Giridharan Kalyanaraman ( Giri )

CEO

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India15 yrs 1 mo experience

Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

Led a 35-member global post-sales organization.
Reduced onboarding timelines by 40% for new customers.
Established a customer advocacy engine driving referrals.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS Customer Success and Solution Engineering expert with extensive leadership experience.

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Skills

Core Skills

Customer SuccessPost-sales StrategySolution EngineeringCustomer OnboardingPartner EnablementConsultingBusiness AnalysisProduct Management

Other Skills

Account ManagementAdvocacy KPIsAgile & Waterfall MethodologiesAgile Application DevelopmentAgile MethodologiesAgile Project ManagementBusiness Impact AnalysisBusiness Process AnalysisBusiness Process ImprovementBusiness StrategyCPG SalesCo-selling StrategiesCompetitive AnalysisCross-functional CollaborationCustomer Advocacy

About

Customer Revenue & Experience Executive with 15+ years in software , combining a strong foundation in Solution Engineering with a proven record of leading global post-sales teams to drive customer growth, retention, and advocacy. I currently lead a 35-member global post-sales organization at Spendflo — spanning Customer Onboarding, Account Management, and Procurement Services. My unique background in Solution Engineering enables me to bridge Product, GTM, and Customer Success, ensuring clients realize value faster and expand through deeper adoption. As part of the executive leadership team, I own post-sales strategy — from defining customer-centric OKRs to driving cross-functional initiatives that unlock revenue from existing accounts. My time building and scaling global Solution Engineering teams shaped my core belief: great customer outcomes begin with great product alignment. I champion close collaboration between Sales, Product, and CS to ensure the right-fit solutions are not only sold — but adopted, expanded, and celebrated. I believe in building customer-led growth engines, where trust, measurable impact, and advocacy create compounding value — for customers and the business alike. — Let’s connect if you’re building for scale or exploring Customer Success leadership.

Experience

Spendflo

2 roles

Director - Customer Experience

Promoted

Mar 2024 – Present · 2 yrs · Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Lead a 35-member global post-sales organization across Customer Onboarding, Account Management, and Procurement Services, delivering seamless customer journeys from sales handoff to long-term value realization.
Own Spendflo’s post-sales strategy and customer revenue operations, aligning cross-functional GTM stakeholders (Sales, Product, Marketing) to expand account value, reduce churn, and increase lifetime value.
Generate expansion revenue by implementing value realization workshops, quarterly executive business reviews, and expansion playbooks tailored by segment.
Instituted cross-functional feedback loops between CS, Product, and Sales, ensuring that customer insights drive roadmap prioritization and GTM refinement.
Defined and executed customer-centric OKRs for each customer function, aligning team accountability to retention, adoption, and advocacy KPIs across segments.
Established a customer advocacy engine to drive referrals, testimonials, and brand credibility, contributing to pipeline influence and community-led growth.

Customer OnboardingAccount ManagementProcurement ServicesCross-functional CollaborationCustomer Revenue OperationsValue Realization Workshops+3

Global Head of Solution Engineering & Customer Onboarding

Mar 2023 – Mar 2024 · 1 yr · Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Built Spendflo’s Solution Engineering function from scratch, establishing it as a core pillar of the go-to-market and post-sales motion. Scaled the team, defined its charter, and integrated it with Sales, Product, and Customer Success.
Scaled the Customer Onboarding team, delivering structured playbooks and workflows that reduced implementation timelines by 40% and improved time-to-value for new customers.
Developed modular solution consulting frameworks to accelerate scoping and solution fit analysis, increasing pre-sales qualification efficiency and post-sale technical alignment.
Introduced an integrated onboarding success model, combining product education, procurement readiness, and value mapping — directly contributing to a 2x improvement in new customer retention.
Led cross-functional collaboration between Sales, CS, and Product to drive onboarding insights into roadmap priorities, optimizing both product usability and implementation experience.

