Through The Corporate Glass

Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) are penetrating our lives & work. Data consumption, analysis and modeling contribute to increasing the carbon footprint of products.

How can AI/ML be applied in the field of sustainability? What kind of skills and training are required to create sustainable solutions ? What are the barriers to entry and what are the opportunities? As people look to dive into the field, how can one effectively establish technical expertise & credibility? To answer this and share his story, we have with us Narayanan Subramanium, a thought leader in Technology and Sustainability. He is currently the CTO of Eugenie and has nearly 3 decades of experience spanning Industrial AI for sustainability, electric vehicles IoT, distributed systems and networking. He is part of the IEEE Bangalore Computer Society,  Executive Committee. He has a Masters in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland. He completed the chief digital officer executive education program from Indian School of Business and a post graduate diploma in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning from the University of Texas, Austin. 

He talks about technology and sustainability at various events and conferences. As part of the G20, he has been invited by TiE to talk about Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction.

Show Notes

For women’s history month we would like to acknowledge and thank all the women before us who made our success possible. 

In the past we had put together episodes for the women’s month focussing on the thoughts, motivation and influences behind career and life choices. This was very well received and we enjoyed the experience so much that we wanted to put another episode together for this year’s women's month. 

This episode covers answers to the following 6 questions from 13 inspiring women.

1. What does lead like a girl mean to you?

2. What advice would you give your younger self?

3. What is your biggest fear and how do you cope with it?

4. What is the most significant/unconventional choice you have made so far?

5. Who are the women you admire and have shaped your decisions and life?

6. Could you share a favorite book or quote which has influenced you?

The inspiring Women featured in this episode:

What does a career in print media entail? What are the skills required to succeed in this field? How does one build credibility and brand recognition for new publications?  Suresh Selvaraj, formerly the president of the Outlook Group of magazines and later the CEO of the Suvarna News shares his journey, learnings, and perspectives. He has over 30 years of experience, having worked for different kinds of print media brands like dailies, weekend papers, and magazines. He has been part of national and regional leaders, fledgling brands, start-ups, challenger brands, and international brands. He currently blogs about Travel. 

In our career journey, coaches and mentors help us reach our potential. They not only help us make better decisions but also have an impact on the way we think and approach problems. How does one go about finding a mentor or a coach? What is the difference between them? How do we have an effective relationship with a mentor or a coach? We talk about this with Mary Beth Stockton.

Mary Beth Stockton is VP Technical Product Management - Imaging, Engineering & Sourcing at GE HealthCare. She is a graduate of GE's Leadership program. As an IT Leader, she is passionate about rallying people around a common mission to solve problems that matter. She is a coach, mentor and supporter of women in technology.

Digital products are an integral part of our day-to-day lives. We are increasingly aware about our experiences with these products - whether they delight us, make us happy or drive us insane. What does it take to design and build these experiences? What are the roles in an organisation that help drive user experience? What skills does it take to do this? We talk about this with Stephanie Williams, UX Director at GE Healthcare.

Stephanie has over 17 years of experience in the industry. She started out as a usability specialist at Ford Motor Company, moved on to lead user research and design and now as a director, drives experience strategy and focuses on making it a part of how an organisation works.

Strategy - It can mean many things to people. It can be used in a personal context or professional context. As we think about our own careers, it becomes important to understand how all of these come together. How do we tie what we do with the organization's strategy? We talk about this with Kostubh Vashishth,  VP Product Management - Customer Engagement & Marketing, GE Healthcare.

In his career spanning over 20 years, Kostubh has defined and driven strategies in Product management, Enterprise Architecture, Management, and Business Consulting. He has worked across different industries like Healthcare, Travel, Telecom, and Retail. He is passionate about driving teams and the organization around a common mission. 

What does business development involve? Does this vary between a startup and an established company? What are the skills required to be successful in business development? 

We discuss this and much more with Hussein Khazaal. Hussein is a product and business leader with over 20 years of international product & partnership management, marketing and business development experience in startups and global organizations. He is currently the Category Lead for networking business development for AWS & AWS Marketplace.

