Software People Stories

In this conversation, Ted Harrington, Executive Partner at Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) shares his career journey and perspectives with Sivaguru on various topics related to IT security and ethical hacking. He talks aboutHis company of ethical hackers helping other companies secure their IT systemsWanting to be an entrepreneur and starting a consumer facing businessMoving to a company, as the CEO / founder wanted to mentor someone and felt that would be a good experienceWith that experience, feeling the need to serve businesses rather than consumers directlyHow he met his current business partner and how the plan for the company evolved literally overnightHis four core principles: do hard things, do things that matter, do things in the service of others and to get better every single dayApplying these principles in the security business and getting a clientMindset needed for outhinking a hackerThinking like a hacker and why it may not be possible to think one step ahead of the attackerDeveloping the skill of thinking ‘evil’, to raise the security levels of our solutionsWhose job it is to think security in a teamHow security is a leadership issueHow security thinking can be used to ensure the adherence to company values such as customer experience, quality etc.Using security as a business differentiator and gain competitive advantageHis thoughts on security aspects of the ‘supply chain’Zero trust and defense in depth modelsHow not to become obsessed and become a pessimist, thinking only of all bad things that can happenHow he likes to look at systems in everything and how they could be improved by breaking themHow he approached writing his book that is related to technology, when technology is changing very fastHow to make security layers least obtrusiveWhat it takes to become a security professionalTed Harrington is the #1 best selling author of HACKABLE: How to Do Application Security Right. He’s helped hundreds of companies fix tens of thousands of security vulnerabilities, including Google, Amazon, and Netflix.Ted has been featured in more than 100 media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Forbes.His team founded and organizes IoT Village, an event whose hacking contest is a three-time DEF CON Black Badge winner. He hosts the Tech Done Different podcast.Reach him at: ted [at] tedharrington [dot] com or https://tedharrington.com

In this conversation, Raja, a coach at PM Power, who likes to be known as a lifelong programmer shares his journey into the world of software and the lessons he learnt and his view onHow he was inspired by two of his teachers to learn programmingHis liking for experiments that kept him interested in ITThe transition from an individual contributor to working in teamsHow he would like to be associated with only one role : a programmerHis surprise, when he took up employment after being an entrepreneur, to see designations and very hard delineation of responsibilities by rolesHis views on the titles on people’s visiting cardsWhether he has a ‘Raja technique or Raja methodology’His views on ‘super specialization’ that many developers prefer, to work only on the server side or on the client side etc and who should own the value chainThe power of the concept of ‘mock’s and ‘stub’sHow an explicit approach can help in improving team productivityAn analogy of a carnatic musicians in a concert having respect for each other on the concept of respect for each otherThe secret sauce of delivering high quality software is the respect for each other in a teamHow effective ideas can be simple and can come from anyone in the team, not necessarily senior in terms of experienceHis advice on choosing a technical or managerial path for one’s careerWriting single intent code that progressively evolvesRaja would like to be recognized as a programmer since 1993 having extensive experience in architecting and implementing object-oriented and distributed systems. He has created applications for people to collaborate.He preaches and practices Clean Coding Techniques.His profile on the PM Power site is at: https://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/raja-subramaian/His LinkedIn profile is at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raja-subramanian-kamakshi-iyer-87aa7a54/He can also be found on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-D08_UMQN5fM4rLx2Q7JOg

In this episode Dr. Neeta Trivedi, a former senior scientist with the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and an entrepreneur, is in conversation with Sivaguru. Neeta shares her experiences onHer modest family background from a small town with modest dreamsEven without access to information sources, wanting to do something different, something bigBeing fortunate to have passionate teachers right from primary school, who were invested in building good persons overall, and nt just limiting themselves to teaching the curriculumGetting into a new program launched by DRDO, to develop computer scientistsStarting her career with computer land war game systemsUsing the 2167-A methodology for software developmentGetting opportunities to attend conferences including once where she got to meet Prof. Watts Humphrey{understanding that developing software systems is more than writing some lines of code}About meeting her husband to be and later shifting to Bangalore after marriageWorking on cockpit display systems for the Light Combat AircraftGetting her first opportunity to see what is ‘inside the box’ of a computer and did not have an option of opting out.And how that have her a very good experience to understand various dynamics in a large programHow the nuclear blast at Pokhran and subsequent Y2k meant a lot of constraints to be faced by the scientistsHaving the rigor of 100% test coverage, 0% dead code etcAn interesting situation while integrating subsystems that took many months to resolve and the learning from that experienceNuances in hardware design that influence or constrain software to be developed or deployedMoving to work on UAVs and adopting structured systems development methodologies (standard 498)How she likes to use a metaphor of a divided two way street and 2167A, her experience with 2207, that is more flexibleAbout using beetles to reach inaccessible spaces in times of disaster, where UAVs cannot & interesting experiences convening a group on micro air vehiclesAbout taking a voluntary retirement and starting a companyHandling Functional and non functional requirementsThe importance and need for systems thinkingNeeta did MSc Computer Science from Devi Ahilya University, Indore, through a DRDO sponsored programme, and joined DRDO in 1989. She later pursued academics while on the job, to obtain MSc (engineering) and PhD from Indian Institute of Science in the areas of Wireless Sensor Networks and Information Fusion.Neeta worked for DRDO for 28 years before voluntarily retiring as Scientist ‘G’. She had a brief stint as Subject Matter Expert in Tata Advanced Systems Ltd after that, and is presently focusing on her startup venture Inferigence Quotient LLP.During her initial years in ISSA-DRDO, Delhi, she was a team member for Computerised Land Wargames for the Indian Army. From 1996 to 2007 at ADE-DRDO, Bangalore, she led the software design and development team for Cockpit Display Systems for the Indian Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas. The display computer hardware and software were designed and developed completely within India at a time when indegenious capabilities in these areas were at a nascent stage, and private industry was still evolving. The display system successfully flew many hundreds of times, providing a platform for proving other avionics subsystems as well. From 2007 to 2017 at ADE she headed the UAV Payload Data Processing group, contributing to the ground image exploitation systems of various UAV programmes including micro, mini, tactical and MALE UAVs.At TASL she contributed to Mission Systems, Ground Operating Systems and Ground Support Systems for aerial surveillance platforms, and to group autonomy for aerial robots.Her startup venture is about building intelligent systems using computer vision and machine learning.She has been part of many other technical and techno-managerial activities. She was expert member and convener of the Aeronautics R&D Board panel SIGMA (Special Interest Group on MAVs) for over 5 years, expert panel member of National Programme on MAVs, a joint initiative by DRDO and DST, contributed to white paper on homeland security for Govt of India. She has over 20 technical papers in national and international journals and conferences, and has also been on review panels herself.Neeta is a senior member of IEEE and of Computer Society of India. She has received various awards including Young Engineer Award from Indian National Academy of Engineers, Young Scientist Awards from DRDO and from ADE, and Technology Award from DRDO. Her professional interests include Multisensor Data Fusion, Computer Vision, AI, Mission Systems for Aerial Surveillance Platforms, Ground Operating and Support Systems for UAVs, Payload Data Processing, Avionics and Cockpit Displays, Autonomous Single- and Multi-agent Robot Systems including Hybrid Navigation, Software and Systems Engineering.Contact: [email protected] covid relief http://www.auwa.in/podforchan