Solution EngineeringCustomer OnboardingPre-sales QualificationTechnical AlignmentOnboarding Success Model

Freshworks

2 roles

Head of Solution Engineering - APAC Partnerships

Promoted

Feb 2021 – Mar 2023 · 2 yrs 1 mo

Led Solution Engineering across the APAC region, supporting partner-led GTM motions while building scalable frameworks for product-fit alignment, onboarding readiness, and long-term customer value realization.
Enabled 50+ channel partners through training, co-selling strategies, and discovery-to-demo execution — laying the groundwork for smoother implementations, faster adoption, and reduced onboarding friction.
Collaborated closely with internal Sales, Product, and Customer Success teams to ensure that pre-sale solution design aligned with post-sale delivery — improving customer retention by driving better expectations and faster time-to-value.
Designed and implemented repeatable technical discovery and validation processes (wireframing, POCs, RFP responses) that supported successful onboarding transitions and created continuity across the customer journey.
Partnered with Product and regional GTM leaders to localize technical positioning and prioritize customer-impacting features — influencing roadmap and boosting satisfaction across key segments.
Championed a solution-first, outcome-driven mindset, embedding technical confidence and onboarding readiness into every customer engagement — a philosophy I continue to apply in leading full-stack post-sales teams.

Solution EngineeringPartner EnablementTechnical DiscoveryCustomer RetentionCustomer Success

Senior Consultant

Apr 2019 – Feb 2021 · 1 yr 10 mos

Work closely with our mid-market and enterprise customers to identify and solve their most critical business problems.
Tactical role which provides a marked contribution to defining the direction of new solutions, processes, standards or operational plans based upon business strategy, with a significant impact on business unit overall results.
Work closely with leadership to define strategies and campaigns for the team internally
Work on process improvement and mentoring the junior resources.
Support the sales team by conducting discovery calls and product demonstrations for our active deals. User requirement gathering, analysis, and scope definition, Wireframing, Creating Proof of Concept (POC), RFP, RFI responses.
Conduct effective requirements gathering to clearly identify customer problems.
Build and deliver compelling technical demonstrations of the Freshworks products.

Business StrategyProcess ImprovementUser Requirement GatheringTechnical DemonstrationsConsultingBusiness Analysis

Ivy mobility

Enterprise Solutions Consultant - ASEAN

Apr 2017 – Apr 2019 · 2 yrs · Chennai Area, India

Responsible for building product demonstrations, proof of concepts and responding to RFPs/RFIs.
Propose/build innovative solutions as well as provide feedback to Sales and Product management.
Have a deep understanding of IVY Product stack demonstrate the products and business value to prospects.
Understand the customer requirements and pain points both from technical and business perspective and propose a solution using IVY product suite.
Engage with worldwide Sales and Solution Consulting teams within IVY to design a solution and articulate a value proposition specific to customer needs and business context
Work on product technical demonstrations and/or proof-of-concept(POCs) and present them to customers.
Work independently on opportunities and respond to customers technical compliance documents such as RFPs, RFIs etc
Co-ordinate with internal stakeholders from product management, engineering, development and delivery functions while designing solutions for the customers

Product DemonstrationsRFP ResponsesSolution DesignConsultingSolution Engineering

Piqube

Product Manager

Mar 2016 – Mar 2017 · 1 yr · Chennai Area, India

Carry out market research to evaluate product-market fit and identify product requirements
Work closely with the engineering team to improve value and usability of product features
Create mockups to define feature flows, use cases, and specifications
Collaborate with the product design team to build and validate prototypes
Work with marketing to define product positioning and value proposition
Interface between customers and the engineering team to improve all aspects of user experience - onboarding, user-interface design, messaging and communication

Market ResearchProduct RequirementsUser ExperienceProduct Management

Ehelium

2 roles

Product Manager

Jul 2015 – Mar 2016 · 8 mos · Chennai Area, India

Determines customers' needs and desires by research, to obtain market information.
Recommend the nature and scope of present and future product by reviewing product specifications and requirements; appraising new product ideas and product
Assesses market competition by comparing the company's product to competitors' products.
Managing the entire product line life cycle from strategic planning to tactical activities
Managing the appropriate design and technology teams associated with the development of the product

Market ResearchProduct SpecificationsProduct Line ManagementProduct Management