[Q&A: Beam Suntory CEO rides whiskey boom at home and abroad ], [Q&A: FCB Chicago ad agency CEO says big ideas still work on little screens ], [Q&A: Shinola looks to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and stakes a claim in Chicago ]. Theres not always just one decisionmaker in such a large company, especially when we rely on them as our go-to-market partner. We provide the technology that helps customers take their products and services to the marketplace. Sanjay Shah: Of course, at General Motors, we were one of the first companies to use whats called MRP, material requirements planning. I was fascinated and intrigued by the software. Alejandro: All right, Sanjay. How was the growth of revenue overtime during those years? The buildings were constructed and remain owned by a Turkish company, but Trump licensed his name to the project and continues to derive significant revenue from fees for the use if his name. Sanjay Shah (born September 11, 1970 in London) is a Dubai-based British businessman. Thats how I was able to bootstrap. : Yes. Sanjay Shah is a tech entrepreneur, Founder, CEO & Chief Architect of Vistex, making sure it all adds up for our customers. And overnight, they literally go belly-up. A dark tale about the nature of stories themselves. For more than 20 years, Sanjay Shah has led the company, a pioneer in transforming how organizations take their products and services to the marketplace through trade, channel and vendor programs, pricing, performance incentives and rights & royalties. What attracted you to it? We have a relatively flat organization. You need a lot of focus and dedication and a lot of persistence. In the 1980s and 1990s, he teamed up with Asrani and Kader Khan as the comical team in over 100 films. That has been the biggest bump. Customers are getting smarter, especially in enterprise software, which is where we play. As I said, I was living in a bit of a bubble. According to Dubai Police, British national Shah was arrested in. I think getting the firsthand experience was critical. : Correct. You cant just shove things down their throat and hope that they use it. So something struck me and I said, Well, I cant do it here. Sanjay Shah: It wasnt the money or the capital. : I think the next thing Ive learned is always to learn to learn. Earlier on, I thought I knew how everything was supposed to work, and I had the recipe and the solutions to all of the companys problems. : Its a massive organization. There are so many different stakeholders. The privately held company's annual revenue totals $220 million, according to Shah, who is perhaps better known for his 2014 purchase of the $17 million, 14,000-square-foot penthouse atop the Trump International Hotel and Tower. They were raised here. So in your case and in your journey because in entrepreneurship, theres no such thing as a straight line. You and your wife are aligned. In addition to just my personal beliefs, it also affects (Vistex). I actually presented a couple of ideas to my development management and said that we should enhance SAP to perform these functions, at which point they said, Yeah. What did you experience? Fortunately, I had a view from the inside as well, having been one of the earliest employees of SAP. What kind of marketing do you need to be able to sell effectively? So accounting runs in our blood. You have these ideas and visions of growth, and then there is reality unless youre exceptionally fortunate. Sanjay Shah: I would love to say that I came up with this fantastic idea, and I had this great vision, and so on, but the reality is that I was a company loyalist. Q&A: Beam Suntory CEO rides whiskey boom at home and abroad , Q&A: FCB Chicago ad agency CEO says big ideas still work on little screens , Q&A: Shinola looks to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and stakes a claim in Chicago . A: Yes, but Chicago is my favorite city in the world and it will always be. So accounting runs in our blood. Alejandro: Wow! : In this case, you guys were bootstrapping. Sanjay Shah Vistex is the biggest Chicago-area software company you've likely never heard of. The Founder, CEO and Chief Architect of enterprise software company Vistex, Sanjay Shah is a global businessman who has bootstrapped the company from its conception to its current role as a vital partner to worldwide titans like Apple, Walmart, 3M, Turner, Dell and Bayer. What was going on through your mind? They try to go after high-potential, high-growth, the mature organizations, and we fit the bill on that front. Thats when I decided to expand the hiring for the organization. 