In this episode Amrita Samuel, People Leader and Executive Coach is in conversation with Gayatri sharing her experiences onChosing HR as a career by choiceStarting out in banking, manufacturing, hotels & then coming to IT via a .com companyWorking out of retail company warehouses and in actual stores, later moving into HR consulting across several industriesThe start of her long IT HR stint beginning with figuring out alphabets in computer programming languages and acronyms of the tech worldThe feel of working with tech across physical notebooks, shared computers, and accessing email via dial up connectionsReflections on how mindsets and work constructs have shifted from meeting people in personHow people have understood the role of HR and what it encompassesHow people experience the organization through HR from hiring to retiring, HR as brand ambassadorsBeing a business partner, learning about what it means to code, what project management is and helping people who want to do something elseOn how people from tech functions bring more empathy to their role when some of them chose to move into HRFunctioning and enabling in the background Did she ever miss not being in the limelight? Being a true partner in an organizationWorking with over 12 countries and cultures and how they perceive HRHer upbringing and how its helped shape her perspectives in her roleCreating safe spaces, coaching leaders and being an invisible yet impactful functionAmrita is a thoughtful and accomplished people leader and executive coach. She is a certified Associate Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation with over 20 years of experience in global human resource management. Her belief in the power of the human potential has helped the leaders she has coached flourish in all aspects of their life. Amrita has held several leadership roles in her two-decade career in Human Resources. She has worked and led teams in India, USA, Europe and Asia. She has worked across multiple industries ranging from Technology, Manufacturing to Retail and Hospitality. Most recently she was General Manager & Global HR Head at Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT), where she has worked for over 14 years. Amrita is a food & travel enthusiast. She is a certified scuba diver &  home baker. She is committed to social sector causes & hopes to be an impact agent in that space.She can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amritasamuel/ OR @ [email protected] covid relief please contribute via http://www.auwa.in/podforchange  OR https://fundraisers.giveindia.org/fundraisers/podforchange-covid-relief-fund 

In this conversation Chuck Weindorf shares insights and incidents from his long career as an IT software developer, guide and mentor, with Chitra from PM Power Consulting, aroundHis interest and curiosity to learn about new technology, picking it up as a hobbyist in high schoolHis drive to offer his services as a software developer when he was in high schoolHaving the drive and focus to stay on the software development path and learnHow he loves working with young people, encouraging more young women to take up software engineering, & how youngsters can prepare themselves for a careerSharing his learnings from his career, failures and experiences through his book Leaders & Software Engineers: Communicate and Motivate without speaking in CodeHow he developed the ability to "see code" starting playing chess moves in his mind and then visualizing code movement laterWhat it takes to be a good trouble shooter, dont have the fear of breaking something, discovering variability and complexityBeing experimental to understand complexity and gain confidence How new engineers can assimilate and understand existing code and systems and then build on them with newer tech and softwareWhat experienced engineers can do to enable fresh engineers understand pieces of the system and make the transition smoothEmpathy, living a day in the life of your customer and continuous improvement takeaways, making personal connects to be successful software engineersCultivating how to speak the language of business to get buy in for new features, technologyProductivity through the value lens for software, individuals and the organization, building bridges between software and organization needsTwo things to keep in mind for IT professionalsBring your best each day to workEmbracing new technology, learning it and guiding the company through its adptionCharles Weindorf is a retired IT Director and Chief Engineer with nearly 40 years of experience in software engineering. At Erie Insurance, he served in every possible technical and supervisory role, where he encouraged software engineers to understand their responsibilities, see their value, adopt change, and focus on future direction. With stories, humor, and recollections of his roots as a young engineer, he influenced the next generation of software engineers to excel in their craft. Learn more at www.leadingsoftwareengineers.com Charles attempts to learn a new skill or hobby each year—including creating a board game from one of his fiction works, leading a new spiritual retreat, leaning to fly in a simulator, and managing a political campaign. He is a lifelong resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, where he lives with his high school sweetheart and wife, Debra, his four kids, and seven grandkids.He can be contacted via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-weindorf-engineer/In Leaders and Software Engineers:Communicate and Motivate without speaking in Code, Charles Weindorf provides the Rosetta Stone for communicating to engineers with stories, analogies, and humor to encourage excellence in your team

In this episode Amit Sarangi, Agile Evangelist is in conversation with Gayatri. Amit shares his experiences onStarting his career in the functional HRM area as a business analystComparing the modules and configurations that used to be done in Oracle to the no-code generation of products of todayWorking as an onsite coordinator and understanding business needs and mapping themHow the Agile journey has transformed him as well as how software is perceivedChanging the mode of working from being like a whack-a-mole in terms of how feedback used to be collected and how that has changedHow people need to be understood as who they are and not as robots to churn so many lines of code regularlyHis childhood, being a kid of Sanskrit professors, filled with stories, realms and possibilitiesThe choices he’s made in his life and being comfortable staying out of the comfort zone and he’s better for itThe legacy he’s leaving behind and inspiring today’s technologists to do the sameUnderstanding your roots and past, constant curiosity and embracing the future creates multiple possibilities and opportunities. Asking listeners to keep exploring! Amit can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amit-sarangi/ Here is the link to the Give India campaign in support of the #PodForChange Covid Relief Fund https://fundraisers.giveindia.org/fundraisers/podforchange-covid-relief-fund

