About
About Anant
A top-performing Technology Executive and President with ten
years of experience as an accomplished business leader
directing go-to-market, finance, customer operations, product,
and growth strategy for SaaS focused product technology
organizations.
At Pipefy, I collaborated with the leadership team to
successfully position the company as a leader in the Low Code
Application Platform space with Gartner and Forrester. During
my time at Lastline, acquired by VMware, I worked with the
founder and product team to drive an effective GTM strategy
for two new high-value Cyber solution products. At Wrike, I
forged a modernization of the SalesOps and Finance Technology
product stack that helped scale the Project Management SaaS
business and accelerate revenue growth beyond executive
leadership’s original expectations.
During my career, I have been actively recruited by investors
to provide the transformational leadership to build revenue,
open new international markets, optimize financial
performance, build partnerships, and develop high-performance
teams that unlock the value of companies.
I’m an active Board Member, C-Level Advisor, Published Author,
and frequently requested speaker at Industry Conferences.
About Altium
Altium LLC (ASX:ALU), a global software company based in San
Diego, California, is accelerating the pace of innovation
through electronics. From individual inventors to
multinational corporations, more PCB designers and engineers
choose Altium software to design and realize electronics-based
products.
The growing demand for smart and connected products is driving
advancements in electronics technology. Design trends are
demonstrating the need for minimizing power, reducing package
size and energy consumption, and prioritizing high-speed
design. For over 30 years, Altium has been delivering software
that maximizes the productivity of PCB designers and
electrical engineers, from idea...
to board. Users are at the center of Altium’s R&D and
business operations. With its unique Business-to-User
approach, Altium is focused on developing software that is
easy to use and implement, with solutions that enable
innovation and deliver industry-leading user
productivity.
Products include Altium Designer®, Altium 365®,
CircuitMaker®, CircuitStudio®, Octopart®, and TASKING®. To
learn more about Altium, visit www.altium.com.
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Show Notes
Show Notes
Our special guest for the show today is Ananth Avva - the
Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Platform at
Altium, a global leader in PCB design software.
Ananth is a top-performing business and finance executive with
over a decade of experience leading SaaS-focused product
technology companies as Chief Financial Officer and Chief
Operating Officer. His career is a testament to his leadership
and strategic prowess.
He has been instrumental in positioning companies as leaders
in their respective spaces, such as Wrike in project
management, Lastline in the cybersecurity space and Pipefy in
the Low Code Application Platform sector.
Ananth is also a mentor and advisor to other startups, a
published author, a frequently requested speaker at industry
conferences, and a transformational leader who has been
actively recruited by PE and VC investors to build revenue,
open new international markets, optimize financial
performance, build partnerships, and develop high-performance
teams.
One of his personal projects is MartialMe, a unique platform
that utilizes computer vision...
pose-detection AI to teach martial arts.
With a vast array of strengths, from executive leadership,
strategic analysis, operations management, to product
lifecycle, financial management, and technology
transformation, Ananth brings a wealth of knowledge and
experience to the table.
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Quotes
Quotes
“Learn the business. Like you should actually understand the
business.”
“If you're going to go into a boardroom and the number of
board members outnumber the management team, you kind of know
you're in trouble.”
“(In) Finance, you have the luxury of planning… But the second
you start going into go-to-market, it’s chaos.”
“If you have a lot of change combined with a lot of signal
coming in from customers, your best defense mechanism,
especially if you're in the software side is product.”
“The gold standard for a CFO is someone who can take company
public.”
“The role of the CFO shifted drastically to be this growth
agent. And so, if you are supposed to quote unquote,
articulate the business model and really validate a business
model that's going to get us the best shareholder value, the
best way to do that is through growth.”
“I really enjoyed the storytelling because there was a lot of
feedback that you would get on the metric, but you also got a
lot of feedback on the business and the downside risk or the
upside risk that you’d have to manage.”
“(Business roles) brings you much closer to the customer. And
I think there's a people aspect, which is, just because of the
nature of your role, you have to spend a lot more time with
product, customer success, marketing, sales, and finance,
right? So I think the whole notion of sort of company building
or nation building, where you have a lot of stakeholders, a
lot of different views, comes through very strongly in these
roles versus the classic sort of divisional role.”
“Most people are good corporate ...citizens and if they know that (full context), then they
will hustle to do it.”
“What are the strengths that the founder/ CEO had, and what
do I need to do to compliment it?”
“I'm shocked at how little diligence CFOs do before they get
into the company. You have every right to go very deep.”
“My wife tells me I don't save lives. So she just says,
you're not that important. Your job is not that important.
No one's going to die. Just go in, think about it, fix it,
and move on.”
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