Hussein's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/husseinkhazaal/

Mentioned in the episode:

List of BD [Business Development] roles within AWS Marketplace :

Technology strategy for an enterprise plays a crucial role in generating value for an organization. Architects are at the very core of this strategy. In an enterprise, you will find the different types of architects like Application architects, Solution architects, Software architects and enterprise architects who come together to define and drive this strategy. What do each of these types of architects do? What is the nature of the problems that they solve? What does it take to be an architect? We talk about this with Sandip Bhakta, Principal Enterprise Architect at GE Healthcare.

Sandip has 2 decades of experience in the industry. As an enterprise architect, she has designed complex and large scale digital solutions across various industries - Financial, Defence, Media and Healthcare. She is passionate about technology and its many possibilities

Have you wondered what it takes to make an impact in the sustainability space? What are the challenges and what are the opportunities? What roles do the community and the customer play? We explore these questions with Ganesh Shankar.

Ganesh is a serial entrepreneur in the Sustainability/ ClimateTech space with a career vision towards making Sustainability the default choice for all. He is currently the Founder and CEO of FluxGen Technologies, with a goal of De-Risking Industries from the Water Crisis. He has also co-founded "The Sustainability Mafia" (SusMafia.org) a for-impact organization, with a mission to multiply the impact of sustainability leaders through goal-oriented collaboration . His genuine interest in solving problems for the greater good as well as his motivation to guide and mentor those entering the industry are very inspiring.

How does someone with an engineering background break into policy design? What does it mean to be an effective problem solver in the sustainability space? How does one contribute to evidence based policy making. We talk about this and much more with Hari Dilip Kumar.

Hari is a generalist problem-solver at heart, with a decade of rich and varied experience in sustainability and social impact. He has contributed significantly to ground-breaking projects recognized globally for innovation and impact by organizations including the United Nations. He cofounded FluxGen, a sustainable technologies company in Bengaluru. He then worked at MicroEnergy International (Germany) on the concept of swarm electrification, and headed research & product development at Solshare, an international joint-venture social enterprise creating clean energy marketplaces in rural off-grid areas of Bangladesh. He also researched systems issues at Public Affairs Centre.

Building game changing products and transforming industries require thinking outside the box, questioning the accepted state of the world and making bold choices. How does one develop this aptitude, attitude and exposure. What are the challenges and what is the cost of making these bold choices? To delve into these questions, we have with us Dheeraj Pandey, Co-founder and CEO of DevRev, board member at Adobe, co-founder of Nutanix. He is also the co-founder of Param Hansa Values and Param Hansa Philanthropies and is on the board of advisors for the Department of Computer Science at UT Austin. Dheeraj is a true visionary, who constantly questions the status quo and has built companies that have disrupted industry norms. 

Organizational culture refers to the values and behaviours that the company promotes. As individuals, we have values which are deeply ingrained in us that drive our decision making and actions. How do these personal values relate to that of an organization? Does organizational culture shape our thinking? What happens when there are differences between our personal values and organizational culture? We talk about these with Shiva Kannan.

Shiva is SVP, International & Commercial CIO at GE Healthcare. He is responsible for GE Healthcare's digital technology strategy and execution across 120 countries. He has over 2 decades of experience in the industry and has played diverse roles. As he shares his learnings, you will find yourself reflecting on your own journey and thinking of ways to try out some of the things that he speaks about.

Linkedin Profile:

How do choices shape our perspectives and ability to think out of the box? What skills are essential to creating innovative products?  We hear from people who pursued fields ranging from Physics and Econometrics to Computer Science, from fresh graduates to folks who have more than 2 decades of experience, from those who have questioned the status quo and those who have sustained their interest over decades. Though the journeys are so different and unique, all the people in this interview now work at DevRev, and have a shared purpose. 

Linkedin Profiles of the guests in the episode

How do you assess the merit of an idea? How do you decide whether you want to work on building the idea into a product and when and whether you must quit your day job to follow your passion? How do you monetize your ideas?

Kishore Nallan and Jason Bosco, Founders of Typesense search,  answer these questions and share many personal learnings from their journey of 15 years in startups and big companies.  

