Scalent Systems is a software company creating breakthrough utility computing software solutions for the Fortune 1000 datacenters. The company was founded in 2002 by a team of Silicon Valley veterans and is backed by first-tier venture capital investors including Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, J K&B Capital, and Pequot Ventures.

Scalent Systems is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and has its core engineering team there. Scalent wanted to leverage India to augment their engineering resources. However, they believed that this needed to be done in a phased manner by first engaging an outsourcer, and then setting up their own engineering center once this team scaled to a group of 25 to 30 engineers. Scalent was looking to hire their own executive responsible for offshore delivery, so that strong integration with the India and US teams could be ensured from the start, even while working with the outsourcer.

Scalent required a Director, India Offshore Development.

This position presented considerable challenges - the search was for a senior manager with experience in Scalent's technology domain. The ideal candidate needed to have a thorough understanding of the software product development process and must have worked extensively with US teams in bringing products to market on-time and with high-quality.

Additionally, start-up experience was important, as also the ability to work effectively with an outsourcer.

The search was completed in forty-five days, and the candidate joined within fifty days of the start of the search.

I met with the Scalent team even while they were in the process of finalizing their offshore strategy, and as a result, was able to provide some perspectives from my offshore experience. Given the size of the team and the scope of work, it made sense for Scalent to work with a mid-sized outsourcer who could provide them the right administrative and infrastructural support. I also believed that they needed to recruit their India head on the ground in India who could manage the team within the outsourcer and be the communication link with the US team.

I am professionally satisfied with this assignment because, given the particular challenges of the profile, we found candidates with a great fit. Again, despite the challenges, the search was managed very efficiently, closing within 2 months.

Siva V. Kumar, President, Scalent Systems

I found Anu and her search caliber comparable to the best US executive recruiters who work regularly with Silicon Valley start-ups. And this is especially true in terms of her professionalism - she is responsive, structured, diligent and focused - she delivers what she promises.

And all this at start-up speed - our search concluded in forty-five days - meeting the best deadlines in the industry. She brought us a set of great candidates within a month, and closed the search way ahead of the three-month estimate to fill the slot.

For the offshore-specific executive search needs that we had, Anu was perfect. We got the professionalism and standards of the best in the business, working right here in our backyard while having total familiarity with the fast changing local Bangalore and India talent market.

This position presented unique challenges. The set of senior Indian executives having the right experiences together with the desire to work for a US start-up is not very big. Also, our requirements went well beyond that of a senior engineering hire - we needed our candidate to be able to articulate and sell our start-up's vision, given that a large part of his or her role would be to first hire, and then retain, a top-notch technical team.

An India-based recruiter could not have helped me any better than Anu did. More importantly, we just did not have the time or the resources to find and work with an Indian recruiting firm because of our start-up nature and the time zone differences.

What can I say - I didn't even have to go to India to close on an ideal hire - Anu made the trip unnecessary.

And if I'd used one of the big recruiters based in the US that have international offices - I'm not sure that the service I would have gotten as a client would have been as efficient and customized for our start-up company's needs.

If I were to summarize the benefits of working with Anu and her firm..
First, is her network, in India, as well as here in the Valley among the Indians desirous of working in India. Second, is her ability to sell my company to candidates - and make them interested in us - she must have worked especially hard on that given the general discomfort with working at start-ups after the bubble years.