Whispered Hiring

Whispered Hiring with Anurag Goel Global Head of ROI, Industries & Top Accounts @ Red Hat

Most AI pilots fail not because the technology is wrong, but because nobody agreed on what success meant before it started. Anurag Goel [https://www.linkedin.com/in/anuraggoel2/] has built his entire function around fixing that gap. As the leader of a 125-person specialist team at Red Ha [https://www.redhat.com]t touching $4B in ARR, he's moved pilot-to-deployment conversion rates to three times their previous pace by doing one thing differently: defining success in executive business terms before anyone writes a line of code. Anurag built this function from scratch at Red Hat after doing similar work at Adobe and Salesforce, and this conversation gets into the specifics of how he hires for it, structures it, justifies it internally, and tests candidates in ways most hiring managers haven't considered. Topics discussed: * Why AI pilots stall at the executive layer and how scoping business KPIs upfront changes conversion rates * The three-profile hiring model for value consulting roles: management consultant, financial storyteller, B2B software fluency * How sequencing early hires across external experts, internal sales reps, and former customers built the foundation * The case study round structure that tests how candidates prepare and present, not whether their answers are right * Using one interview question to separate surface-level AI users from people who build with it * Why "builder mindset" in this function means co-creating a shared vision with the customer, not internal execution * How to justify an overlay function's existence with a single two-part metric * Testing for "fire in the belly" through specificity of past examples, not behavioral question frameworks ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/] has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com [https://www.whispered.com/] Interact with AI Andy: https://www.whispered.com/whisper-searchwww.whispered.com/whisper-search [http://www.whispered.com/whisper-search]

Whispered Hiring with Srikrishnan Ganesan, CEO @ Rocketlane

A year ago, Srikrishnan Ganesan says, asking candidates to prove their AI fluency was too soon. Now, he says, it's table stakes and the answers candidates give are creating a sharp divide between those who will thrive and those who won't. In this episode, Andy and Sri get into how Sri screens for genuine AI adoption, why he thinks the pre-sale to post-sale handoff is collapsing faster than most GTM leaders realize, and the specific signals he uses to decide whether a leader is actually built to operate in a fast-moving company. Topics discussed: * Why "I use it for emails and meeting summaries" is now a red flag in interviews * Pushing customers to feel 40% implemented before the sales cycle ends * How candidates use AI to prep for interviews  and what it reveals * The specific question Sri asks before ever calling a reference * Why being out of a role matters less than what the leader learned from it * Using exec partners from VC firms as a selective lens on certain hires * Curated customer call playlists as the foundation of exec onboarding ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/] has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com [https://www.whispered.com/] Interact with AI Andy: https://www.whispered.com/whisper-searchwww.whispered.com/whisper-search [http://www.whispered.com/whisper-search]

Whispered Hiring with Peter Grant, CRO @ You.com

In this episode of Whispered Hiring, Andy Mowat speaks with Peter Grant, CRO at You.com, about what it actually takes to hire technical enterprise AI sellers who can build, demo, and sell at the same time. Peter has spent 20+ years scaling GTM at Siebel, Salesforce UK, C3.AI, and OakNorth, and drove 40x revenue growth at You.com in 2024. He shares the exact frameworks, tests, and reference approaches he uses to find sellers who combine genuine technical fluency with commercial instinct. Topics discussed: * Why AI sellers need technical fluency, not product familiarity alone * The Lovable/Replit live demo test: filtering real builders from claimants * Why early-stage CROs should carry a bag before building the team * Write a specific JD before launching any senior search * How AI is changing sales enablement cadence and certification * The biggest hiring mistake: choosing people you want to drink with * Force-ranking 5 sales stages to surface a candidate's real edge * The best candidates treat the interview as a sales campaign * Customer references over manager references: what to actually ask * Good hires are visible on day one: booking meetings, everywhere * Steve Garnett's 10-point hiring framework for technical GTM talent ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/] has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com [https://www.whispered.com/] Interact with AI Andy: https://www.whispered.com/whisper-searchwww.whispered.com/whisper-search [http://www.whispered.com/whisper-search]

Whispered Hiring with Vikas Bhambri, CRO @ Rasa

In this episode of Whispered Hiring, Andy Mowat speaks with Vikas Bhambri, CRO at Rasa, about the hiring frameworks he has built across some of the most demanding AI-native go-to-market environments. Drawing from his experience at Kustomer, Regal, and Yellow.ai, Vikas brings a people-first philosophy that runs from the moment you inherit a team all the way through panel discipline and decision ownership. His approach challenges how most GTM leaders think about assessments, sourcing, structured interviews, and what coachability actually looks like under pressure. Topics discussed: * Inheriting a team you did not recruit or onboard * Why holding people to unmet standards is bullying, not management * Setting expectations when your team already knows change is coming * Why CROs cannot throw talent sourcing over the fence to recruiting * LinkedIn as a deliberate sourcing network, not a rolodex * Standardized interview questions as the foundation of fair evaluation * The opening question Vikas asks every single candidate * Why hijacking an interview is a non-starter * Exercises as a coachability test, not a credential showcase * Why AI does not kill the exercise * Hiring panels as a privilege, not a checkbox ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/] has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com [https://www.whispered.com/] Interact with AI Andy: https://www.whispered.com/whisper-searchwww.whispered.com/whisper-search [http://www.whispered.com/whisper-search]

Whispered Hiring with Varun Puri, CEO @ Yoodli

In this episode of Whispered Hiring, Andy Mowat speaks with Varun Puri, CEO and Cofounder of Yoodli, about what hiring looks like when you are a first-time founder building a leadership team from scratch. Varun previously reported directly to Sergey Brin at Google and incubated Yoodli at the Allen AI Institute. His approach cuts through credential theater with radical transparency, product obsession as a live screen, and a values-driven process built around trusting your gut. Topics discussed: * Why trusting intuition is the most underrated hiring signal for first-time founders, and what it costs to override it. Varun describes bringing people on despite a clear Spidey Sense, each time watching it unravel within three months. * How Yoodli uses its own AI roleplay portal to pre-qualify candidates before any human conversation. Candidates practice with AI personas of the founders so the real interview can skip the basics and go straight into substantive territory. * Using live platform data as a screen for genuine product obsession. When a candidate says they love Yoodli but has logged in twice, Varun pulls the dashboard mid-interview and the conversation goes in a very specific direction. * The one question Varun asks every candidate: if Yoodli fails in six months, what would have to be true for you to say this was the best professional experience of your life? It bypasses upside-dependent motivation and reveals what candidates actually value. * Full cap table transparency as a negotiation philosophy, including sharing what Varun and his co-founder make. This reframes the conversation from if to how, and routinely unlocks creative compensation structures. * The 500-item mutual expectations document that turned a board advisor introduction into a co-founder-level Head of Sales hire. Varun and Josh built it together before any offer was signed. * Why the founder-to-founder reference is the highest-signal off-sheet channel. Varun uses VC connections to reach founders directly, not just the CRO, because that conversation surfaces what standard references never do. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/] has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com [https://www.whispered.com/] Interact with AI Andy: https://www.whispered.com/whisper-searchwww.whispered.com/whisper-search [http://www.whispered.com/whisper-search]