Manish Dalal is a man on the fast corporate lane. He is the head of the Asia-Pacific region at VeriSign and is climbing the ladder at a fast clip. Known to be a very dynamic personality in the circuit, Manish does not stop to act and deliver. He is always on the move, bubbling with new ideas and is fast gaining a reputation of delivering complex projects in a clinical fashion in the internet space.
But the fact of the matter is he was not meant to be in this line, going by his pedigree. Almost all his family members have been doctors, including his parents. ?I am the only black sheep who veered into engineering,? he says in lighter vein. ?I used to watch my dad being called for service during odd hours, and I made up my mind not to become a doctor just on that account.?
Manish is presently in charge of business development, marketing and partner management activities in Asia-Pacific, and is driving operations from Bangalore. ?The world is changing by the minute and the key is to adapt,? says Manish, who believes that the best of the internet is yet to come.
Nasdaq listed VeriSign is headquartered in California and operates an array of network infrastructure, including 13 root name-servers and the generic top-level domains for .com, .net. cc, .name and .tv. It also provides a variety of security services including digital certificates. The company groups all of these functions under the banner of ?trusted Internet infrastructure? services.
?I was always clear that I wanted to come to California. That?s where the buzz was, a decade ago. The environment supported innovation and everyone was playing around with new ideas. It was a different world and I loved it.?
Prior to VeriSign, Manish was Yahoo?s senior director of mobile products for India for five years, where he helped build the mobile and broadband business. He played a variety of product and operational roles at Yahoo including mobile product management for the Indian market, launch and management of key broadband partnerships like AT&T and British Telecom in the US and development of Yahoo?s broadband strategy for the US market.
Manish started developing projects/applications long back when he was in 9th grade. His interests and passions were clearly evident even as a child. A Bachelor?s Degree holder in Computer Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology (US), Manish also boasts of a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Manish started off as a principal at strategy consulting firm Pittiglio Rabin Todd McGrath (PRTM), where he spent several years consulting to senior management in blue-chip telecom companies like Qualcomm, Cisco and Qwest. Specifically, Manish helped them improve their strategic planning processes and product innovation capabilities.
Prior to PRTM, Manish also led Motorola?s product management efforts in the cellular messaging space where he was responsible for product innovation and development in the short messaging and multimedia messaging space.
So his career has been pretty exciting throughout, with the choicest of companies to work for at the right time. He worked at Yahoo and Motorola when both the companies were doing great work, and when the inventive spirit was at an all time high. ?I was very lucky to be working at Yahoo and Motorola, during their golden period,? admits Manish.
?At Yahoo, I was handling seven large customers, which contributed to 20-25% of its revenues. I enjoyed working with Yahoo?s mobile campaign, as also Yahoo mail and messenger,? says Manish. ?But today our world is changing every day. Earlier ecommerce was energising the internet previously, socialmedia is the ?in thing? now. At VeriSign, we have been living this transformation for more than 12 years?right from the from the days of basic internet access and websites to the adolescent years of ecommerce and ebusiness to the high school years of Web 2.0, ubiquitous instant messaging, voice over IP, smart phones, RFID and broadband video delivery,? he said in a recently published note.
?Until recently, the internet has grown largely based on services designed for the IP network, and that organic growth was visible and measurable. Now, with the migration of existing infrastructures such as telephony and TV to internet protocol?services that were not originally designed to migrate to the Net?we are seeing explosive growth,? he added in the note.
Manish believes India?s internet penetration if internet is enabled with more local language content. ?Look at countries like South Korea and Japan. These countries have flourished through local language content. We have to learn a thing or two from these nations to improve our net penetration,? he says.
?In fact, I feel it?s time for us to look beyond outsourcing,? Manish signs off. ?It?s time for invention.?