Kishore and Jason have had very successful careers working at many well known startups. Jason was VP of Engineering at Dollar Shave Club and Verishop and Kishore was a Senior SRE at Zapier and cofounded Wreally. They worked on Typesense for 4 years along with their full time jobs, until the search engine gained  traction before they quit their jobs to focus on TypeSense full time. 

ShowNotes

Kishore's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kishorenallan/

Jason's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbosco/

Typesense Search: https://typesense.org/

What does building system software feel like? What does a long term career in Systems Programming look like? What kind of mindset and skills are required to succeed here? What are some misconceptions about this field?

We discuss all this with Arun Raghavan. Arun runs a system software consultancy called Asymptotic.io. He has been a long term contributor to multimedia frameworks like GStreamer and PulseAudio. He has been developing software for over 15 years and has worked at companies like Nvidia and Collabora.

How does one get into positions of leadership and influence, while staying on a technical career path? What does a Principal Engineer bring to the table at a top tier technology company like Amazon? To share his perspective, we have with us Saurabh Shrivastava, Principal Engineer at Amazon. 

Saurabh has two decades of experience in roles spanning software engineering and management. Most recently, he was a Director at Nuage Networks before joining Amazon. He has a unique point of view on leadership in both the technical and management ladders.

Working in the industry and working in academia - there are a lot of differences between the two. You may discover your desire for academic research and teaching at any point in your career, including after you begin your career in the industry. How do you make the switch and what should you know before you do?

We talk about this with Shruthi N, Asst. Professor in Department of Electronics & Communication engineering at BNMIT, Bangalore. Shruthi has worked in the industry for 3.5 years and has been with academia for 7 years. She cares about her students and is passionate about helping them find the best in themselves.

Shruthi's LinkedIn profile:

Most of us do not manage our careers actively. What if we had a model to guide us through the process? What if the model was derived as a result of decades of experience and observation in both industry and academia? 

Dr Raj Yavatkar, CTO of Juniper Networks, introduces such a model for career building and talks through how it can be applied to our own careers. Raj is responsible for charting Juniper's technology strategy and for leading the company’s critical technology innovations. He has been awarded more than 45 patents, published over 60 research papers, authored five Internet standards, and co-authored a book on Internet QoS (Quality of Service). He is an IEEE Fellow and holds a PhD in Computer Science from Purdue University.

Raj's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajyavatkar1982/

Mentioned in the episode

History is not just a series of events. It is about societies, cultures and ideas that have shaped our present. Archaeologists play an important role in this journey of understanding our origins. They make sense of the past to help us build our future. 

We talk to archaeologist Dr. Madhavi Kunneriath. Madhavi has an M.A in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology from Deccan College, Pune., an M.Phil from the Dept of Ancient History and Archaeology at Madras University, and a Ph.D in Quaternary and Prehistory from Paris. She cares about helping people understand how knowing the past can impact the way we think today.

Mentioned in the episode:

To be effective at work these days, you have to make sense of a large amount of information on a daily basis. What strategies and tools can you harness to organize information quickly as you come across it? Can this also help you choose which skills or concepts to learn?

We talk to Chirag Jain about these ideas. Chirag has worked as a Software Developer at Google, Uber, and Directi. He has a keen interest in note taking and personal information management, and shares some of the techniques that have worked for him.

User experience design is fascinating in the way that it balances artistic skills, aesthetics, imagination and utility. Have you wondered what it takes to be a successful UX designer and how they strike this balance? How can you break into the field of design? 

To enlighten us about the creative as well as the practical aspects of UX Design, we have with us, Brighton Vino Jegarajan, Staff Designer at Nutanix. Brighton has over a decade of experience in the industry, spanning both UX design and software development.

Complying with regulations is critical to building trust with customers and employees. In this episode, we explore compliance in Information Technology through the eyes of Girish Ghatge, Sr. Director, Risk & Compliance at GE Healthcare.

Girish reflects on his exciting career journey spanning nearly 26 years. His candid observations help us understand what it takes to navigate the challenges that come with working in the compliance space.

Going from being an engineer to a manager can be a big change in your career journey. How do you know you’re up for the challenge? How can you best prepare for the transition to management? Deepthi Kulkarni gives her candid take on these topics and more.