In this episode, SeethaPrasad Mandikel CEO and Founder of Tribyte Technologies shares his stories with Chitra around His love for programming and natural motivation towards doing it, active coder at least once a week and reviewing codeThe "Made in India" inspiration when working in Talisma towards becoming an entrepreneurHaving a lot of ideas, taking nearly 2 years to decide that "this is the one" and the journey from an idea towards making it into a business and founding Tribyte technologiesStarting the business with building a video platform for entertainment and education & focusing on creating a platform to enable learning by making it both engaging and interestingHow they got first customers, being confident about the problem being addressed of self-paced learning amidst bandwidth challenges to stream HD videosEnabling their early customers digital journeys, learning and co-creating the platformDeveloping and maintaining customer relationships mainly through partnering and referrals, and helping customer grow their businessThe growth explosion due to the pandemic, how the team responded and enabled educators transition to online education and ensuring customer business continuityLessons learned while scaling rapidly at the onset of the pandemic to enable customers quickly move online, handling nearly 1500 sessions with 40-50 attendees per session, all starting at 9amSmart scaling approaches keeping cost and performance in mindA time when J&K state customers were enabled quickly so they could continue teachingHow he built the team at TribyteCatering to different learner personas and categoriesMessages for aspiring technologists on having a passion for programming & for entrepreneurs to examine viability & feasibility of a product or solution before starting your business Seethaprasad Mandikel is the founder and CEO of TriByte Technologies, a Bangalore (India) headquartered company, focused on developing a cutting-edge Interactive Learning Platform.Seethaprasad has 25 years of experience in building technologies for large scale deployment with last 10 years focused on EduTech. He has grown TriByte from a start-up to enterprise by providing white-labelled solutions for many marquee customers and serving millions of users across 7 countries and 3 continents.Prior to TriByte, he was part of the founding team of PI Corporation (later acquired by EMC) as Development Director. He worked in companies like Microsoft Corporation in the US), Talisma/ Aditi Technologies and with Robert Bosch, IndiaHe can be reached via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seethaprasad/

In this conversation with Sanjay Tambwekar, CTO of Qwikcilver is in conversation with Chitra where he shares his experiences aroundHis first exposure to engineering while witnessing his father building barges in shipyardsWriting software at TUL after his graduation from IIT BombayWorking at Bell Northern Research and developing systems engineering understanding Being part of the supercomputer team at CDAC and enabling its power for actual use by other government agenciesWorking at Verifone on digital payments software solutionsCustomer empathy and customer relationship experiencesHow he transitioned to management at Verifone and later managing a very large team at Sasken, along with his philosophy on management and leadershipExperiences and learning in his role as CTO, from managing delivery, to understanding different customer personas, scaling transactions and conceptualizing product featuresA critical message on road safety through a foundation that he and his wife started and parents being role modelsHis 2 part message for aspiring software and technology engineersFocus on the process to improve, your first competition is yourselfBeing an entrepreneur or being an employee, an marriage analogyAs the CTO, Sanjay leads the evolution of prepaid solutions at Qwikcilver, now merging into Pine Labs. Prior to this, his journey covers different domains across parallel computing (CDAC), payments (Verifone), wireless communications (Sasken) and digital storage (NetApp). He has a degree in EE from IIT Bombay, MS in CSE from NCSU, and a Diploma in Practicing Management from INSEAD.  In the memory of their daughter, his wife and he run The Arundhati Foundation with the primary aim to improve road safety. Sanjay loves swimming, and occasional sketching.Sanjay's LinkedIn profile Social media handles related to The Arundhati Foundation : Twitter : @4stambwekarFacebook : https://www.facebook.com/thearundhatifoundation

In this conversation with Chitra, Pragati Ogal Rai shares her stories aroundHow she became a technologist, published author, community technology evangelist, startup entrepreneurHaving innate curiosity to study electronics and computer science, teach and do a double masters in computer scienceWorking in a startup with her professor on creating a Skype-like feature on a palm pilotWorking in mobile technology for 6 years, hardening mobile platforms before Android and IoS became popularDeveloping and training mobile engineers and becoming a technology evangelistWriting a book on Android Application SecurityHow her career learning helped build a ladder to what she took up nextGetting people to do the right thing through empathy, patient listening and investing time in problem discovery and the art of enabling developersBuilding and promoting communities, its all about the peopleLessons in community buildingInspiration to start an NGO focusing on Autism Spectrum DisorderHer lessons from her startup experienceHer message for technology aspirantsPragati is the Founder of ViryaDewdrops Autism Foundation, COO - ISSA India Chapter, Chair – Women in Cyber Security India Chapter, author of the book "Android Application Security Essentials” and the winner of 2014 Zinnov Thought Leadership award. In her 20-year career, Pragati has had the privilege to work with Motorola, PayPal, Deutsche Bank and Microsoft. She has held leadership roles in technology, evangelism, strategy, innovation, global program management, and product marketing. She was a founding member of Mo’blast a technology company in US and has now founded ViryaDewDrops Autism Foundation, a venture focusing on individuals with autism. Pragati works with academia all over the world in different capacities and volunteers at Swapaksh - a school for kids of migrant worker living in slum areas.  She is a recognized and much sought-after speaker at international technology events. Pragati has a dual Masters in computer science - one from Banasthali Vidhyapith (Gold medal at university level) and the other from San Jose State University. Pragati spent thirteen years in California before relocating to Bangalore. Reading, organizing, and spending time with family and friends keeps her life spiced up. Her inspiration is her mom and dad.Here is her book on Book Android Application Security Virya Autism NGO https://www.facebook.com/viryaautism@viryaautismjoin the Virya community

