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Prakash Veenam is a confident man. He is an expert in the e-commerce business field and has used his knowledge to grow and develop Maternova, a company that provides life-saving medical equipment to women and children. He currently works for the largest online retailer used by over 300 million users worldwide — Amazon — as a Senior Business Development Manager. But Veenam’s career started in a very different place: the Indian Navy.
It was a secure life, and he could have continued successfully in it.
“People often ask me why I stepped out of my comfort zone,” he says. “Why I decided to get an MBA in the US.”
It was a challenging journey, both personal and professional. And like all huge decisions, it has many facets.
Young Navy cadet
Prakash met a diverse range of people as a young man in the Navy. Due to India’s rich cultural heritage, those who joined the Navy alongside him had a variety of backgrounds and upbringings.
“Everyone had different thought processes and backgrounds,” he reminisces. “Working together showed me what teamwork really meant.”
It was a challenge to learn this lesson and live up to the demanding standards of naval life. Prakash recalls a training mission that pushed his team to the limits, both physically and mentally.
“We were left on a small boat far from shore, with basic supplies. We had to survive, work together, and reach our destination intact.”
Imagine being on that boat in the middle of the sea. Water as far as the eye can see. Having to survive the heat, the waves, and tides. Working with people from different mindsets, who you might not get along with. With only a manual compass to guide you to your destination.
The six cadets, of which Prakash Veenam was one, accomplished that and more. It was a sign of things to come in Veenam’s life.
High stakes Naval leadership
“The biggest challenge while leading a team is keeping morale high,” says Prakash. “This is harder when you have to coordinate and keep track of the ship’s machinery your team is in charge of. It helps when you bond with them. But the true test of your leadership skills is during exercises and missions.”
When you’re a leader, everyone looks to your example for guidance. Prakash felt that keenly during his leadership roles. He felt the weight of accountability during his time as a Captain of a minesweeper, a smaller Naval warship. The danger of high stakes, and knowing how much encouragement extracts the maximum effort from those he led.
Prakash also recalled a missile firing exercise in which he was the Chief Weapons Officer. “I was in charge of 80 men on a ship with over 400.” He talks of equipment audits, checks of various systems, and loading of weapons and how he coordinated with technical and navigation teams so that he could lead his team into doing their part perfectly.
“Keeping morale up is one thing,” he says. “But making sure to keep a lid on excitement so that everyone is focused is sometimes a tougher task.”
Multi-tasking, leadership, and compassion for those under his charge — Veenam showcased it all in the Navy.
Cyclones and saving lives
Cyclones occur yearly on the eastern coast of India and result in extreme disruptions and damage. The immense danger to life and livelihood these giant tropical storms cause requires the government to provide serious aid. A part of that is responding to disaster zones, which the Navy performs with gusto.
Prakash was often part of the disaster relief efforts for the regions and coastal territories affected by the cyclones.
“One of our objectives was to help those in medical distress. We ensured medical equipment reached where it was necessary. It’s something that stuck with me, especially seeing where life has taken me since.”
MBA in the USA
Prakash has always wanted to test himself in the corporate world. So, after achieving the post of Commander in the Navy, he decided to take the risk and apply himself towards a business graduate degree.
“I kept my options open when applying,” Prakash confides. “I had choices in the EU and across North America. But ultimately, I decided to move to the US due to the wealth of opportunities the country’s vibrant economy provided.”
And it was in the US that he began to build the second arc of his career. He attended Babson College in Massachusetts, which is ranked #1 in Entrepreneurial Business Education. He was an active student with an entrepreneurial spirit and experiences in the Indian Navy that allowed him to engage with his peers who came from different cultures and countries. It was after he graduated that he got the opportunity to work in global healthcare via a post-graduate fellowship.
Maternova’s mission
“The corporate culture is very different to naval life,” says Prakash. “Especially after such a long tenure in the military. But I think what helped me settle at Maternova was the synergy between their mission and my experiences with disaster relief in the Navy.”
Maternova is a company with strong values. Their mission is to increase access to economical cutting-edge life-saving technology for pregnant women, newborns, and children, especially in regions that are still developing. They build a system of trust. Between themselves, their customers, and the various organizations that support and are supported by them.
“We wanted to create long-lasting support systems in terms of medical equipment,” Prakash explains passionately. “To make sure all sorts of medical issues and emergencies that might prop up during pregnancies and deliveries are taken care of using innovative technology. And of course, making it economically feasible for developing economies.”
During his time at Maternova, Prakash worked with various large non-profits, including the WHO and the PADF, liaised with refugee camps worldwide, and reached out to groups in several developing economies.
“We supported them by supplying them. It was life-saving work.”
Making maternova great
“Our founder, Meg Wirth, had a very specific vision in mind when she created Maternova,” Prakash said proudly. “That I was able to help increase the scope of that goal was wonderful not just for me, but for those Maternova served.”