1. Sanjay Shah is a Dubai-based British-Indian businessman and suspected tax fraudster.He founded Solo Capital, a hedge fund firm which closed in 2016, and the NGO Autism Rocks, which closed in 2020.. Shah is a prime suspect in a case regarding the Danish Government being allegedly defrauded of 12.7 billion DKK for (1.65 billion euros) between 2012 and 2015, part of the CumEx-Files involving . Then from what I hear, it seems it was more you build it; you build something great and something that people would like to use, and then theyre going to come. "We are delighted to welcome the highly talented team to Vistex, and to bring their intellectual property into our portfolio," said Sanjay Shah, Vistex Founder and CEO. Sanjay Shah, the unemployed trader who's now worth $700 million but is wanted for 'fraud' Sanjay Shah and Solo Capital Partners LLP are central figures in the Danish Cum-Ex scandal that helped investors to rapidly sell shares and claim multiple refunds on dividend taxes. You have these ideas and visions of growth, and then there is reality unless youre exceptionally fortunate. And overnight, they literally go belly-up. Perhaps it should be neither, and I should do what Sanjay said would work better. Sanjay Shah: We have three distinct revenue streams. We kicked things off about a month ago. I got an MBA in finance. Were going to be learning a lot about building, scaling companies, and also about financing and then venture capitalist versus private equity firms, and also about building super-strategic relationships with larger players. They might not have been born here, but they were raised here and they are very productive. But there are a lot of players out there. We were looking for a partner that has the chops, that has the history and the stripes to help us with our cloud journey. In my early days, I used to be confused. We were able to get into new industries and even upsell to our existing customers. We felt that we needed to bring in some external expertise to help us grow the subscription part of our business. Under Sanjay's leadership, Vistex has grown into a global organization dedicated to transforming how businesses across multiple industries bring their products and services to market by taking control of mission-critical Who are you going to accept (as customers)? Then PricewaterhouseCoopers. Sanjay Shah is a tech entrepreneur, Founder, CEO & Chief Architect of Vistex, making sure it all adds up for our customers. He funnelled his wealth into property across London, Hong Kong, Dubai and Tokyo, Shah said, amassing a portfolio that he put at about 70 million pounds. Sanjay Shah: Yeah. Today, we have someone that has done something remarkable, which is bootstrapping from nothing to 250 million. What was the next thing that youve learned? I wanted to get some operational experience and work on the operational side of things, operation supply chain, different terms. Its long. If you engineer good products and show value, then customers will come your way. Click Here For Sanjay D Shah's Last Known Address 7 Cutters Run, South Barrington, IL 60010 1106 Kingston Ct, Glendale Heights, IL 60139 744 W Bristol St, Elkhart, IN 46514. : Of course, at General Motors, we were one of the first companies to use whats called MRP, material requirements planning. The first type of software in supply chain that was the first of its kind back then. Sanjay Shah: What have I learned about myself? The company was bootstrapped to $250 million in revenue without outside investment. PHOTO VIA VISTEX. Alejandro: Of course. The companies'. There is so much out there, and there is so much you can I think you can never rest easy and say, I think Ive learned what I need to learn to be able to be successful. You always have to have a continuous learning mindset. That was a very marketable resource. : Sanjay, in terms of the early employees that you got, those were engineers, or what were some of these people because you were saying that this was . Indeed. Exactly, especially if you intend to bootstrap, I think you have to have a good accounting streak in you. New video: https://vistex.link/2EQs - SAP's Tom Roberts and Vistex Inc CEO & Founder, Sanjay Shah, discuss today's announcement that #SAP has made a strategic investment in Vistex. I am a fervent believer in skills-based immigration. Maybe I should trust A more than B, so I should do what A said. No. Alejandro: So for the people that are listening . As I have grown both personally and professionally, there are a couple of important lessons. Thank you, Alejandro. Alejandro: Why did you go about bootstrapping rather than perhaps taking a look at financing the operation? They want to outsource everything and just consume a service. Our customers tend to be larger companies, so perhaps we sold to one division, and then another division comes across, another geography for the company comes along. Interesting. Shah bought the 14,000-square-foot penthouse for. Yes, he owns a business software company, Vistex Inc ., which is estimated to be