In this conversation, Ranjani Mani shares her experience stories with Chitra onHer belief in making a world that our children can live inProduct management, analytics and consulting for 14 years, customer experience & startup mentoring3 things she's passionate about - Reading, Writing about Tech & AI, becoming betterDoing her bit to enable women with choicesThe impact of growing up in an environment of equality and mutual respectTaking a user centric approach to designing solutionsWhy she did an MBA, how it helped open her mind, deal with ambiguity and welcome diverse viewsWhy so many AI projects failHow Product Management experience compliments her analytics roleHaving multiple interests and curiosityHuman centered AISymbiosis of AI and human presenceWhy she believes we need more women in analytics, the broken rung and the 5C framework to own your careerRanjani has over 14 years of experience in setting up and growing data science, product management, consulting, and customer experience analytics teams. Her interests lie in solving business problems through analytics, strategy and leadership.Ranjani currently works at VMware India, designing and supporting SaaS transformation through Customer Success with business analytics and AI-driven customer experience. She also drives and collaborates VMware's site activities engaging with start-ups and VCs in the India ecosystem to identify collaboration opportunities.Ranjani is a DEI evangelist who is keen on bringing more women into the technology space, specifically Analytics.A passionate writer and voracious reader, Ranjani writes about Tech and AI, Future of Work with exponential technologies, leadership, and managing Analytics teams, book reviews on LinkedIn and her personal website. She also reviews interesting books and provides #2MinExplainer videos on STEM, Finance and Behavioural Economics on her YouTube channel 'Reviews with Ranjani'.Ranjani holds a bachelor's degree in Engineering (Electronics & Communication) and an MBA from MICA, Ahmedabad.She can also be reached via LinkedIn.Disclaimer: All views expressed are personal in nature and solely that of the speaker/author.

In this conversation, Hamsa Ravikiran and Sivaguru exchange Japanese language and Sanskrit snippets as Hamsa shares her stories onWorking after her BE and getting exposure to a breadth of software development from coding and testing to project and program management at Exim SoftTaking a break, doing an entrepreneurial program at IIM Bangalore and getting the first prize for her business ideaJoining IBM to conceptualize and implement a knowledge management systemTaking another break and starting a company to deliver marketing services, by women working from homeDiscovering Youth for Seva an NGO, and finding her callingWorking with corporate CSR’s on awareness around waste management & segregationHooked onto learning Sanskrit since 2013 and conducting workshops on spoken Sanskrit to doing her MA, MPhil and now planning to do her PhD in SanskritExperiences working from home and finding a balance between remote and in-person working & setting boundaries when working from homeContrasting being an entrepreneur and a project manager in a corporate settingRelevance and applicability of techniques learned as and entrepreneur and/or working in corporates, to the social sector to help sustain those activitiesContinuously motivated and challenged while learning SanskritTranslating principles from the Ramayana by examining its stories like case studies to apply in daily life, todayFinding one’s calling or purpose in life and a message in Sanskrit An engineering graduate who joined the IT industry as a programmer,  moved on to become project manager working in Indian software company  and later an MNC. Hamsa completed the Management Program for Women Entrepreneur (MPWE ) from IIM Bangalore and  co-founded an IT & Marketing firm named AddTo . She then worked with an NGO called Youth For Seva as a coordinator for Environmental issues and Corporate Social Responsibility. She took up Sanskrit Studies, conducted  spoken sanskrit workshops, organised exhibitions and events to teach and promote sanskrit . Hamsa completed her MA - Mphil in Sanskrit and is currently pursuing a Phd in Sanskrit.Hamsa can be reached through her email [email protected]

In this conversation Shane Hastie and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting talk aboutShane starting his career in South Africa in 1982Getting a solid grounding in mainframe programming from an intensive training program & programming in Assembler for a teller machine software for a financial institutionWorking on ‘End User Computing’ approaches on the mainframe, very closely with the business users - very similar to the Agile approaches of todayBeing one of the early users of a PC, and with the limited capabilities, considering the mainframe as the best peripheral that one could attach to a PC!Starting a company with his wife, focusing on solutions in a PCBuilding solutions for small and medium airlines in AfricaMoving back to New Zealand and joining a company thereLeveraging his experience in business analysis and project management as a trainerGetting an opportunity, in 2002 - to have close interactions with many of the signatories of the Agile manifesto - and understand the intent behind many of those ideasWorking with ICAgile for the last four years and how ICAgile has internalized Agile thinking, particularly the humanistic values and in the ways of workingHis transitions to various roles over his careerThe excellent support he got from his wife all throughThe transition to a trainer, wanting to share his knowledge and experience with others & training over 40000 peopleHow he could easily adapt to ambiguity and taking to the Agile approaches [including precursors such as Rapid Application Development etc]A bad experience in delivering to specs, but not the needMost people who come to classes want to learn and they are ‘participants’ in their own learning journeysThe impact of the pandemic on in person learning and the effectiveness of remote learning and his tips on adapting in person delivery to remote learningOn the ethical coaching framework initiativeHow to find out if one has in them, to be a trainer or coachShane Hastie, MIM ICP-PO ICE-ACShane joined ICAgile in 2017 as the Director of Agile Learning Programs and is now the Director of Community Development. He contributes to the strategic direction and expansion of ICAgile’s learning programs, including maintaining and extending ICAgile’s learning objectives, providing thought leadership, collaborating with industry experts, and supporting the larger ICAgile community, which includes more than 150 Member Organizations and over 100,000 ICAgile certification holders.  In the Community Development role, he is responsible for building and nurturing the community of over 500 ICAgile Authorized Instructors.  Shane is a TBR certified Trainer and is authorized to teach the Facilitating Exceptional Remote Learning class from Judy Rees. Over the last 30+ years Shane has been a practitioner and leader of developers, testers, trainers, project managers and business analysts, helping teams to deliver results that align with overall business objectives. Before joining ICAgile he spent 15 years as a professional trainer, coach and consultant specialising in Agile practices, business analysis, project management, requirements, testing and methodologies for SoftEd in Australia, New Zealand and around the world.He has worked with large and small organisations, from individual teams to large transformations all around the world. He draws on over 30 years of practical experience across all levels of Information Technology and software intensive product development.Shane was a director of the Agile Alliance from 2011 to 2016 and was the founding Chair of Agile Alliance New Zealand. He leads the Culture and Methods editorial team for InfoQ.com where he hosts the weekly InfoQ Culture Podcast. He was one of the authors for both versions of the Agile Extension to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge and a member of the core team for BABOK V3.He is co-chair of the Agile Alliance Agile Coaching Ethics initiative, working to produce a code of ethical conduct for agile coaching.He is co-author of the recent book #noprojects - A Culture of Continuous Value, available on Amazon and from InfoQ“I firmly believe that humanistic way of working and the agile mindset are desperately needed in organisations all around the globe today.  Taking agile values and principles beyond software is important and making sure they are properly embedded is absolutely crucial for success – we’re in an industry that touches every aspect of people’s lives and massively influences society as a whole and I want to be a part of making sure that industry is both ethical and sustainable.”Contact info:Email: [email protected]: @shanehastieLinkedIn: shanehastie  InfoQ Author Profile

