SM: What was it about a turnaround that attracted you? MC: The challenge of the situation. I had already experienced a high growth company at Conner. I wanted to see the renovation and the rebuilding.
Mike Cordano is the CEO and co-founder of Fabrik. Prior to Fabrik he served as executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Maxtor Corporation, where he was responsible for the formation and management of the Branded Products business unit. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado. SM: Mike, take us back
SM: What kind of revenue levels did the AIG deal let you obtain? KK: It was about $16 million in revenue. Unilever was another client who came into the picture around the same time as AIG. Today we have work all over the world just for Unilever.
SM: Was it easier for you to build expertise in India, or build a larger customer base? KK: It was definitely easier to build up our expertise, which is one of the reasons we developed our strategy of working to get deep access into our customer base. We also felt we were lucky to have
SM: How much financing did you raise to get started? KK: We raised $9.5 million for our first round. We learned that when a group of our caliber is formed, expectations are high. Early on we took the calculated risk of taking a higher level of funding to ensure we could grow the business to
SM: Did the team you assembled focus only on India, or did you have a global view? KK: We identified people with varied backgrounds intentionally. We went after people who knew the American market well and had worked consulting jobs there. Scott Staples used to work for Gemini and KPMG and was one of the
SM: For how long were you chief marketing officer? KK: I held that position from 1992 to 1993. By 1995 I had moved into an operating role.
SM: Was your next professional step a move to Wipro? KK: Yes. It was just starting, so I initially went off to Bangalore for a while before I returned to Chennai to open the office there. I was still not sure how Wipro was going to make an impact in the IT business.