This month we have chosen to highlight Manoj, our practice head for mobile solutions. He is the liaison between onshore business development and offshore execution and makes sure everyone stays on track for all mobile projects. He has an interesting story to tell: read on to learn more.

What is your experience in? What brought you to V-Soft?

I got my engineering degree from the National Institute of Technology in India. It’s either the fifth or sixth ranked school in India for Engineering. Once I finished that I came to the US and did my Masters in Cincinnati. My background was pretty much in GIS, or Geographical Information Systems. Over time I became more and more involved in collaborating with IT as a lot of GIS work overlaps with IT.

I started working with Viraj, LLC in 2007. I was mostly consulting with a large appliance manufacturer. An executive there was mentoring me and pushing me more and more towards the strategic and business development side of it. I kind of became a business development consultant there. She encouraged me to take some part-time courses, so I started my part-time MBA in Minnesota. The first course was strategy consulting. I really loved it. I wound up quitting my job and opted to travel to Spain to continue my education at an international school. My class of 60 had people from 55 different countries. It was the 7^th ranked school in the world, ranked above MIT and Harvard.

After that, I started my own startup, Chauka. It’s a cricket based mobile app. I got much closer working with mobile apps, and of course how to build a company up. When Chauka started I was the only one doing everything, but slowly we got a team. I was really able to put what I learned for my MBA to practical use.

Later I sold that company and got back into contact with Viraj, which had then been sold to V-Soft. I was introduced to Purna then. I came and presented to Purna on how V-Soft could build a mobile practice. He liked it, got me in touch with Ron, we all discussed… and that’s why I’m here!

What do you consider a fulfilling work day?

It varies. So far it has varied in many different ways.

When I first started at V-Soft, we had very limited mobile resources. There were only two mobile developers working in Business Solutions and we didn’t have any billable projects yet at that time. At that point a good, fulfilling day would be getting updates from the team in the morning, preparing what they needed for the next day, and submitting a decent proposal for a client’s needs. Really, presales work. Putting in proper processes so that things can happen autonomously with little to no intervention.

Now I would say it’s different. We are defining a strategy along with our marketing and sales teams. So executing that strategy, identifying clients, and being able to sell our solutions to them as a whole. them as a whole. Positioning ourselves and branding ourselves as a unique solutions developer to work for mobile and ServiceNow verticals.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I can see us having worldwide offices with a strategic global-level position managing our verticals. The other day I saw something called a Global Strategic Director and thought, “Wow! We should have some global areas. That would be fun!” Maybe one in Israel, one somewhere else – every two months or so you can travel out of the country… that would be awesome.

What do you think is the best thing about V-Soft?

The sheer opportunity to grow. Business Solutions is just growing. There’s a tremendous opportunity to develop in this area. A lot of my friends started at phenomenal positions in all respects once they came out of their MBA programs. I took a different route and if we describe the work, they’d be like “wow, you do so much exciting stuff!” There are very many high positions around, but they could not decide what they want to do completely. Whereas here I am given the opportunity to do that. What else can I ask for?

What do you like to do in your free time?

Mostly play with my son, Agastya. If I get a chance I also play cricket, but these days it’s very limited. But generally, otherwise, I like to read history. And even if I would like to move away from it, politics is something that’s very interesting to me. These days it’s fun. I follow the presidential election, because it’s… it become so much fun. (Laughs)

I don't miss Jon Stewart as much these days as there is a comedy show put up almost daily this election cycle.

Do you have a fun fact about yourself?

I like to cook innovative stuff. For example -- these days I see it more, but when I was college I used to make ice cubes with vodka. You mix a little bit of water and freeze them really well, so that when people are drinking towards the end you don’t get watered down drink. There’s this thing that I like to make – a deep fried chili pepper. I used to make them with vodka inside them. So when people eat them it’s the spicy stuff with vodka in there. My friends told me it tastes awesome and gives an amazing kick!