Satish Kumar Kannan believes that working in a sales-centric  function has tremendously honed his people management skills over the years.

This, he adds, has been a useful tool, especially when it comes to consolidating Uninor’s presence in the Indian telecom market. “Setting up the entire team and launching the first greenfield project at Uninor has been an important achievement. It has been extremely exciting and challenging to drive operations and see the business grow with customer and revenue market share increasing sharply,” he elaborates.

As head of Uninor’s Hyderabad hub, Kannan has identified and is geared up to meet future challenges and targets. “The challenges before me includes managing customer life cycles by looking at each of the markets from a micro-segmented perspective as well as by customising products accordingly, establishing a robust sales and distribution model, tapping the rural market effectively, and encouraging employees to think out of the box,” he says.

To meet these challenges, he is banking on close to two decades of work experience. He has worked in a number of industries, including engineering and project management, appliances, financial services as well as telecom. He began his stint with the telecom industry in 1997 as a part of BPL Mobile’s marketing team in Maharashtra and Goa. Thereafter, he worked with several operators including Hutch, Vodafone, and Uninor.

Interestingly, in spite of spending several years in the field, Kannan was not initially drawn towards the telecom sector. “I wanted to become an economist,” he reminisces. “However, I ended up becoming an engineer and then moved to sales and marketing. At present, I am thoroughly enjoying my work in the field of corporate strategy.”

Apart from a participative and interactive style of management, he relies on sound consumer and market insight to get the job done. He says, “I thrive in challenging environments and start-ups, have always been an extremely passionate worker and do not give up on any task till it is finished.” He is equally candid about his weaknesses. “My weakness stems from my passion for work. I tend to take on too many tasks at the same time and also have a tendency to avoid taking risks, which is something I am working on,” he says. 

A Formula One enthusiast, Kannan also enjoys watching and playing cricket and table tennis. Otherwise, he likes to spend valuable time with his wife and two sons.