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Sanjay Kini.
Chief Customer Strategy Officer · 6sense
I am a highly accomplished SaaS and technology leader in Pre/Post Sales with over 15 years of software and technology experience in both startup and enterprise companies. My two passions are helping grow revenue for my company and helping my customer achieve "true customer success" by making sure they use the product to its fullest to drive business results. I am currently at 6sense where I lead the Customer Success, Customer Experience, Platform Adoption and Sales Engineering team. Our vision is to build the best Customer Success org ever and customers recognize us as the company that provides the best Customer Experience they have ever gotten from a B2b company. Prior to 6sense, I was at Naehas where I led GTM for the company. Prior to Naehas, I was at Oracle where I led the B2C practice within the Oracle Marketing Cloud, helping marketers understand why the OMC has the best stack in marketing across Responsys, Blue Kai, Maxymiser and Datalogix. I helped drive tremendous growth across North America. Prior to Oracle, I was at Responsys from the early days to successful IPO to the acquisition by Oracle. I helped grow revenues from under $20M to over $200M ARR. I helped bootstrap our APAC Sales teams in Australia, New Zealand and Japan and was closely involved in 100's of closed opportunities and dozens of $1M+ ARR deals spanning multiple verticals including Retail, Travel, Finance and Technology. Prior to that I worked at a startup BuildOnline (SaaS based document management, 200 people) where I led pre and post sales for North America. BuildOnline got acquired by CTSpace and Salesforce.com. Prior to that I worked at Intellibank (20 people) where we grew the Customer footprint from 5 to 80 in under a year. Intellibank revolutionized the SaaS business by having CRM, Sales Automation, HR, Support, Proj Mgmt all under one platform. Prior to that I worked for Rational Software which was a leader in developer tools. I came in to Rational through Pure Software/Pure Atria and the company grew from 200 people to 4000 people, $80M to $800M million during my tenure. We were acquired by IBM where I spent one year.California
Guest
Sanjay Kini
Chief Customer Strategy Officer
Company:
6sense
Location:
California
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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:

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

Five takeaways from this conversation.

Actionable for Whispered Hiring marketers

  1. Assess "Will" More Than "Skill" in Your Interview Process
    Sanjay deliberately spends more time evaluating curiosity, work ethic, and the ability to figure things out than validating current capabilities. His reasoning is straightforward: capability gaps close quickly when someone has genuine drive to learn and grow. The "will" reveals whether someone can evolve into roles that don't exist yet, which matters more during hypergrowth than hiring someone who's already done the exact job.
  2. Give Hiring Managers Final Authority Instead of Defaulting to Consensus
    Rather than tallying votes from interview panels, Sanjay empowers the hiring manager to make the final call even when other interviewers disagree. The logic is simple: they own the outcome and will be judged on whether this person succeeds or fails. This creates clear accountability and eliminates the paralysis of committee-based hiring where the "safe" choice wins over the right choice.
  3. Use the "Who" Framework to Build Org Structure Before Considering Candidates
    Sanjay uses this methodology to define the exact organizational structure and role attributes before looking at any candidates. This approach eliminates the chaos of building org charts around available talent and ensures you're hiring for what the business actually needs, not just filling seats with whoever applies.
  4. Avoid Posting Senior Roles to Eliminate the Application Deluge
    For VP+ positions, Sanjay refuses to post publicly because it generates 1,000 to 1,500 applications with maybe 5 to 10 qualified candidates buried in the noise. Instead, he works board networks and does systematic back-channeling to find pre-vetted candidates. This sourcing strategy prioritizes quality over volume and significantly reduces time wasted sorting through unqualified applicants.
  5. Back-Channel References for Vetting, Use Candidate References for Onboarding Intelligence
    Sanjay flips the traditional reference check process. He uses back-channeling through his network to make the actual hiring decision, since candidate-provided references rarely give you the truth. Once he's committed to hiring someone, he then uses those candidate references to extract intelligence about strengths, weaknesses, and how to set them up for success in their first 90 days.
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