In this conversation Sunil and Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting talk aboutHow he accidentally joined his friend in a startup, when his campus offer from a larger company was put on holdHis liking for software, right from the 6th grade, influenced greatly by his fatherHow various experiments and explorations he undertook, helped indirectly and subtly build his brand and portfolioHow the startup experience is like an adrenaline inducing activity and one has the opportunity to pick up anything related to the product and learn, as a startup is always short on handsLearning the ropes of programming in the large - as a team and the interfaces and experience of working with hardware that will run your softwareThat inputs could be from beyond just keyboard and mouseThe added complexities of enterprise software, where your code needs to integrate and work with other pieces that move on their ownWhy one should design enterprise products that are least disruptiveThe unique experience when you see your first customer actually deploying your solution in the enterpriseThis is an experience that one can get only in startups and a story where this learning happenedHis transitions from a startup employee, one of the initial employees  (founding members) in a startup to a co-founderUnderstanding the impact of ‘not now’ situations and decisionsThe significance of explaining the process, when someone is not clear about decisonsOn what he considers non-negotiable The key skills and aptitudes necessary for anyone to get into a startup His guidance on finding the right reasons to change, particularly mid-careerHow founding teams assemble themselves and an optimistic outlook for a career in ITSunil Mukundan likes to describe himself as a startup junkie who loves to build products from ground up and be a part of primal decision making in a company. He has, over the years, dabbled in video, compression, networking among others. co-authored multiple patents in the video delivery and networking domain.His linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunil-mukundan-9881563/

In this episode, Mahalakshmi and Lakshminarayan  share their perspectives with Sivaguru on:How they got into ITMaha finding her liking for bug fixing with some development, over development onlyHow a production support role gave her more flexibility with her timeHaving a supportive environment at work and home, and more flexibility with time after having a kidBeing lucky to be on a project that allowed this flexibilityHow, for Lakshmi, while there were changes in the work hours, there was no change in terms of the understanding and support for women colleaguesChipping in to support Maha with some of the child related activitiesHow, working from home has increased the expectations on availability over extended hoursThe growing mutual understanding among peers and teams or the need to balance personal and work demands, particularly while working in a dispersed modelThe significance and benefit of discussions on the nature of work with one’s spouse, even before getting married for better understandingLakshminarayanan Natarajan, has been in the IT industry for 12 years and is currently working as project lead in development work.Mahalakshmi Ganesan has been in the  IT industry for the last 7 years and is presently a technology analyst , working in an application support team .

In this episode, Manju and Rajiv Kuchhal share their perspectives with Shiv on:Manju starting her career with TCS and taking a break to take care of kids, then getting into the social sectorRajiv, about how he got into IT accidentallyHow his knowledge of Pascal got him into IT/Telecom work and later, how he got into InfosysLeaving the corporate world about 13 years ago and being active in the startup and social sector spacesHow Manju wanted to have flexibility at work even while in the corporate sector and how the social sector has given her that optionHer ways to encourage women in her team, to get back after a career breakRajiv talks about the opportunities for women in the startup sector, possibly part time as wellVariations in the clarity of work to be done and pressure between corporates and startupsOpportunities to contribute to various aspects beyond just writing codeManju also talks of the need for a support system when working from homeRajiv mentions how some societal attitudes need to change faster, when it comes to men taking a pause or going slow in their careersAbout any differences faced by women in startups and social sectorAbout encouraging women and enabling them to get back to work, while respecting their freedom to to not re-enter the corporate lifeSupport groups that can help women in transition Manju Kuchhal has nearly 20 years of experience in area of technology. For last 8+ years she has been associated with Dhwani Foundation which works towards providing technology solutions to NGOs. She is currently Trustee of Dhwani Foundation. At Dhwani she works with NGOs in identifying the areas where technology can help their operations, engages with relevant technology solution providers and help them with implementation of such solutions. Before that she worked with Tata Consultancy Services in their software division.Rajiv is an active angel investor and mentor to multiple startups in the social enterprise and technology space. He is an Advisor and Board Member of many such companies. Rajiv spent more than 2 decades in IT/BPO industry, mainly with Infosys group. He led Infosys’ foray into telecom and product engineering services space in early ’90s. He became one of the youngest Business Head and Management Council members at Infosys. He led Infosys’ foray into BPO as a founding team member of Progeon (now Infosys BPO). He was Chief Operating Officer of OnMobile and was part of senior management team instrumental in helping OnMobile scale as an organisation and consolidate its market leadership.

In this episode, Priya and Sridhar Parthasarathy share their perspectives with Sivaguru on:Priya's determination to do MCA, after missing an opportunity to do engineering in BidarStarting her career with Robert Bosch and moving on to Mascot and Wipro as a project leader and getting into ERP solutionsSetting up the EAI practice in CognizantWanting to contribute to the Digital India initiative and taking up a role in NASSCOMSridhar's journey starting at BITS Pilani and a small firm before doing his masters and then to Tata Unisys, before joining WiproNow, a cybersecurity consultant, managing his own venture, Purple TeamHow the excellent support from family has been helping Priya both at home and career, complemented by the guidance from supervisors and managers at workPriya's experience of setting up and growing the EAI practiceSridhar shares how he saw his mother being a career woman and was keen on marrying a career womanHis philosophy of having relationships based on equality and mutual respectThe support he gets from Priya in his career movement decisionsBeing sounding boards from the industry for each otherSridhar also shares instances where he was able to encourage and support women facing some challenges at work, due to demands on their time or commuteHow, Having a woman entrepreneur in the team helps create the empathy needed at the workplacePossible reasons why we find few women in cybersecurityThe impact of working from home on balancing work and personal demandsTheir views on IT as a career choice and mid career questions that many of us facePriya is spearheading NASSCOM's Future Skills initiative with the remit of skilling/reskilling/upskilling of over 4 million people in cybersecurity for India by 2025. She has seen all the opportunities and challenges that women encounter both as an engineer and as a leader. Prior to her stint in NASSCOM she was heading Cognizant's Security practice. Priya is an alumna of SJCE Mysore.Contacts: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-madhavan-b79a3714/Future Skills: https://futureskills.nasscom.in/Sridhar heads the cybersecurity consulting firm Purple Team, specializing in cloud security. In the 30+ years he has been in the Indian software industry he has been trying figure out what makes it tick. Every time he thinks he has, they change the rules!  Reach him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sridharparthasarathy/Twitter: https://twitter.com/sridhuWebpage: www.purpleteam.inThis podcast was created on Hubhopper studio. If you wish to start your own podcast for free, visit www.hubhopperstudio.com. Hubhopper is India's leading podcast creation platform. Start your podcast with Hubhopper studio & get your voice heard across platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Google podcasts, Wynk Music and more. Click on the link in the episode description or visit www.hubhopperstudio.com