approaching $200 million in annual revenue. We dont have venture funding or angel funding to go launch ourselves in a big fashion to let the world know that were out there. Sanjay Shah: What happened after that was because I was a very marketable resource at SAP, I helped start what is called the highest echelon of professional services at SAP. It was a German software company that had been around for 20 years already by the time they came to North America. Some of it was just this level of fierce independence we wanted to have that I think we can pull this off because what we did during the day was highly marketable. Facebook gives people the power to. But even despite that, there are enough challenges when youre working with an organization the size of SAP. So General Motors in Canada was willing to wager a bet on me. You cant just shove things down their throat and hope that they use it. Alejandro: Thats interesting because you have, obviously, the school of thought of you sell it, and then you figure out how to build it and deliver. My Name is sanjay shah. Interesting. So quite an accomplishment. The Vistex management team includes Sanjay Shah (Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Architect), Christopher Cutro (Senior Vice President of Marketing and Customer Success), and Arun Roy (Chief Financial Officer) . Alejandro: Really interesting here. Shah continues to lead the organization that helps global titans such as Apple, Walmart, 3M, Viacom, Intel, and Bayer improve revenue and margins. Alejandro: Very cool. 2458 Likes 111 Comments - University of South Carolina uofsc on. Sanjay Shah: Yeah. Exactly, especially if you intend to bootstrap, I think you have to have a good accounting streak in you. Is that right? I thought, Wow. I did not know there are a few folks that work at Vistex (who) are affected by this directly. I would like to describe it as a bit chaotic, but a very functional democracy. So I decided to explore. They try to go after high-potential, high-growth, the mature organizations, and we fit the bill on that front. So what kind of challenges were you guys dealing with? Constituency allowance Rs 18,000. If youd like to do it, you can do it, but our R&D is in Germany, and youll have to do it here. And I wanted to move back to the U.S. My family wanted to move back to the U.S. Are you on Twitter or any other platforms? Shah's $5 million gift will name the new Vistex Institute for Executive Learning and Research. I was changing my disciplines significantly. Per month for his designation as The Chief Minister of Delhi. London's High Court had previously dismissed a claim by Skat, Denmark's tax authority, to hear the case in the UK on the grounds it was . Alejandro: Sanjay, what is the way that you guys make money with this? Punjab National Bank. I was one of the spearheads of that. And you need professional sales help. Happy to be here. For the people that are listening, Sanjay, what is the best way for them to reach out and say hi? Theyre very skilled these days in terms of how they decide what to buy. Alejandro: And in terms of enterprise sales, Sanjay, that you were eluding to, what are your biggest takeaways from enterprise sales because its a beast. Not funding for everything, but it was an atypical path. You hear all these nightmare stories of startups that are doing very well, but theyre not able to project or manage the cash flows and their budgets accordingly. I think sometimes, even when entrepreneurs reach a certain level of success, they feel that theyve mastered their domain, or they know what they need to do. Alejandro: What have you learned about growth, Sanjay? Sanjay Shah '89 MBA, tech entrepreneur, founder and CEO of enterprise software company Vistex will be featured at the 14th lecture in the Donald M. Gruhn '49 Distinguished Finance Speaker Series. Software maker Vistex announced it has raised $65 million in funding from Accel-KKR, a private equity firm based in Silicon Valley. Listen to what everybody has to say. So weve been able to constantly grow, not just for a product footprint, but also our customer footprint as we continue to invest. : Yes. There are so many constituencies both from a product standpoint, from a technology standpoint, and from a go-to-market standpoint. We didnt have any salespeople on board, so we were engineers doing all of the selling ourselves. Alejandro: So originally, Sanjay, you were born in Mumbai, India. There are plenty of examples where skills-based immigration has done wonders for this country. : Did you recruit other people like talking of bootstrapping and especially in the early days, who were the initial people you got around you to help you out? We were lucky that in our initial years, our go-to-market partner was SAP, and enterprise software was virtually nascent, and SAP was