Amit Kaul: A Customer-Centric Technology Executive Establishing Scaling Teams & Concepts
Amit Kaul
Country Manager, India & Vice President, Engineering
with a variety of hardware components to create significant and unique products for the enterprises. Having instituted and scaled two technology centers in India for Polycom and Dialpad, and allowing teams to deliver critical products from these locations, Amit Kaul, over the past two decades has become a seasoned technology and product leader. Amit also has extensive experience in the communication and collaboration arena, spanning across everything from devices to cloud SaaS solutions. In an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights, Amit Kaul spoke about his professional journey so far, and the milestones that he has accomplished.
How would you describe your academic career at IIM Bangalore? What were the unique experiences?
My unique academic experience at IIM Bangalore can be summed up in three words: A. It was humbling to know and learn with the brightest minds in the industry B. I received a high quality education from instructors who were deeply committed to their subjects and C. Project work and case studies that demonstrate how theoretical knowledge is applied to real world challenges.
How has your experience at Dialpad been so far, and what drives you as an industry leader today?
In terms of experience and accomplish ments, my most recent time with Dialpad has been extremely beneficial. Here, I had the opportunity to grow the team from
zero to around 100 employees in India. Also given my background in the Communications and Collaboration Industry, I was allowed to oversee extremely talented product engineering teams tasked with developing and delivering critical Dialpad strategic products.
What drives me as a leader is the ability to accelerate my company's strategic vision, which is extremely important to me. In my role, I can also positively coach, lead, and inspire my team members to reach their full potential.
How would you characterize Dialpad as an organization and its market position?
Dialpad is the global leader in AI communications for business, transforming how the world works together. Dialpad customers benefit from truly unified business and customer communications, including a cloud business phone system, text and team messaging, video meetings and the world's most advanced AI Contact Center all in one beautiful app. More than 7,000 innovative brands and millions of people use Dialpad to connect their teams from anywhere.
You have been in the technology sector for over 20 years. What is the success mantra that has gotten you to where you are now?
The technologically driven world is evolving at a far faster rate than in the past. The first fundamental mantra would be to be inquisitive and to always learn from any sources you can. The world is shrinking quicker as a result of the pandemic, with teams dispersed across time zones and geographies. The second key mantra would be to cultivate relationships with stakeholders from all departments and levels. Because alignment delivers speed, leadership is the capacity to persuade and guide a group of individuals towards a common strategic objective. As a result, the third essential mantra would be to effectively and regularly communicate the team's aims and strategic initiatives. Finally, you can't manage a business without an engaged and high performing team. My final mantra would be to inspire the team to lead with thought and action, as well as to strive for greater accomplishments and goals.
What drives me as a leader is the abilityto accelerate my company's strategic vision, which is extremely important to me
What drives me as a leader is the ability to accelerate my company's strategic vision, which is extremely important to me. In my role, I can also positively coach, lead, and inspire my team members to reach their full potential.
How would you characterize Dialpad as an organization and its market position?
Dialpad is the global leader in AI communications for business, transforming how the world works together. Dialpad customers benefit from truly unified business and customer communications, including a cloud business phone system, text and team messaging, video meetings and the world's most advanced AI Contact Center all in one beautiful app. More than 7,000 innovative brands and millions of people use Dialpad to connect their teams from anywhere.
You have been in the technology sector for over 20 years. What is the success mantra that has gotten you to where you are now?
The technologically driven world is evolving at a far faster rate than in the past. The first fundamental mantra would be to be inquisitive and to always learn from any sources you can. The world is shrinking quicker as a result of the pandemic, with teams dispersed across time zones and geographies. The second key mantra would be to cultivate relationships with stakeholders from all departments and levels. Because alignment delivers speed, leadership is the capacity to persuade and guide a group of individuals towards a common strategic objective. As a result, the third essential mantra would be to effectively and regularly communicate the team's aims and strategic initiatives. Finally, you can't manage a business without an engaged and high performing team. My final mantra would be to inspire the team to lead with thought and action, as well as to strive for greater accomplishments and goals.
As the India Country Manager, how do you integrate initiatives with the company's overall goals?
Dialpad India's mission is to function as a catalyst or accelerator for the company to realize its strategic vision of being a single attractive workspace for team and customer communications for our worldwide customers.To do thiswe have four strategic pillars to begin with, establish Dialpad India as a brand that will continue to attract and hire top-tier talent. Second, cultivate a transparent and positive work culture to engage and retain personnel. Third, own the product and workstream independently which decreases the management expense of running multiple time zones teams. Finally to drive creative ideas and projects out of the India center through thought leadership at all levels.
Which of the major milestones in your professional career has given you the most satisfaction?
I'm very passionate about fostering a positive culture that is aligned to Dialpad values. Recently when we got Great Place to Work certification for Dialpad India, it served as an external validation of many small things that each one of us in this company do to build a positive culture. This milestone gave me immense pleasure and satisfaction especially in the context of remote working due to the pandemic and having more than 50% work force join us remotely, who have never met each other face to face.
As a follower of the communication industry, I've never seen the speed of cloud based communication SaaS as high as it is now. A lot of productivity tools and applications like emails, messaging, file-sharing have significantly moved to the cloud. Voice and video communication was one of the last workflows pushing slowly. Now the migration to the cloud is happening at a rapid pace. This would enable us to unlock the power of innovation faster as compared to on premises solutions.
Amit Kaul, Country Manager, India & Vice President Engineering, Dialpad
Amit graduated from BITS Pilani in 1997, giving him more than20 years of experience in the industry. He has worked with large corporations such as Intel,Cisco, Polycom, and a few smaller firms, which has given him invaluable knowledge in both operating at scale and being agile.
Dialpad India's mission is to function as a catalyst or accelerator for the company to realize its strategic vision of being a single attractive workspace for team and customer communications for our worldwide customers.To do thiswe have four strategic pillars to begin with, establish Dialpad India as a brand that will continue to attract and hire top-tier talent. Second, cultivate a transparent and positive work culture to engage and retain personnel. Third, own the product and workstream independently which decreases the management expense of running multiple time zones teams. Finally to drive creative ideas and projects out of the India center through thought leadership at all levels.
Which of the major milestones in your professional career has given you the most satisfaction?
I'm very passionate about fostering a positive culture that is aligned to Dialpad values. Recently when we got Great Place to Work certification for Dialpad India, it served as an external validation of many small things that each one of us in this company do to build a positive culture. This milestone gave me immense pleasure and satisfaction especially in the context of remote working due to the pandemic and having more than 50% work force join us remotely, who have never met each other face to face.
As a follower of the communication industry, I've never seen the speed of cloud based communication SaaS as high as it is now. A lot of productivity tools and applications like emails, messaging, file-sharing have significantly moved to the cloud. Voice and video communication was one of the last workflows pushing slowly. Now the migration to the cloud is happening at a rapid pace. This would enable us to unlock the power of innovation faster as compared to on premises solutions.
Amit Kaul, Country Manager, India & Vice President Engineering, Dialpad
Amit graduated from BITS Pilani in 1997, giving him more than20 years of experience in the industry. He has worked with large corporations such as Intel,Cisco, Polycom, and a few smaller firms, which has given him invaluable knowledge in both operating at scale and being agile.