In our episode, the first of a series to mark women's day 2021, Chitra from PM Power consulting is in conversation with Pratibha Batchu, General Manager heading the India Operations for Bosch Service Solutions Business unit of Bosch and Sirish Batchu, Managing Director of Danlaw Technologies India Ltd.; where they share - How they chose careers in in software and technology From one being rooted in Bangalore, to the other having lived in different citiesTheir thoughts on diversity - of people, places, experiences, and careersBringing empathy to and from the workplace, through their relationship & work experiencesGoing back to first principles when in doubtApproaching inter-generational engagement at home and in the work place, through recognizing workplace diversity, learning and un-unlearning to have conversations at every levelLeadership tips through 3P's, 3A's, empathy, making an effort to understand "why" and enabling an environment to embrace & minimize inequalitiesMaking each day your day & respecting diversity of all kinds - thought, experiences & inequalityPratibha is a Business leader with 24+ years of experience at Bosch, India with a passion for engineering, solution design, problem solving, process engineering and leading teams. She is currently General Manager heading the India Operations for Bosch Service Solutions Business unit of Bosch. She has experience in various roles ranging from software development, project management, quality processes, Head of L&D function in HR for technical competency development and knowledge management to being a leader of business teams in the IT services domain. She has worked on long term assignments at Germany and USA Bosch units, giving her a perspective on intercultural aspects and leadership.She thrives on her interest to learn and lead topics that are challenging, with an opportunity to grow the business - emphasizing on stability, creativity and growth with high customer and market focus. Pratibha is a certified Prosci Change Management Professional, EFQM business excellence assessor and CMMI qualified assessor. She is also a certified graphologist, a calligrapher and an avid traveler in her free time.Pratibha can be reached via https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratibha-sirish-batchu-322545b/Sirish Batchu is a technocrat who is passionate about bringing technologies to life to solve real world problems. Being a Computer Science Engineer in the Automotive world for about three decades, he believes that Software will entirely transform the future Mobility solutions.He is currently the Managing Director of Danlaw Technologies India Ltd. and responsible for the managing the group companies in India for the products, services and manufacturing for Connected Vehicles and Automotive Electronics solutions. Prior to this, he was the Vice President - Digital Technology at Ather Energy Private Ltd, responsible for the Software and Intelligence solutions for the Electric Scooters. He has led leading pioneering efforts in the ACE (Autnonomous, Connected & Electric) domains through his work at organizations like Mahindra & Mahindra and Bosch & has been instrumental in bringing many new technology concepts/ideas to life. He has a strong foundation in R&D by virtue of his initial experience at Indian Space Research Organization.He is recognized as a Thought Leader and an influencer in the industry in the Connected Vehicles and EVs space and Distinguished speaker in various national and international forums and was conferred the ‘Digital Transformational Leader’ Award by CeBIT India in 2016. He has to his credit, the creation of “Mahindra DiGiSENSE”, a first of its kind Connected Vehicles Platform for the entire Mobility Sector across Mahindra & Mahindra and had major contribution in the development of the first Driverless Tractor in India at M&M.On the personal front, he is passionate about music, an avid singer, movie buff & loves to travel.Sirish can be reached via https://www.linkedin.com/in/sirishbatchu/This podcast was created on Hubhopper studio. If you wish to start your own podcast for free, visit www.hubhopperstudio.com. Hubhopper is India's leading podcast creation platform. Start your podcast with Hubhopper studio & get your voice heard across platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Google podcasts, Wynk Music and more. Click on the link in the episode description or visit www.hubhopperstudio.com

In this episode Naresh Bansal, Co-Founder, Kleeto.com and Next gen paper solutions Pvt Ltd is in conversation with Gayatri from DBS India. Naresh shares his experiences onStarting his technology journey inspired by Rajiv Gandhi’s vision of tech enabled IndiaHard work and Education as 2 pillars that drove his entire family towards successInteresting narrative on his experiences with visa consulate and trysts in USMaking a career in network management and telecom domain providing core and value added servicesFound an opportunity in the Digitization of documents and started Kleeto.comHow connections have played an important role by connecting customers with solutionsLife as a founder where you hold bottom line for staff, customer outcome and technology His passion towards environment and urges everyone to look at taking less from the environment and contribute moreHis dual predicament where business understanding has to be in balance with Technology solutioning in harmonyNaresh Bansal is co-founder and CTO at kleeto. He is a Technology professional with 30+ years of experience in technology based companies based in the US and in India. Kleeto provides end to end intelligent solutions for information and document management. kleeto have services and technologies to help customers with indexing, automation, and encrypting flows related to information and documents. kleeto provides document storage with anytime anywhere access to documents with intelligent, and customized access control. Naresh joined workforce in the 90s with a keen interest in software and technology after finishing his B Tech in Computer Science from IET Lucknow. Naresh worked with Pertech Computers, HCL America and River Run Software Group during 1990s on many green field technologies. Naresh joined Cisco systems in 2000 as he decided to join the Telecom and Networking boom. Apart from Cisco, Naresh went on to work with Bay Pacekts, Genband Technologies and Comviva Technologies.After working for 20+ years, Naresh decided to venture into the entrepreneurial world by co-founding kleeto with focus on the document management services for individuals which later pivoted to Document Management Services for corporate.Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naresh-chand-b59461/ This podcast was created on Hubhopper studio. If you wish to start your own podcast for free, visit www.hubhopperstudio.com. Hubhopper is India's leading podcast creation platform. Start your podcast with Hubhopper studio & get your voice heard across platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Google podcasts, Wynk Music and more. Click on the link in the episode description or visit www.hubhopperstudio.com