selling hand over fist. So General Motors in Canada was willing to wager a bet on me. An entrepreneur cant say, Yeah, Im also on a double-duty and be able to sell into the enterprise. : Got it. Is that right? If you want me to do your fundraising for you, click here. We are trying to develop what I call a hybrid model. Just navigating the politics and creating and developing the value, etc. When we say we listen, listening not just to our employees who are the closest to our customers and have the best product ideas, but also to our customers. But you should seek input and feedback from everybody. So in your case and in your journey because in entrepreneurship, theres no such thing as a straight line. Then that gave me the funding I needed to do what I wanted to do. And I joined in an analyst position, which meant I was able to get close to the shop floor. Start Free People Search A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Directory of Profiled Business People: Sanjay Shah Sgrignuoli, Philip - Shahait, Mohammed > Shah, Ruskinarxon - Shah, Sayad > Shah, Sanit - Shah, Sanjaykumar > Shah, Sanjay 1-25 of 525 Contacts 1 Q: Why would you spend so much money on a penthouse? : Thats a good question. : Wonderful. A:While I'm all for folks working these jobs, where otherwise those jobs would not be done, the question is, are those people then contributing their fair share to the economy in terms of taxes? Then to ensure that they continue to receive value as they expand their portfolio of products. I decided to come 10,000 miles away to go to business school. Then PricewaterhouseCoopers. What worked for one person may not necessarily work for you. When I decided to sever my ties with SAP, my wife was six-months pregnant with our second child. Vistex is the established industry leader with nearly $250 million in revenue in 2018, and despite two recessions, has expanded its operations globally and its portfolio across 14 industries. Sanjay Shah: I think the advice I would give to my younger self is, dont follow any advice. Alejandro Cremades leads the vision and execution for Panthera Advisors as its Co-Founder and. : We have a very demographic process. I did have a word with her, and she thought Id lost my mind because as you can imagine, being one of the first employees of SAP, I had a very good package with them including some stupendous stock options, which I would have to get rid of or liquidate. Shah noted that only a handful of SAP's 20,000 partners achieve Solution Extensions status. Especially, the larger the organization that you sell to, the more durable and the more persistent you need to be. Kapoor was a contestant in the Indian reality show 'Bigg Boss' in 2011. Thats what helped us make the call with the partner we chose. To this day, continue not to be addressed adequately in the ERP System. Alejandro: There are a lot of people that are on the line that are thinking about venture capital, and angels, and private equity. Then that gave me the funding I needed to do what I wanted to do. So then what happens after you make the decision. Thats how I was able to bootstrap. : So, she was a little consumed. I was fascinated and intrigued by the software. Fortunately, I had a view from the inside as well, having been one of the earliest employees of SAP. As I said, I was living in a bit of a bubble. Then we also have professional services to implement our software. Alejandro: Got it. How are you going to price it? : What have I learned about myself? : Yeah. SAP was then making a foray into the U.S., into North America. Thats when I decided to expand the hiring for the organization. Everybodys journey is unique, and everybodys circumstances are unique. I believe that if you engineer great product, and then dovetail or piggyback on top of a huge, successful go-to-market organization like SAP has globally, then that would be the recipe for success. Thats right. Brazil, South Africa, all countries in Western Europe, Asia, etc. What is private equity? Sanjay brings a high level of passion, energy and skills to address complex business processes for global organizations. Vistex founder Sanjay Shah talks about his love of flying, how work got in the way, and how he hopes to dust off his wings. You need a lot of patience as well when youre selling into the enterprise. Listen to what everybody has to say. Perhaps it should be neither, and I should do what Sanjay said would work better. Would you mind expanding a bit more on that, Sanjay? It turns out that it was a great time to liquidate my stock options because I did that in 99, just before the big crash following. Sanjay Shah, welcome to the DealMakers show today. Person A said I should do this, and Person B said I should do this. Alejandro: So here you are in 1999. So something struck me and I said, Well, I cant do it here. Sanjay Shah Friday June 3 2022 Edit Shah charged that its steering is in the hands of AIMIM leader Asaduddin. Sanjay Shah MD is a pain management physician at SEPA Pain Spine in Horsham Langhorne and Chalfont Pennsylvania. Thats right. I didnt want to give up much equity. Then the logical progression was to work in accounting. : What have you learned about growth, Sanjay? Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. They were engineers. All of my family and extended family lived in a one-mile radius. What kind of teams do you need? Alejandro: You scaled this up to 250 million before you accepted external financing, so how was that process? How was life there? : Then after this, you join probably one of the companies that has had the major and probably the biggest impact on you as an employee and also as a founder SAP. Thats the degree I had. Employees at Boomerang Commerce rate Guru Hariharan higher than employees at Vistex, Inc. rate Sanjay Shah I said to myself, If I work the first shift selling my services, then Ill be able to use that funding to develop what I need to develop on the second and third shift. Alejandro: Even though you didnt want to be a professional accountant, Im sure that having a good grasp on the numbers has made a difference for you. Sanjay Shah: I think the next thing Ive learned is always to learn to learn. Alejandro: How big was the business when you joined them? Sanjay Shah, of South Barrington, is the founder and CEO of Vistex, a software company based in Hoffman Estates. : Now, you have them as a strategic partner, so obviously, the relationship is there. Sanjay Shah: Absolutely. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. He has founded Solo Capital, a hedge fund firm which closed in 2016, and Autism Rocks, a charitable organization that raises awareness for autism. Dubai Police arrest hedge fund trader Sanjay Shah over $1.7bn Danish tax fraud case British financier previously denied charges and said he was working within Danish law British financier Sanjay Shah was arrested in Dubai by police with an international warrant. Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below. Thats something that I believe has sold people as well that I always wake up every day worrying about what is it that I need to learn more, and not bask in the success of what I have learned and what Ive achieved. I come from a family of traders and accountants. Shah bought the 14,000-square-foot penthouse for $17 million and in 2017 is working to build out the space. As per reports from several media portals, Boney Kapoor's net worth rocketed after he produced Company, which was directed by Ram Gopal Varma in the year 2002. : All right, Sanjay. "Our relationship with . Sanjay Shah: The venture guys will probably come on in the very early stages, maybe in years 0 to 5, I would say. The number of players has increased, and the customers buying skills have increased tremendously. : Correct. You spend time in classrooms learning about things, but spending time on the shop floor learning how actually products are put together, how they are transported, how the logistics work in terms of the distribution networks of large companies. As an R&D leader in the ERP world, Sanjay also knew that this type of solution wasn't on anyone else's roadmap. Tell us about this. In 2019, Sanjay Shah led Vistex to accelerated growth opportunities with its first minority equity investment from Silicon Valley-based Accel-KKR (AKKR), infusing up to $105 million to fuel the companys continued dominance. We dont have venture funding or angel funding to go launch ourselves in a big fashion to let the world know that were out there. But the reality now is different. Sanjay Shah, founder and CEO of Vistex, is photographed Dec. 8, 2014 in the penthouse atop the Trump International Hotel and Tower he owns. And I lasted a full six months and decided that I didnt want to be a professional accountant. Everything was very hunky-dory. : Some of it was a bit of craziness, I guess. Sanjay Shah resides in Chicago, Illinois with his wife and two daughters. What type of product features and functions do you need in order to be successful in the Cloud? So without further ado, Id like to welcome our guest today to the show. My true passion was developing software. Alejandro: Then, all of a sudden, the idea of perhaps starting your own business starts to become more tangible and have more color. But you should seek input and feedback from everybody. : Yes. Fast-forward to today. