Veena Giridhar Gopal, understanding consumer behaviour

Hi Veena! Please introduce yourself and tell me about your career journey so far

I grew up in India and qualified as an accountant in Botswana, where I spent several years consulting for companies including retail and consumer goods companies. After business school at INSEAD in France, I moved to the UK to work with Pepsi. I worked in the food and beverages sector across several roles, ranging from finance to market entry and sales. I am currently the CEO of Salesbeat, which I founded a few years ago with my colleague Alex, and look after anything that is not related to technology. So that includes sales, marketing, strategy, finance, investor relations, HR etc. 

What makes Salesbeat unique?

What makes Salesbeat unique is that it looks to understand consumer behaviour to predict sales. Typically sales forecasts are built based on historical sales data. However, Salesbeat looks at what consumers want and, how much and where they are likely to buy it and works backwards to how much stock each store should carry of each SKU at any point.

What have your greatest career achievements been?

I am proud of starting Salesbeat with my co-founder, raising our first round and recruiting a gender balanced team. 

Likewise, what have been your greatest challenges?

The greatest challenge I faced was when I moved from a corporate development and strategy focussed role into a sales leadership role. I had no prior experience in Sales. I overcame this by asking for help – from mentors and also from my then line manager. I also asked old team members and colleagues if I could shadow them for a few days to learn from them. 

What advice would you give to other young aspiring entrepreneurs?

To gain a few years experience before they leap into entrepreneurship. At the same time, they should not wait for too long and get too comfortable with the status quo.