Welcome! I’m Simi Shah, and every other week, I dive deep into the journey of a South Asian trailblazer. If you enjoy this issue, please encourage your friends to subscribe and follow us.
Hot of the Pod 🎙️ Dhanusha Sivajee: Chief Marketing Officer @ Angi
In this episode, I caught up with Dhanusha Sivajee, CMO @ Angi.
Angi, previously known as Angie’s List, is an online resource for finding vetted, local home service providers. Prior to Angi, Dhanusha served as Chief Marketing Officer of The Knot, a platform providing content and services to couples planning weddings and starting their lives together. She also previously served as Chief Marketing Officer at the AOL Brand Group prior to its acquisition by Verizon.
Dhanusha got her start in the space at Bloomberg and at HBO after pursuing her MBA at Duke. And while at HBO, she was part of the efforts to launched HBO on-Demand and HBO Go. Currently, she also sits on the board of HNI, one of the world's largest office manufacturing companies. Dhanusha is originally from England where she grew up immersed in the world of small businesses run by her Sri Lankan immigrant parents. In this episode, Simi explores the impact of Dhanusha's South Asian and small business roots on her career trajectory.
Excerpts from the pod below:
When I first came across you, the thing in particular that resonated was that you grew up helping your immigrant parents run their small businesses — corner stores, dry cleaners, gas stations. How did this aspect of your upbringing impact you?
It's funny — only thinking about it now do you see the impact that it had at the time. I spent most evenings and weekends begrudgingly working for my parents at their various businesses. They came to England from Sri Lanka, fleeing a civil war. So they really had no choice — they had to put food on the table; they didn't have any formal education to speak of. So this was really their only option.
It made me who I am. I've done a lot work across typical business functions like marketing, accounting, sales. I was usually working the cash register, trying to drive the sales — asking people if they wanted the chocolate bar with the gas. I was picking up those skills without really realizing it. So for me, when I went to University, I was like, ‘Whoa, there's a career in business, I can have a corporate career doing what I've been doing my parents for the last 10 years. Sign me up.’
Angi, formerly known as Angie's List, is an online resource for finding vetted local home service providers. Major congratulations, because you were just named CMO in September. Tell me about the job.
This com[any had the two things I was looking for. First, it’s got an amazing purpose: helping people love where they live, helping pros build long lasting legacy businesses, and it's disruptive. Everyone in the building is super passionate about our mission and our purpose.
We really believe that this industry is ripe for disruption. It's largely offline right now. And we have launched a lot of services just helping people book these services with the click of a button. The company has seen triple digit growth over the last couple of years in this area. In terms of my role, I’m thinking about how I come in and add more fuel to that fire to keep the growth going. People love where they live, right? It's as if their home is a child. They talk about it that way. And so I just love thinking about what we can do to build communities around that and help people love where they live. And then as I said, on the provider side, our pros have gone through so much during the pandemic, that they've come out even stronger than before. People invested a ton in their homes during Covid, which was important for them.
But it's also about having them be able to access the teams and access the education that they need to be able to deliver on all the work that's coming in. So there's a lot to do. But as you can tell, I like being busy. I like challenges. And Angi is just ripe for growth and success, which is why I'm here.
Congratulations to these new corporate #boarddirectors: Dhanusha Sivajee (HNI Corp); Leela Srinivasan (@Upwork); Bonnie C. Lind (U.S Silica Holdings); Rona A. Fairhead (@Oracle); Beth E. Mooney (@Ford); Carla Piñeyro Sublett (American Campus Communities); Eva Manolis (@iRobot)...You sit on the Board of the HNI Corporation, one of the world's largest office furniture manufacturers. This is so different from anything else you've done, but it goes to the conversation about representation of women on boards and the necessary expertise that they bring. How did this come about?
To your point, I don't think we should ever stop thinking about what that next thing is for us. For me getting on a board was something that I started thinking about three or four years ago. My CEO and CFO at The Knot were both sitting on public company boards. And when they came back from those board meetings, they were refreshed. Their clarity of thought was much better. I think sitting on a board gives you is perspective because you're not operating in the day to day. You're able to actually use your brain and think more strategically to offer advice to management, but selfishly, what it gets you is that perspective that you can then bring back to your day job. And so in seeing that, I realized it's something I'd like to do.
I put feelers out there with some recruiting agencies. These roles don't open up very often. So I just said, ‘If something comes up and you think it's a good fit, let me know.’ It's an interesting time for marketers right now because a lot of these companies are looking for more financial or CEO types to sit on boards. But as companies increasingly have to leverage technology and e-commerce in their path forward, a lot of folks are now looking for more product and marketing executives to sit on boards.
Catch the full episode on Apple, Spotify, or on our website! Don’t forget to review us!
What we’re following 👀
📚 On Shelves
Tis the season of books galore. Check out our former guest Hitha Palepu’s, We’re Speaking. Indra Nooyi’s My Life in Full. Kal Penn’s funny-filled memoir. Annika Sharma’s romance novel. Plus, you can pre-order Payal Kadakia’s LifePass.
💸 In Business
A week of women blazing trails. Payal Kadakia’s ClassPass gets acquired. Phenomenal and LiveTinted lock arms. Tala, founded by Shivani Siroya, raises another $145 million.
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