Meet Bharet Malhotra of Cvent: Integrity And Uniqueness Creates A Successful Personal Brand
Posted on January 17, 2011, by JD Kathuria, under Featured Interview.
Bharet Malhotra, Vice President of Sales at Cvent explains what he thinks are the most important aspects when establishing a personal brand. Malhotra attributes taking ownership of individual actions as well as creating a unique personal brand to his success. He was also named Style Settler by the Washingtonian last year.
What is your background?
From a cultural standpoint, I am Punjabi from New Delhi, however, have never really lived there. Grew up in West Africa in Nigeria from the age of 2 till 15 and then came to the US for boarding school and college as well. From an education point of view, I triple majored at Duke University in Biomedical/Electrical Engineering and Economics. Never really practiced any engineering. In fact, quite the opposite, tennis was my life so I took some time to go play on the pro tour but realized that there were some very wicked players out there in the world. So I settled in and did Investment Banking up in NYC and then spent a lot of time in Asia Pacific (particularly Kuala Lumpur and Sydney). Then of course I got the call from my buddy to join Cvent.
When someone hears your name, what do you want them to think of first?
IMPACT. You always want to have some sort of an impact on society…this doesn’t only extend to the non-profit, humanitarian side but across the board for anyone and everyone. I would love to be thought of as a resource for people, a reliable and dependable person towards people, and truly make sure that I am doing something meaningful that will be helpful to both people and society in general.
Why is building your brand important to you?
Everyone has a brand and at the core of the brand is integrity. Whether you are a big multi-national corporation, celebrity, or you or me; your integrity is your brand. Creating a personal brand now will ultimately help me accomplish a lot more in the future. And of course, the impact I want to have is on people in any way I possibly can. I am sure that to do this, I will need help from people – I always want someone to take that phone call, meeting or lunch appointment with me.
How has your brand helped you in your career?
I have always been hard working, diligent, honest and just really gave a dam about whatever I did…I wanted things done right and people see that. I think this trait is what carries over and what people talk about. And when they see you care and have ownership of something, then it begs the question “do I want Bharet on my team?” And as you know, it doesn’t stop…one always has to have the mindset of caring and being diligent about what they do. The minute you lose that, your brand starts to get tarnished. Don’t compromise integrity, what takes a lifetime to build as we know, can be ruined in minutes; happens every day to thousands of people.
What are some best practices that you found worked for you in building your brand?
Try to “be different”…it is tough out there…lots of brilliant people, lots of challenges so how does one stand out in a meaningful way. So whether I was in college or in the working world, I needed to do something that would have me be different. At Duke, all students were brilliant but I feel I could be considered a bit different if I had three hard majors and played tennis (no one else did that). It helped me convey my message that “you can count on me”.
You were named a Style Settler by Washingtonian Magazine. How was that?
It was fun, a great opportunity to meet people and the first few weeks were great because people recognized you. I wore a sherwani so that was pretty uncharacteristic of most of the Style Setters so people also enjoyed telling me that they thought my outfit was great, etc. I also make a couple great friends.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
The dream was to be a professional player but that was short lived when a 13 year old beat me quite easily when I was 19 while playing in Moscow (what most people don’t know is he went on and lost to Pete Sampras at Wimbledon 3 years later). But I’m always up for a good game.