In this episode,Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Dr. Pramod Varma, CTO of EkStep and Chief architect of Aadhaar, where Pramod talks aboutHis early school years studying in his mother tongue, MalayalamGetting into Applied mathematics for higher studiesJoining Infosys and learning to address the challenges of teaching academically high performersHis experience in using some of the earliest technology components of the internetHow his research and teaching led him to conceptual thinking and architectural thinking, through a non-linear learning approach for himselfHOw he developed the skills to communicate the big vision to individual contributors too - by thinking and working in a startup modeHis principles to Abstract, Isolate and define interfaces firstMaking sure the interface and automation are sollidBuilding for refactorabilityImportance of understanding the why behind the why behind the whyDesign for a decade, implement for todayHis idea of coming up with an addressable recipient for paymentHis thoughts on Chief architect or design by committee modelHis four tips for an aspiring architectDr. Pramod Varma is the CTO of EkStep, a not-for-profit creating learner-centric, technology enabled platform aiming to provide learning opportunities to 200 million children in India. In addition, he continues to be the Chief Architect of Aadhaar, India's digital identity program that has successfully covered more than 1.2 billion people in a short span of 7 years. He is also the architect of various India Stack layers such as eSign, Digital Locker, and Unified Payment Interface (UPI) all of which are now working at population scale in India. He has, along with Nandan Nilekani, co-founded beckn.org a non-profit creating open source protocol specifications for hyperlocal commerce.He is an advisor to Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), National Payment Corporation (NPCI), Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), National Health Authority (NHA), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and helps with many digital public infrastructure initiatives. He regularly speaks at technology conferencesand is part of advisory groups of various national projects from time to time.Before joining UIDAI in July 2009, he was the Chief Technology Architect and Vice President of Research at Sterling Commerce, now part of IBM. He joined Sterling in 2005 when Sterling Commerce acquired Yantra Corporation, a leading supply chain software company based in Boston, USA. At Yantra Corporation he has been anchoring all technology and architecture strategies and has been key part in building Yantra’s founding team. He began his career as part of the research team at Infosys Technologies and has been part of team that built an Internet banking module and a powerful web application server as early as 1995.Over the past 25+ years, he has studied architectures spanning from mainframes to web and has worked extensively with most programming languages, platforms, and databases. He has researched and taught various courses in Database Tuning, Distributed Computing, Internet Technologies, and Computer Architectures among others.Pramod holds a Master’s and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science along with a second Master’s in Applied Mathematics. His interests include Internet scale distributed architectures and intelligent systems. He is passionate about technology, science, society, and teaching.This podcast was created on Hubhopper studio. If you wish to start your own podcast for free, visit www.hubhopperstudio.com. Hubhopper is India's leading podcast creation platform. Start your podcast with Hubhopper studio & get your voice heard across platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Google podcasts, Wynk Music and more. Click on the link in the episode description or visit www.hubhopperstudio.com

In this episode Jerome Ruwe, Master Agile Coach is in conversation with Gayatri from DBS India. Jerome shares his experiences on Starting his career as a Finance specialist and falling in love with technology  Adopting Business Intelligence based software development & recognising power of dataConnected to Jeff Sutherland and adopted SCrum practices and handled soft aspects of hard questionsMeeting Boss Vode and experimenting with what we now know as LESS frameworkDeja vu when working as a scrum master for a universityThe pandemic level setting and humanity to the forefrontHis love of bringing people together, asking feedback in large forums and creating small experimentsHow technology can bring in objectivity and reduce discrimination The shameless self promotion culture and how he feels agile coaches are diluting their brandHolding hard conversations on the success of the organization and how an agile coach equally shares the burden along with the C-Suite membersHaving common goals and keeping your customers and culture at the center makes your endeavor meaningful Understanding points of diminishing marginal returns and how Change agents can structure their work and perspective Always staying honest to oneself, inviting mentors into your circle of trust and staying humble to continue to learn and growJerome is a master Agile Coach enabling several organizations in their agility journey. He’s been in the industry for 30+ years and enabling organizations and powering them with Agile ways of working for 25 years. He has worked as Scrum master, Agile Team Coach as well as Enterprise coach with large firms. He is passionate about bringing agile to companies and truly embodies the message of empowering everyone with his innate style of bringing his genuine self in every interaction. Jerome is an avid speaker in several forums and also works with many fellow agile journey people to uphold the message of staying true to agile values. His methods, drawing from traditional Lean & Agile practices (Scrum, Kanban, XP) as well as scaled frameworks and cutting edge techniques (LeSS, SAFe, Scrum at Scale, Dual Track Agile) bridge gaps which commonly exist between Product and Technology and establish objective measures of performance across critical OKRs (Objectives / Key Results).Jerome’s prioritization of business outcomes and process efficiency gains result in a transparent, collaborative, engaging and profitable experience for my key Stakeholders - from individual team members to the C Suite.Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeromeruwe/ This podcast was created on Hubhopper studio. If you wish to start your own podcast for free, visit www.hubhopperstudio.com. Hubhopper is India's leading podcast creation platform. Start your podcast with Hubhopper studio & get your voice heard across platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Google podcasts, Wynk Music and more. Click on the link in the episode description or visit www.hubhopperstudio.com

In this episode Liran Haimovitch, CTO and co-founder of rookout is in conversation with Chitra from PM Power Consulting. Liran shares his experiences onWorking across multiple technologies & roles Having a computer at age 6 and writing programs since then2 impacts from his cybersecurity experience - (1) the importance of understanding software & its complexity (2) doing something beyond just writing codeAging systems, lost design intent, and the most common form of tech debtThe 3 reasons for tech debt and what drives fear in engineersHow he co-founded Rookout, born out of his own frustration trying to understand how software worksThe idea of seeing code live, running in the actual environment to understand whats happening, rather than static codeMaking life easier for software engineers & enabling them to see flow of code How Rookout is helping customers reduce cycle time for new builds & adding new codeInfrastructure complexities of cloud and spinning up 1000's of servicesSimplicity in software engineering & the philosophy on building simple componentsThoughts on starting small & working agile & Ways of working for agile teamsFocusing on creating short, frequent feedback loopsA message for anyone taking up software engineeringLiran is the Co-Founder and CTO of Rookout. He’s an advocate of modern software methodologies like agile, lean, and DevOps. Liran’s passion is to understand how software actually works. When he’s not thinking of code, he’s usually diving or hiking.Social Media Handles:Twitter- @liranlastLinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/liran-haimovitch-652bba95/This podcast was created on Hubhopper studio. If you wish to start your own podcast for free, visit www.hubhopperstudio.com. Hubhopper is India's leading podcast creation platform. Start your podcast with Hubhopper studio & get your voice heard across platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Google podcasts, Wynk Music and more. Click on the link in the episode description or visit www.hubhopperstudio.com

