Few people in life can pride themselves with having one day decided to drop a successful career to go all in and follow their passion or dream.
Karthik Subramanian, senior director at Cisco Investments, is one of them.
Born and raised in Chennai, India, he first completed his undergraduate degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (ITT-B), where he earned a full scholarship that enabled him to move to the US and pursue a masters’ degree in engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999.
Upon graduating two years later, Subramanian joined Manhattan Associates in Atlanta, where he designed supply chain operational improvements. Having gone through several promotions over the five years he spent at the company, and gained enough experience as a supply chain consultant, the senior director decided it was time to pursue an MBA, and headed to University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in Philadelphia.
From then on ensued what could probably be seen as the director’s most formative years as an investment banker, first at Lehman Brothers (pre-crisis), and further down the line at Barclays Capital as part of the bank’s technology group.
At Lehman, Subramanian witnessed the 2008 crash. He recalled: “I still remember the first day after I had finished training, we were supposed to go to work on Monday, and the bank had gone bankrupt on the Sunday just before.
“There was chaos, and it was a huge shock for all of us that had just completed our training, but it also built a lot of character.
“During my stint at Barclays, all along, I always had the entrepreneurial dream in my head. At that time, I lived in the New York area, and while sitting on the train, I always used to think of ways I could create something that would solve business problems or solve a day-to-day issue. “In late 2012, I was about to enter my third year as a vice-president at Barclays, and I realised that if there was a time in my life when I could take the chance to become an entrepreneur, it was then.”
A few months later, Subramanian’s entrepreneurial venture came to life in the form of startup Ndorz, a mobile-based analytics platform that aimed to provide personalised ratings and recommendations on restaurants.
“Everybody in the banking world thought I was crazy to drop such a prestigious job on Wall Street to go and start something of my own, because it is just not in the investment banking culture.
“But, I can tell you now, going through the entrepreneurial experience was one of the best decisions I ever made.”
After a move to the west coast in early 2014, Subramanian joined Cisco as senior manager working on the corporate development side of the business.
At present, Subramanian is the global head of investments and acquisitions for cybersecurity and security services at Cisco. Over the past four years, he led or helped complete close to a dozen direct and indirect investments, including OpenDNS, Elastica, Illusive, eSentire, Guardicore, Exabeam, Flashpoint, Hytrust, Skyport Systems, Verodin, Team8 and Threat Quotient.
Aside from his investment activity, Karthik has also built a strong track record in mergers and acquisitions , having led the acquisitions of portfolio company OpenDNS, and, from outside, Lancope, CloudLock, and Observable Networks.
Hitesh Saijpal, head of Cisco Investments’s portfolio development, said: “The unique ability to concurrently evaluate and execute both investments as well as acquisitions has helped Karthik become a thought leader in the dynamic cybersecurity innovation ecosystem on a global scale.”
Subramanian’s colourful experience in a variety of fields, including investment banking, M&A, consulting and entrepreneurship, indeed enables him to have that all-encompassing vision and perception of everyone’s needs and expectations when working on a transaction, which often makes for some of the best CVCs.
“When I joined the firm,” he said, “Cisco had done very few investments in security.
“So, I started looking into the situation, and wondered how Cisco could become a game changer in the sector.
“My goal was for the firm to start looking at the bigger picture, and focus on areas and technologies that were beyond what was viewed as core to its near-term strategy, but could turn out to be disruptive in a few years’ time.”
Since Subramanian established a new framework for investments in the security sector, at least 10 deals have been closed across Israel, the US and Europe, in addition to three exits.
More recently, the senior director has focused his energy on evaluating early-stage investment opportunities, as he wishes to see more CVCs in earlier stages of investment. He said: “One of the biggest challenges I have had to face as a CVC is that other investors tend to believe corporates are only valuable for late-stage investments.
“I have worked very hard to try and change this misconception and influence the minds of entrepreneurs and VCs alike on the matter, and to show them that CVCs can truly create value at any stage.”
In his private life, Subramanian is as much of a high achiever as in his work. As an avid hiker, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro a few years back. With his wife and two children (seven- and one-year-old respectively), he also enjoys going on trips and engaging into outdoor activities. And if there is any time left at all, he relishes savouring whiskies from his personal collection.