Architecting Dreams: a Career Journey with Sonal Puri

Sonal Puri

Sonal Puri is the Chief Executive Officer of Webscale, a startup offering a multi-cloud E-Commerce platform. Webscale is a Series C company with about 80 employees. Prior to Webscale, Sonal was the Chief Marketing Officer at Aryaka Networks and led sales, marketing and alliances there. Sonal has more than 20 years of experience with internet infrastructure in sales, marketing, business development and channels. Previously, Sonal was at Akamai Technologies, Speedera Networks (AKAM), Inktomi, CAS and Euclid.

Sonal holds a master’s degree in Building Science from the University of Southern California, and an undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Mumbai, India.

I would like to start with the very interesting fact that you began your career with a degree in architecture. Please talk to us about your journey from there to today.

My sister Kanchan and her husband were both architects and she was my inspiration. I followed her path to a graduate program in Building Science at USC, which was actually computer applications in architecture, so that was the beginning of my technology career. I worked for six months in India with a world renowned architect called Charles Correa and then came to the US, graduated and worked as an architect for two and a half months. I started a certificate program at a UCSC-extension in web application engineering while freelancing in logo, collateral and website design for a number of startups. The freelancing job gave me an opportunity to network with technology leaders from different arenas and one of the VPs of Marketing reached out to offer me a full-time role in technical marketing. That was the beginning of my startup journey.

Sonal Puri with her dad and sister

Was it easy for you to make this transition? 

I feel that career transitioning in the late nineties was much easier than it is now, especially moving into tech from any other discipline. I have to say that ignorance is a gift and keeping an open mind takes you far. If you don’t overthink it, and grab the opportunity, you get to make that transition. You get to a place where you outwork everybody around you and even if you are not the smartest, you become very valuable for the organization. I didn’t really think about the transition, but it was fun, adventurous and kept me on my toes. 

You have been serving extensively for over 20 years across various companies. How would you describe your leadership style?

Well, you should ask my colleagues that question to get the honest truth. I believe I am extremely transparent. I always joke about how I don’t have any filter between what I think,what I say and how I feel. Everybody on my team knows where they stand in the organization, what is expected from them and that they have the freedom to push back on me if they are not aligned. Mostly I am very candid and have open conversations. I am not afraid to roll up my sleeves and get work done either so it is not a corner-office type relationship, instead I am on the team, not just leading the team. 

What attributes do you seek when building a team? How do you make sure the team works well with your leadership style?

When I think about the kind of leaders that I am hiring, I hire with a belief that every one of my senior leaders and VPs should be able to replace me if the need arises. And because I am transparent about everything we do, it is a huge opportunity for them to lead at the frontline. For extended team members, when I hire, I look for loyalty and hunger. For example, I will not hire a person who has been moving companies every 6-12 months. Loyalty for me is demonstrated when you stick with an organization for at least 4-5 years through the ups and downs. Today, there are two kinds of employees: ones who stick around and others who jump towards the next shiny object. I tend to be drawn to talented people who stick around. 

Sonal Puri with her family

Did you ever find yourself hitting a wall? Were you ever in a bind? Was there a time when everyone around you told you that your idea will not work? How did you deal with it?

Over the years, I have learnt that if you are a transparent leader, then you should also be open to feedback or criticism. If four people out of five are telling me to stop and rethink a decision, then I will pause. Even if only one person is opposing the idea, I am going to take a step back and think about it. At the end, if I believe in my vision and I am confident about it, I am going to pursue it because my experience and instinct are what I bring to the business. I do understand that if the idea turns out wrong, then I take full responsibility. If the idea succeeds, the credit goes to our entire team. Someone I admire said to me when I first became CEO, that if you are right more often than you are wrong in your decision making, then you will succeed. Just make sure you have the courage to make decisions. 

Currently the world is going through a pandemic. How do you ensure efficient leadership of your company in such a crisis?

It is on me, as the CEO, to run the company, and to take good care of my customers and my employees. The decision-making for the shareholders vs stakeholders is done very differently. On any given day, you have to weigh the risk and returns. Until the government actually shut down the three cities where we had offices, I kept the offices open. There were plenty of people on my team who said that, “You should shut down the offices”, but I was clear that we were not compatible with the culture of working remotely yet and needed the time to prepare. In the meanwhile, we needed to provide 24/7 support to ecommerce companies who invested billions of dollars on the platform and were seeing unprecedented growth, and we were not built to be a 100% remote organization. I was unpopular for a certain period of time and some employees  started to talk about my flawed decision-making around employee safety. However, I took the time to get ahead of everything and got buy-in from my teams to be successful as a remote organization, tied all our tools together so when offices actually shut down a week later, we were better prepared to work remotely. I am proud to say that even though there may have been a slight drop in overall productivity, we delivered a flawless year for our customers while doubling our revenue, closing a big round of financing during the pandemic and hiring additional team members across all departments in the company.

Do you believe that your South Asian heritage has influenced your leadership style in any way? If so how?

Yes definitely. It totally relates to who we are. My Dad, being a retired army officer, had a very direct style of communication and I am just like him. I have a very direct way of saying and doing things. He is passionate about his work and his team and always spoke his mind and so do I. In recent years, I have seen an increasing number of rising South Asian leaders across various industries and organizations. For the most part, we are modest about what we do and what we bring to the table. We work hard, but we stay grounded. I try to keep my feet on the ground and that is because of my cultural background and how my parents raised us. My parents always reminded us that the only thing we really owned forever is our reputation and that has mattered to us.  

Sonal Puri’s dad

What advice would you give to young women leaders entering a male-dominated profession?

One thing that has worked for me is that I do not apologize for who I am any more. If I am traveling for a week and the kids are at home with their dad, that’s okay and does not make me a bad mother. They will be safe and won’t turn into monsters just because I am not home for that one week. I don’t feel guilty about these decisions and have deep support from my husband Gaurav. I also believe there is no weakness in getting help. If you can outsource tasks and certain home related things, like cooking and cleaning, there is no harm in giving yourself a break and relaxing in the evenings. As long as you evaluate your budget effectively and are able to afford help, invest in yourself, and in your time with your partner and your children. Give yourself a break and be kind to yourself. 

So, just to end this interview with one fun fact about you, what is that one thing you are passionate about apart from work?

I always joke about it that I have no talent whatsoever. I cannot dance, cannot sing, and don’t cook and bake. I love reading. I like to go for long walks with my husband and our dog Bella. And most importantly I love spending time with our kids just having fun with them, being goofy and keeping it simple. 

Author Bio Sonal Chandna has worked in Strategy and Operations at Pitney Bowes Inc in India for five years. Aspiring to be a digital marketing professional, she is looking forward to advancing her career with an MBA degree at CSU East Bay. Sonal is also a PADI certified scuba diver, a resilient traveler and an avid animal lover.