develop and execute Go-To-Market (GTM) plans collaborating with the sales, business unit heads, demand generation, and the executive team.

Why do I call this the missing piece of the puzzle? I worked for Softchoice, one of the big names in North America, for reselling technology solutions. I managed marketing for the data center, data management, and analytics business unit covering eight vendors such as IBM, HPE, Dell Technologies, Lenovo, NetApp, Veeam, Veritas, and Intel. As a product and partner marketing manager, I was responsible for strategizing integrated marketing campaigns for a budget of one million dollars in total. At the same time, understand the roadmap of the partners, their broader ecosystem, and alliances to create solid messaging and lead generation campaigns.

What made me join Softchoice? I migrated to Canada in 2018 as a permanent resident through Canada’s Express Entry system for skilled workers. Before the move, I was working for Westcon-Comstor, a global technology distributor. I was part of the seven-member team at Westcon-Comstor, New Zealand, based in Auckland. My role was to build the marketing function for the AWS and other small SaaS vendor’s businesses by recruiting Value-Added Resellers (VAR) across New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and Indonesia. As I decided to relocate to Canada, I had to find another job after landing in Canada.

Within three months of moving, I was lucky to land a marketing gig with the help of a referral. It was a small IT Services/consulting company in Mississauga. This job helped me understand the Canadian tech market landscape in-depth with my first RFP win from Toronto Transit Commission for QA services.

By the way, Why did I leave India? After my post-graduation in the United Kingdom, I spent over a year working on market research projects and selling holiday rentals in Spain, Portugal, and Italy for British and Irish customers, leveraging digital marketing tactics and telemarketing. However, my passion and strengths were in the techno-business area. With the scrapping of the skilled immigration program in the UK and the middle of a recession, I decided to return to India to find my dream job. yay! (well, I’m sarcastic)

I started my first corporate sales/business development gig at MetricStream, selling Governance, Risk, and Compliance management solutions. MetricStream is a leader in GRC solutions. I covered Western Europe and the UK successfully prospecting and nurturing a lead, getting the first governance solution deal in the UK for a global multinational. However, the HQ being in the US, there wasn’t much recognition. Unfortunately, another opportunity with an Irish company falling into the US team because of the HeadQuarters issue made me lose faith in the company’s processes. 

It wasn’t long enough; there was a golden opportunity with Oracle (a dream company for many people) knocked on my door, and without any hesitation, I jumped onto it. However, the job was a contractual offer. The learnings were immense as I worked with Oracle’s Global Customer Programs team helping analyze customer feedback and generate reports for the CXO team. 

Fast forward another year; it was time to work for my dream company, IBM. Yes, you read it right! Joined IBM in 2012 as a competitive strategist and supported the Tivoli sales, product management, and product marketing teams. It was my first GTM role creating battle cards, sales enablement presentations, mapping and analyzing IBM competitors such as Dell, HP, Microsoft, VMware, etc. IBM gave me the required knowledge and experience through job rotation in multiple GTM related roles across Tivoli, Cloud and GTS units. With so much happening since my post-graduation, I realized it was time to move internationally with my corporate experience and to seek leadership roles! 

Here I am today in the Great White North, fulfilling my dream of making it significant internationally! 

I want to share my knowledge, experience, and skills to thrive in the tech channel market, focusing on marketing, sales, and business development functions. Subscribe to get the latest blog published.

If you are a newcomer to Canada and want to know more about or need help with tech careers, you can write to me at canadajobtips21@gmail.com.