Summary
Business leaders making a difference in their communities are frequently spotlighted on Business for Breakfast on Money Radio. Recently, the show featured Thiru Thangarathinam, the founder of KeenStack, a professional services consulting firm. Thiru, a seasoned entrepreneur, previously grew a $30 million business, MST Solutions, that was later acquired by Mastek in 2022. His new venture, KeenStack is a pure play ServiceNow system integration firm that aims to revolutionize customer experiences in various sectors, primarily healthcare and government agencies. KeenStack was officially launched on January 14th and currently has 76 employees across offices in Chandler and India. With a commitment to giving back to the community, Thiru is planning to create up to 150 tech jobs in Chandler over the next few years and to leverage KeenStack’s resources and expertise to support local charities.
Intro | 00:00
They’re the ones who make it happen. They’re the ones who get it done. And that’s why we shine the spotlight on them on Business for Breakfast. It’s time now for the business leaders spotlight on Money Radio.
Mark Asher | 00:22
Well, it is that time of the week once again, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 735 am. We have the unique opportunity to sit down and visit with some of the Valley’s business leaders, both men and women, making a difference right here in our own backyard and our community. Our next guest is an entrepreneur at heart, no doubt about that. He’s had some businesses and done some things and is doing a new company called KeenStack, a professional services consulting firm. And we’re going to hear all about it. And first, unfortunately, I’m probably going to butcher the gentleman’s name. Thiru Thangarathinam is our guest this morning, the owner and founder of KeenStack. Thiru, Mark Asher, how are you doing?
Thiru Thangarathinam | 01:00
Good, Mark.
Mark Asher | 01:00
How are you? Did I say it kind of close? Ballpark?
Well, good. I appreciate you calling in and being a part of what we’re doing here at Money Radio. This is not your first business, so take us back a little bit and tell our listeners a little bit about your entrepreneurial spirit.
Thiru Thangarathinam | 01:19
Sure. So I came to the Valley almost 25 years ago. I spent my first 10 years working at Intel and a couple of years at Apollo Group back in the University of Phoenix.
And then in 2012, I thought, you know, I would probably go out and start something on my own. You know, I was a first time entrepreneur back then. I started a company named MST Solutions back then. We were a pure play Salesforce .com system integration firm. We were working with a number of companies in the Valley to help them implement, adopt Salesforce and drive the value out of the investment that they made in the Salesforce platform. We worked with a number of customers in the Valley. We were a key contributor in the Valley, not just from a customer standpoint, but from a community contribution standpoint.
So I grew that to about 30 million dollar business over a period of 10 years. In 2022, Mastek acquired MST Solutions.
You know, we ran a process, an M &A acquisition process and really figured out the right company to partner with and then Mastek ended up being that organization. So I spent, you know, two and a half years after I sold the company to Mastek, making sure our employees are taken care of, customers are taken care of.
So that’s my background about my previous company, MST Solutions.
Mark Asher | 02:49
Yeah, no, it’s great. So you sell that out, but you’re not just going to be done, right? You’re young and you’re like, I got more ideas.
So that brings us to KeenStack, which you’re just kind of kicking off. Let’s explain a little bit what KeenStack is all about and how you help companies, not just throughout the Valley, all over the place.
Thiru Thangarathinam | 03:07
Yeah. So KeenStack is a pure play service now system integration forum.
You know, in my previous experience, I built a company on building a platform that has capabilities on a single platform. It was Salesforce back then, now we’re at ServiceNow. ServiceNow is a platform that’s adopted by a number of almost every fortune thousand organization, and it is used predominantly in the IT service management and IT asset management, risk regulatory compliance and those areas. But there’s a lot of demand now for ServiceNow in the newer areas where you kind of create a better experience for your customers, whether that may be patients or citizens or students.
So there’s a lot of opportunities to really take ServiceNow and apply them in the context of, you know, experience economy there, which is a big focus area for us. You know, for us, the health care is a pretty big focus area.
Like you said, not just in the Valley, but in the other parts of the country as well. Similarly, the state and government agencies, state government agency, that’s a big part as well, focus area, because they have a lot of legacy technology platforms that they have to upgrade over a period of time and upgrading to a cloud -based, native cloud -based platform like ServiceNow that really provides a better experience for citizens in the context of government is a key area as well.
