At BrilliantRead Media, we always strive to bring some of the meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community. As part of that endeavour, this weekend we invited yet another Leader Hitesh Goel to know more about his inspiring journey. Hitesh is a Performance-driven marketing leader with 13 years of international experience across brand, campaign, and process leadership for technology firms such as Samsung, and several Series-B funded startups. Having worked in markets like USA, India, South Korea, UK, and the Middle-East, he brings a whole new perspective. Let’s learn more about his incredible journey, way forward and his advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Hitesh:
We are aware of your contributions to the marketing domain; talk us through your background and your journey, please;
My professional journey so far has helped me cross-pollinate ideas across in a wide variety of industry sectors, including energy, telecom, Edtech, cybersecurity, and consumer research.
After my MBA from Purdue University in the US, I joined the marketing strategy team at Samsung global HQ in South Korea, contributing to the growth of 4G telecom business. Thereafter, I worked with a number of Series A/B funded companies in the Silicon Valley and India, owning product launches and business growth mandates.”
Currently, I am leading the global marketing for the quantitative research business vertical of Schlesinger Group. These opportunities helped me span a wide variety of marketing domains from strategy to operations.
Please share with us a unique challenge you faced in your early career?
My first job post-MBA with Samsung put me on a challenging learning curve of culture. Working in South Korea, I had to learn the Korean language as well as become well-versed with the Korean way of life, which is very different from what we see in India and the west.
While it was tough to grab the cultural aspect, I quickly realized that people get comfortable if you come across as a familiar person. Juggling between office work and cultural learning, I spent countless after-office hours learning to communicate in Korean language, understanding cultural nuances through the knowledge of their art, entertainment, and sports.”
This level of cultural immersion not only helped me connect with people in office and social environments easily but also build a successful career at Samsung. This experience also built a good range of cultural sensitivity in me.
How did you discover your passion?
Through iterative planning intertwined with continuous shifts in execution. Over the last 20 years, I have taken up numerous projects in my areas of interest. Among those, I would simply give up on the activities I didn’t feel like pursuing the long-term.
In due course of time, these initiatives helped me identify the areas of my core passion – marketing. It was essentially about arriving at a just to explore what really resonated with my personality and life choices.
With so much going on, how do you start the day to keep your passion alive?
My internal energy drives me to do something new, every day. To build that kind of energy early in the day, I have a practice of visualizing my work outcomes and connecting them with my long-term choices.
Also, I make sure that my professional activities and behaviour are a true expression of my self. That eliminates any dissonance between who I am and what I am doing on daily basis. With that, passion just develops on its own.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Self-awareness, constant pursuit, and integrity are the three keys to success.”
On the time scale, it may take some individuals much longer to achieve their goals, but the satisfaction of making progress in the right direction is success in itself.
We know that you are continuously engaged in helping young minds achieve their goals. Why do you do that?
I am a big believer in sharing knowledge and experiences, so the next generation of individuals can make wiser choices and we continue to evolve into a better society.”
Secondly, adding value to someone’s life is immensely gratifying for me. For this reason, I keep interacting with students at business schools and junior to mid-level employees in organizations, who can benefit from the marketing knowledge I have absorbed over the years.
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career in marketing?
Look at marketing not just as a job function, but a collective domain comprising several job roles. You should be able to identify the key skills and personality traits required to succeed in brand, media, digital, influencer, product, or any other area of marketing.
Most early starters get lost among marketing verticals within first 5-7 years and find it hard to switch roles after that. Career decisions require a long view of what comes after and a good understanding of personal skills and ambitions. Make informed choices and build a professional life that empowers your lifestyle.
There is so much to be shared, but this conversation limits how much I can communicate on this platform. Students and young professionals regularly reach out to me on LinkedIn with their specific queries.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
