Himanshu Goel, Head of Sales, Telecom, South Asia, Juniper Networks
Himanshu Goel has had an interesting 25-year-long career, serving in a variety of roles. He started his career in the 1990s, part of the core team of a cable TV company and leading it to a successful IPO. He then moved to Motorola where he managed large and strategic projects for the company. He then worked in the pre-sales and sales functions at companies like 3Com, IBM and Cisco. Having gained diverse experience, Goel started his own venture, but shelved it. “While the idea was great and could have delivered great results, it was not financially viable,” he explains. In August 2015, he joined Juniper Networks as head of sales, telecom, for South Asia. He is responsible for strategy for South Asia; sales and operations; revenue plan, profitability and market share management; and customer engagement.
Goel believes that the Indian telecom sector has had an amazing journey since it was privatised. “As a sector, we have started focusing more on enhancing the user experience. While India has had a great voice journey, having delivered a high EBITA on the back of one of the lowest ARPUs worldwide, the challenge now is to repeat this success in the data space. Moreover, operators will need to enhance the monetisation capability of the data networks that are being built at a substantial cost,” says Goel.
One of Goel’s most memorable assignments was managing a pilot HFC project for building a network to deliver voice, video and data services. “It was a first-of-its-kind project in India and resulted in immense learning for me. I realised that while one may strategise a lot sitting in an office, executing a project successfully ultimately requires thinking-through the challenges that may arise in the field,” he says.
Goel believes in fairness towards all stakeholders, including the company, the employees and partners. He is of the view that every member of the team should get an opportunity to learn, fail and learn again. He counts his ability to get into the details of a project as his biggest strength. “That has helped me jump from one function to another,” he notes. He tends to be hands-on when a problem arises, rolling up his sleeves and getting down solving it. Goel sees this as a weakness because he believes that others, too, should get an opportunity to learn and grow.
He spends his spare time on fitness, yoga, running and connecting with nature. He loves watching movies and spending time with family, which includes his mother, his wife and two kids. The family is looking forward to spending this summer in Africa.