So that’s what we are doing, you know, focusing on these areas. But you know, we are looking at other customers and other verticals
Mark Asher | 04:48
If you just tune in this morning, my business leader spotlight is the owner and founder of a brand new company based out in Chandler, KeenStack. Thiru Thangarathinam is our guest this morning. He’s telling us all about this new company. And I think you have offices here.
And then is there an office in India as well? Did I read that correctly?
Thiru Thangarathinam | 05:07
Yeah, that’s right, Mark. So we have offices here. We, you know, have six employees as of yesterday.
You know, we just launched on January 14th officially just a few days ago. Wow.
Mark Asher | 05:19
This is brand new. Six employees.
Thiru Thangarathinam | 05:20
Yeah, absolutely. And then we have about 70 employees in India as well. And, you know, we are continuing to grow. And our goal is I live here in Chandler. Our goal is to have about 150 tech jobs in Chandler over the next few years and really continue to contribute to the community.
You know, there are a lot of opportunities for growth. You know, we want to be a, you know, key entity in terms of contributing to the community, you know, through the work that we do, but through the volunteering and through the sponsorship that we do to support the local charities here.
Mark Asher | 05:56
Yeah, I was going to bring that up, and I’m glad you kind of mentioned it. You have a big heart and like to give back to your community. You’ve been here for a long time.
So tell me how you plan to do that through KeenStack.
Thiru Thangarathinam | 06:07
Absolutely, Mark. So I think about our stakeholders, I think about them in three different perspectives. I have my customers, which is obvious, of course. And the second one is I have my employees. And the third one is community. I always think of community as my third stakeholder.
So giving back to the community is a key part of our principles. We have a lot of the conscious capitalism model in terms of how to think about community.
So all the work that we are going to do in the future, a key part of that is, you know, how much of that is going to be, you know, in terms of giving back to the community. So that’s how we’re going to approach it. I think giving back will happen in the form of, you know, multiple areas. One is, you know, we probably will probably do service and not work for the customers, for example, the charities and really help them get better in terms of technology and options. I think the second one is, you know, giving our time back to the community.
You know, we are planning to give all the employees two days of paid time every year so they can go and volunteer, contribute to the charities of their choice. And the third one, of course, is, you know, charities and where we contribute to those charities and the sponsorships, you know, money and things like that.
So that’s what we are thinking about. And we always like I said, key guiding principle is that we think about community as the third stakeholder for us.
Mark Asher | 07:34
If you’re just tuning in, Thiru Thangarathinam is our guest this morning, the founder of KeenStack, a brand new company that right now has six employees. But I think you said earlier, like maybe in the next five or so years, you’re thinking growth of up to maybe 400 employees here. That’s a big jump, isn’t it?
Yeah.
Thiru Thangarathinam | 07:54
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s the goal. We want to get to a 50 million dollar entity by then.
So that’s what we are really gearing up to do over the next five years. Timeline mark.
Mark Asher | 08:04
Wow. It’s very exciting times. I know you’re kind of just getting off and running. And so I truly appreciate you taking 10 minutes to visit with us and tell us all about it before I let you go through. Tell me, my listeners, where they could go find out a little bit more. Maybe companies listening that say, hey, this could be some of the solutions I’m looking for. What’s the best way to find you?
Thiru Thangarathinam | 08:25
Yeah, one option, of course, is, you know, KeenStack .com. And if you go to our website and you can learn more about what we do, like I talked about those industry verticals, you can learn more about that. Of course, you can follow us on LinkedIn and all the social media, Facebook and those areas as well. And, you know, and we have job postings as well.
Like I said, you know, we’re trying to hire up to 400 people in the next five years. You know, apply for those job roles as well. We would love to hear from them. And for the prospective customers, you know, see where we can help.
You know, we are like I said, we are a local company here and we would love to work with the local companies and be helpful to them.
Mark Asher | 09:04
Sounds good. Again, if you want to check them out a little bit more, go to Keen. That’s K -E -E-N, KeenStack .com. And you can read about the team over there at KeenStack and everything they’ve got going on. Thiru, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. Keep up the great work. And let’s visit soon as you guys keep building this thing. All right.
Thiru Thangarathinam | 09:26
Awesome, thank you Mark for your time.
Mark Asher | 09:28
You’re welcome. Thank you. That’s Thiru Thangarathinam. He is the founder and owner of KeenStack doing some great things over there and very cool. And, you know, they have digital transformation. They got all kinds of solution, curiosity, commitment to excellence, you name it. If you’re looking for some solutions in your business, it sounds like this could be a great company. Again, they just kicked off, so we appreciate him coming on the program.
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