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Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Conversation
Highlights
In this episode of Whispered Hiring, Josh Hanewinkel speaks with Sanjay Kini, Chief Customer Strategy Officer at 6sense, about scaling a customer organization from 5 to 300+ people during 6sense’s growth from $5M to $200M in revenue. Sanjay’s approach challenges conventional hiring wisdom at every turn, from giving hiring managers final authority even when other interviewers disagree, to deliberately spending more time vetting “will” than “skill” because he believes drive and curiosity matter more than current capabilities. The results speak for themselves: 40 of his 58 managers were promoted from within, creating a self-sustaining leadership pipeline that freed him to focus on strategic transformation rather than constant external recruiting.
Topics discussed:
- The “Who” framework for defining exact organizational structure and role attributes before considering candidates, eliminating the chaos of building org charts around available talent.
- Why assessing “will” (curiosity, work ethic, ability to figure things out) deserves more interview time than validating “skill,” since capability gaps close quickly when drive is present.
- The deliberate over-hiring strategy for senior leaders before immediate need, allowing them to build teams proactively as growth arrives rather than scrambling to backfill during hypergrowth phases.
- Giving hiring managers final decision authority instead of defaulting to consensus voting, creating clear accountability since they’ll be judged on results regardless of committee opinions.
- Why sales leaders require the most rigorous vetting process because they excel at interviews and know exactly what you want to hear, making data-driven validation essential.
- Avoiding public job postings for VP+ roles to eliminate the 1,000-1,500 application flood of unqualified candidates, relying instead on board networks and systematic back-channeling for vetted referrals.
- The counterintuitive reference check approach: using candidate-provided contacts not to make hiring decisions, but to extract onboarding intelligence about strengths, weaknesses, and optimal working conditions after you’ve already committed.
- How promoting 40 of 58 managers internally (37 of them women) created a leadership bench that could scale customer success operations without external dependency.
ABOUT YOUR HOST:
Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.
Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com
Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search
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