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. Also, remember, if you need any help whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at [emailprotected]. Theyre very skilled these days in terms of how they decide what to buy. On the one hand, you can say those jobs wouldn't be filled, but then is it fair to the other person who's also doing the job that's legal, that has to pay their share? Shah, a naturalized U.S. citizen, also has spoken out in defense of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, in part because a handful of his employees are immigrants living in the country illegally who were brought here as children and rely on DACA protections to remain in the U.S. I look forward to seeing the final product. Out of this journey, what would you say has been the bumpiest part of it, and how did you get back up and keep running as a breakthrough from the breakdown of whatever dark days you were dealing with? Never one to accept the status quo. Get Contact Info for All Departments Vistex Org Chart Sanjay Shah Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Architect 6 6 They're Americans, for all practical purposes, short of a piece of paper that says they are. If you engineer good products and show value, then customers will come your way. That has served us well. : Even though you didnt want to be a professional accountant, Im sure that having a good grasp on the numbers has made a difference for you. Sanjay. Tell us, after this presentation then you speak with your wife or with your family, and you still have to think about the idea of going at it. So those are the challenges. Sanjay Shah: Thank you. Thank you, Alejandro. Sanjay Shah: Correct. But the reality now is different. There are so many different constituencies at SAP to find the right balance to bring all of these together for hem to cheer for you. Especially, the larger the organization that you sell to, the more durable and the more persistent you need to be. A few weeks ago, the Indian-American CEO of Vistex donated $5 million to his alma mater, Lehigh University, in Pennsylvania, from where he completed his MBA 25 years ago. So our focus is, how can we help our customers succeed even more with our products and offerings? We go in as explorers, not as conquerors because we know that the right kind of input is very critical to the engineering of a product. : So here you are in 1999. The Vistex Foundation is a private foundation launched in 2012 through the support of Sanjay Shah, the founder of Vistex, Inc. We are committed to addressing the root causes of poverty by partnering with organizations whose programs provide education and health services to communities in need. As of January 2023, Shakti Kapoor's net worth is estimated to be roughly $30 Million. It is important that we strike a partnership with a very large player that can give you a tremendous amount of reach into the marketplace globally, and SAP was a natural partner for us because they have thousands and thousands of feet on the street. So, life was great. So in having a degree in finance and having work experience in accounting is not exactly something that would draw potential employers for an operations position. What did you experience? Vistex Hoffman Estates IL 60010, United States Get Sanjay's Email (it's Free) Takes 5 seconds to join, no credit card required. There is no one path to success. Once you have built a platform already, how do you accelerate growth versus venture capital is, Do you believe in my potential? We were lucky that in our initial years, our go-to-market partner was SAP, and enterprise software was virtually nascent, and SAP was selling hand over fist. Alejandro: So this was a private equity financing. A: This country is a country of immigrants. You need to find cheerleaders in an organization such as SAP if you want to rely on them to be your go-to-market partner. So I ended up taking a job at Pricewaterhouse as a staff auditor right after I graduated from grad school. Alejandro: Wonderful. : Again, finding the cheerleaders for you is a huge challenge. I wanted to give up a very small portion of it while drawing on their expertise. I think thats when I felt that we were onto something. I actually presented a couple of ideas to my development management and said that we should enhance SAP to perform these functions, at which point they said, Yeah. Alejandro: How many employees do you guys have today, Sanjay? Do you believe that Im working on something that has a great potential? Private equity, which is more how do you help accelerate growth, which was more our case. Till some months ago, few outside the business circles had heard of Chicago entrepreneur Sanjay Shah. Youve been with SAP for six years. I was an SAP loyalist. Contact: Mr. Alex Dehnert Communications Manager Vistex, Inc. 2300 Barrington Road, Suite 550 Hoffman Estates, IL 60169 Phone: 847-490-0420 alex.dehnert@vistex.com SOURCE Vistex, Inc. Sanjay Shah Founder, CEO, & Chief Architect at Vistex, Inc. Barrington Hills, Illinois, United States 500 followers 500+ connections Join to connect Vistex, Inc. Company Website Activity In.