Bharet Malhotra: The ‘Geek 2 Chic’ Interview

What is your current position, and what work do you do as part of that?

Well, I currently do two things. I am VP of Sales at a local company called Cvent and been there since the beginning about 11 years ago. It was a very small group back then…maybe 10-15 of us. Now, we are about 670 employees and have five different products catering to the events and meetings industry. As VP of Sales, it’s quite simple, my teams and I are responsible for bringing in the customers and making sure they stay with us and continue to see value in our products. This is the essence of it. In addition to that, I own a restaurant/lounge in DC called Co Co. Sala. I have a great team and we all have our responsibilities cut out for us. I run the business in essence…this would entail pr, marketing, cost control, events, customer experience…best way to put it is, did the customer have a great experience and would they come back again? I gotta make sure that happens!

How did you first become interested in technology?

When and how did you become interested in Web 2.0 technologies, or are you? Always been curious about it. In college, two of my majors were biomedical and electrical engineering (third was economics). I just found technology amazing and was intrigued by it. Funny enough, I had an email address back in 1990 when I was taking math classes at a university while I was in high school…it was an all number email address. I even got into banking after college but I was much more interested in technology and my buddy called me up and there you go…Cvent here I come. Both of my businesses have almost forced me to have more of an appreciation of Web 2.0. Bottom line is that more of the power is being put in the hands of consumers and buyers, more of product development, strategy and how organizations are functioning are a result of the Web 2.0 open community. I just can’t wait to see the next generation of it. I must admit, I was somewhat late to the bandwagon BUT I have now taken it to a different level in terms of embracing it so I am hopefully making up for some of the lost time.

What has most transformed your thinking about technology in the last couple of years?

Of course, innovation is always brilliant and there are so many I don’t know much about. Let’s take the evolution of Facebook then Twitter then Foursquare…each one completed and element which the other left out. FB…I am still connecting with friends from when I was in nursery school. Twitter…more up to date than where any camera crew can be…I know what is going on anywhere in the world within a second of it happening. Foursquare…just made the world even smaller by letting me know if you are sitting in the booth opposite me at a restaurant in a different country….to put it in context, it wasn’t that long ago, we had to dial a central number to THEN be connected to an international line. Brilliant.

What does the next year or two look like for how technology and innovation will affect communications in external marketing and internal collaboration?

Honestly, one area that I feel needs to get better is mobile applications…it’s not just the actual device and the software but the entire community that needs to embrace it. I would love nothing more than to walk around with just my BB and charge my restaurant bills to it, order from a vending machine, purchase clothes at a store, have my concert ticket bar code embedded in there (already exists for airlines)…yes, we are getting there but that is going to create a whole new genre of technology and applications.

What do you like to do when you’re not working? How is running a restaurant the same / different from your “day job”?

Great question…this is one of the reasons my business partner Nisha and I started Co Co. Sala. I can’t not be busy…this seemed like a novel concept and something I would love to do. And yup, I’ll spend my time at the restaurant and meet people…and hey, Mark, this is how I met you. So certainly well worth it. I also have a love for tennis and played on the pro tour in my juniors and then after college…I still play with a few guys but need to get back out there more.

What were you doing five years ago? Would you have predicted your career path to where you are today?

Been at Cvent for almost 11 years so while at the same company, the company has evolved a lot. The restaurant was a pleasant surprise but I knew I was going to stay at Cvent…we’ve built something phenomenal and I can’t wait to see it get to the next level…part of the excitement is that my team and I are the ones that are figuring out what the next best thing is for us.

What career and life advice would you give someone with similar interests to yours who’s 25 years old?

Don’t chase money…biggest mistake one will make. You’ll always be chasing…

What do you (1) read, (2) watch on TV, (3) dream about?

1) Love reading about people’s lives and recently my sister got me onto books of how to become a better leader
2) Don’t watch movies much…love all the discovery, travel and national geographic channels and then of course the news channels
3) Believe it or not, I don’t dream…at least when I sleep and if I do, I spring up and always keep a pen and paper by my bedside so I can jot down the idea…so just the other day, I dreamt that we should have an additional feature in one of our products at Cvent…so I typed it into my BB at 4am so that I would remember to send it off to my team in the am.

Finally, what’s your personal style?

Do you mean at work, or in my closet?

Both!

Okay - In general, I’m a pretty laid back guy. There are a few things that are important to me, and my attitude is more to not sweat the little things in life. Overall, almost nothing bothers me. I have the same style at work; In the workplace, it’s great to give people the liberty to succeed, but more important is giving people the liberty to fail (and then be constructively critical) - Don’t go bananas if your team or individual makes a mistake. Correlating this to my dressing style, I’m a jeans and untucked shirt guy, which emulates my laid-back style. Of course, at a formal event, I’ll dress to the nines. I rarely wear a tux, because I enjoy wearing the traditional Indian Sherwani outfit. [Editor's note: Bharet was named one of Washingtonain magazine's "Style Setters."] So my personal attitude in life vs. dressing vs. managing pretty much correlates very nicely.