After completing his fellowship with Maternova, Prakash became their CEO, and started leading them towards upscaling and organization development, something he had expertise within the Indian Navy.
As CEO, he connected to key players in specific regions. “I pushed our focus towards vital territories in the Americas, Africa, and parts of Asia.”
He supported smaller organizations and suppliers who were already doing the work on the ground. But this was not without challenges.
“The biggest challenge for any small or medium company, even if it’s a large enterprise, is supply chain and logistics.” Maternova needed to connect and work with distributors who shared a similar vision to them, and who were not focused just on profit. After all, what use is life-saving equipment if it isn’t affordable?
The second biggest roadblock was differences in regulation. “Each country has different rules and regulations for importing medical products,” Prakash explains. “And as a smaller organization, Maternova didn’t have the wherewithal or legal representation specific to every possible region we could enter.” This resulted in Prakash, as CEO, having to make critical decisions on which territories they would enter. It was a careful, yet still hard, choice.
The Navy makes a leader
“When I was commander of the Navy,” Prakash recalls, “I built relations with personnel from navies across the Americas, Europe, and Oceania.”
The building of these strategic ties required a delicate yet dynamic touch. And once again, Prakash experienced understanding and creating relationships with those from different cultures and backgrounds. It was like his Cadet days but on a larger and international scale.
“I think these experiences are the reason I was able to realize the depth of effort required to break into new regions,” Prakash explains passionately. “A business is for its customers. And as a leader, you need to understand the people you serve to be effective.”
Maternova versus COVID
One of Maternova’s key tenets is promoting the saving of lives. And when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, the huge loss of life led Prakash to act.
“I realized that the demand for the usual equipment we provided to customers and distributors had dramatically decreased.” Indeed, the world was frantically scrambling to scourge up every single piece of equipment that could aid in ameliorating the viral crisis. One of these items was COVID diagnostic tests.
Maternova was already ahead of the curve in providing diagnostic tests, especially for quickly spreading diseases and STDs. “We had access to result-oriented diagnostic tests via partnerships with test manufacturers. So I focused on pivoting in that direction.”
Almost immediately, their COVID-related sales took off and had a large effect on Maternova’s top-line growth. Prakash had quickly seen the changes in demand and nimbly adapted his leadership strategy, while also keeping Maternova’s mission and goals in mind. Strength in times of bad fortune is a sign of a good leader indeed.
E-commerce explorations
One thing to know about Maternova is that it is an e-commerce platform. Thus, all products are viewable through an online portal. However, this caused problems when Maternova was expanding to different regions in diverse parts of the world.
“We did aggressive marketing in conjunction with improving our CRM rules,” Prakash says.
Under Prakash’s leadership, Maternova developed its online platform to make it more robust and interactive to customer needs. They connected with experts in different regions to better market Maternova to customers in a way they would understand best. Local experts helped them by knowing how the culture used and reacted to online shopping platforms, and how they behaved.
“We had to know how to target different groups and make our website show up on their results page. Language barriers had to be broken down too. These types of CRM rules didn’t exist before I led their development.”
Prakash led Maternova to partner with CRM platforms in India and Mexico, as well as onboarding one of the largest CRM players in the US.
“Having a professional CRM team is vital to growing an e-commerce business,” he says, “And doing so for Maternova let us grow more rapidly as a company.” Prakash went on further to explain how this helped Maternova increase glance views on products and deals to the extent that people in remote regions in developing economies across the world were able to find their platform and place orders.
Online convenience
Online shopping and e-commerce are as ubiquitous as brick-and-mortar stores nowadays, perhaps even more so. And as an e-commerce company, Maternova needs to stay ahead of the trends. Prakash focused his expertise on that front while helping Maternova grow. However, he says that understanding why e-commerce has become so massive in the shopping sphere is significant to developing business strategies.
“There has been a huge paradigm shift in global purchasing patterns in the last decade and a half,” he says with authority. “Convenience is the name of the game. And e-commerce provides that convenience when shopping for any type of product.”
He expounds on the usage of social media as the voice of a company or product.
“We partnered with medical experts who spread information via social media and asked them to talk about Maternova. They could connect to customer bases in regions by speaking their languages.”
These experts are called Key Opinion Leaders (KOL). And they know how and why customers like to hear certain pieces of information.
“Working with them synergized with Maternova’s mission,” Prakash says. “Because both sides wanted to improve health and save lives.”
Amazonian motion
After several years as Maternova’s CEO, Prakash realized that what the company needed was a change in direction. “Maternova needed a leader who is an expert in the medical field. That is the direction the company needed to go to grow further.” And so, he handed off the reins and became Maternova’s Senior Vice President, focusing his strengths on market penetration and implementing e-commerce strategies.
Then, after almost a year, he left Maternova to join Amazon, where he currently works, providing his considerable expertise in online business growth to one of the world’s largest online e-commerce platforms. And still, his journey continues.