Deepthi is a Director of Technology at Afterpay, a payments platform that enables financial wellness for Gen Z and millennial shoppers. Before that she spent five years leading various teams at Redbubble, an online marketplace. She worked as an engineer at Flipkart during the company's high growth phase.

Can graduate school be an option for those wanting to make a mark in the industry? To explore the professional masters program as a possible answer, we talk to Eric VandeVoorde & Karen Hull from Purdue University. Eric is the Director of Professional Engineering Master's Programs and Karen Hull is the Engineering Management Graduate Program Manager at Purdue.

We discuss the questions which arise while choosing a graduate program, the challenges that students face and stories of how students have shaped their careers through this program. Eric and Karen have a front row seat to the decision making process and provide great insights based on their interactions with a diverse group of students over the years.

Are you approaching hiring correctly? Is a focus on resumes over practical skills costing you in this hot market for talent? And why is it so hard for us to let go of our existing approaches to hiring?

We discuss all this - and more - with Krishnan Nair, CEO and Co-founder of GeekTrust. a job platform designed for software developers. Over the last six years, GeekTrust has placed more than 500 developers. Prior to starting GeekTrust, Krishnan worked as a Delivery Manager at ThoughtWorks for almost a decade.

Have you ever wondered if there are roles at the intersection of business functions? Can you  bring a unique value proposition, carve a niche for yourself and in the process define an entirely new role? 

To talk about how she achieved all this in the context of her role in employer branding, we have with us Melissa Sheehan. Melissa is currently a Principal Program Manager for Employer Branding at Nutanix and has over 10 years of experience in the field of marketing.

Human Resource Management (HR) is an integral part of an organization. In this episode, we trace its history, talk about focus areas like Performance Management and how one can pursue a career in HR.  

We talk to Sudipta Das. Associate Director-Performance Management, Flipkart. Sudipta has worked across multiple industries - Manufacturing, IT and Product. He is passionate about helping people as they reflect on their career and growth.

What is Deep Work and what are its benefits? How can modern software companies organize themselves to enable employees to do Deep Work consistently? How does a culture of written communication fit into this?

Becoming an entrepreneur is a difficult choice, one that opens the door to many opportunities as well as risks.  Have you wondered about the thought process that drives one to be a founder and the trade offs involved? To share his exciting journey, we have with us Rajan Bala, a senior manager at Amazon in Tornoto and the founder of Aravanai, a non profit organization helping entrepreneurs in underprivileged  communities. Previously, he was the Co-founder of Hiku labs, a Silicon Valley startup which made shopping frictionless.

Podcast Show Notes

How your company is perceived as an employer matters a great deal in today's competitive hiring landscape. We talk to Nisha J K to learn how employer brands are shaped, common misconceptions around it and how you can improve your company's branding.

Nisha is a Co-Founder and Director at GreenPepper Consulting, who have been helping companies scale their tech teams. Over the last decade, GreenPapper has worked with more than 400 companies and onboarded 2000+ candidates.

Mentioned in this episode:

We discuss the role of a Technical Marketing Engineer. Do you need to be an engineer or someone with a marketing background or both? How and why would one choose this career path? To share his journey and answer these questions for us, we have with us Jason Burns, Principal Technical Marketing Engineer.

Jason has designed and supported network infrastructure in the enterprise for the past 16 years, connecting hundreds of thousands of end-users. His career has taken a winding journey from customer support, to consulting, architecting, and finally to technical marketing. 

ShowNotes

While choosing a job as a product manager, should you consider a startup or an established company? How does an internal facing role compare to an external facing one? How does remote work sit with the role? 

We continue our conversation with Luke Congdon. Director of Product Management at Nutanix to find answers to these questions. Luke’s blog is an excellent resource for all things product management and provides some great guidelines for those wanting to break into the field.

Have you wondered what Product management involves? What drives, challenges and motivates product managers? What skills do you need to consider a career in product management and how do you acquire them?

Can participating in Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives contribute towards developing our careers, while promoting the social cause?

To share her perspective on balancing a demanding job with social responsibility initiatives at Nutanix, we have with us Jennifer Rowland. Jennifer is a Senior Manager for product at Nutanix and heads Webscale Women - a global program to support and enable the community of women at Nutanix. Jennifer has two decades of experience in engineering and product management.