This episode features a conversation between PM Power colleagues Guruprasad and Chitra with Guru sharing his story that includesLove for programming and logicC programming and how an incident set the stage for his sw dev career Experiences as a developer and directly working with customersHis 3 lessons through a serious escalation Key takeaways when transitioning from an individual contributor to a managerWanting to stay technical and how agile led the way to managementHaving an excellent manager as a mentor and role model in his early management daysFinding his Ikegai through coaching and a series of ups and downsHis message for aspiring coaches & people in technologyThis podcast was created on Hubhopper studio. If you wish to start your own podcast for free, visit www.hubhopperstudio.com. Hubhopper is India's leading podcast creation platform. Start your podcast with Hubhopper studio & get your voice heard across platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Google podcasts, Wynk Music and more. Click on the link in the episode description or visit www.hubhopperstudio.com

In this episode PM Power colleagues, J Veeraraaghavan (JV) & Sivaguru are in conversation as JV shares his career journey during the mid-career days, when he moved from one leadership role to another includingGetting the right breaks through his careerManaging projects, taking up middle managerial roles and moving into executive managementGetting exposed to and experience in roadmap planning for productsCurbing the tendency to jump in and act when team members were facing challenges, rather than taking an approach of helping themWhat helped him get over this:Emotional intelligenceBeing aware of self and being empathetic and sensing how others feelHaving a technical backgroundIn addition, approachability and ability to guideOn dealing with managers, when he took on larger responsibilities How he overcame the sudden feeling that one had nothing to do, as a manager, while being responsible overallHis first experience in managing a program and what he learnt from not having prior experienceWhat he realized by inadvertently stepping into the shoes of the project manager and realizing the impact it had on the project managerHis thoughts on luck v/s hard work for a successful managerFour dimensions of success for a middle manager - Engineering excellence; Delivery oversight; Self leadership; Coaching skillsHow executive leadership can enable middle managers to go beyond performance reviewsEstablishing communities of practice to help middle managers His take on managing time This podcast was created on Hubhopper studio. If you wish to start your own podcast for free, visit www.hubhopperstudio.com. Hubhopper is India's leading podcast creation platform. Start your podcast with Hubhopper studio & get your voice heard across platforms like Spotify, Gaana, Google podcasts, Wynk Music and more. Click on the link in the episode description or visit www.hubhopperstudio.com

In this episode, Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting is in conversation with Ujjwal Trivedi and his stories aboutWanting to be a scientist, when he was graduatingWhy he had to take up a job, due to family situationGetting some inputs from colleagues and managers and recognizing his aptitude for more business oriented rolesJourney from a software developer to a business analyst and then to a product managerBegan blogging as a means of sharing his learning of new technology Finding that his creativity in writing poems could be channelised at work as wellHow to develop empathy with customer needsNever second guess your userHow to validate your product idea and staying away from candy questionsRecommended book reads for product managers and on product managementUjjwal Trivedi is a product guy with over 15 years of experience in building software. He is currently working as Associate Director Products, MoveInSync. He has worked on web and mobile products for US and Indian markets as a Techie and moved to Product Management about 8 years back. He loves poetry, reading, and actively contributes to the Indian startup ecosystem as part of Headstart.Ujjwal can be reached via :linkedin.com/in/ujjwaltrivedi@ujjwaltrivedi 

Continuing with our 2-part Year End Special, our episode this week features PM Power coaches Gopal, Srini, Sivakumar, Sivaguru & ParamuThey share experiences, observations, insights and tips for anyone in a leadership role or aspiring to take up the role, in a dispersed mode of working. Tips include -Becoming situational leadersCopiously communicateEmpathize with individualsDont overdo anythingSupport associates, recognize mental well-beingKeep the big picture of business, partners and members of your household in mindHave fun and remember, we are all in this together.

Check out my late2020 threw up challenges like no year before, in anyone’s living memory. As coaches from PM Power Consulting, many of us went saw and experienced changes that affected our coaching practice. Through observations, sensing and experimenting, all of which were activated differently, we un-learned and re-learned to respond to our client needs. As 2020 draws to a close and a new year ushers itself in, tune into part 1 of our 2-part Yr End special where we PM Power coaches speak of challenging moments and how we adapted.In this episode we feature Gopalan (Gopal), Vishweshwar Hegde (Vishu), Anantha Natarajan (Anand), Srinivasan Soundararajan (Srini) and Sivaguru (Shiv). st episode!

In this conversation, Krishna Prasad - aka KP - a coach at PM Power Consulting, shares many of his personal experiences with Chitra. Among other things, he talks of: A mechanical engineer, with Masters and PhD in software Mercedes, Tata, Terex, Delphi Own journey of various roles in the Software industry, experiencing and contributing to various aspects of SDLC His origin story: typical middle class family, aspiring kids to be engineers or doctors; though liked the doctor profession, did not want much of biology and defaulted to engineering Wanted to get into sales [and marketing], appeared glamorous, though at heart i was an R&D person Tried sales and did not enjoy it; but realized that even if you are in development, you need to go to customers, to make the customers feel happy Though in automotive, true software started in avionics; i became a true software developer in Aeronautical Development Agency, developing military standard software Joining Daimler, was again forced, that I am happy about now, into software Aha! Moment - developing software from India, that goes into international products We need to get empathy to feel like a driver, difficult for a youngster to just imagine this Always good to think how someone would actually use the software While a lot of knowledge has been built about, say, braking systems, today, the systems have grown complex and need to work with multiple other systems Only the nature of rigour has changed to more agile ways of working Used to get a few thousand pages of document of requirements, we used to take a few months to get back on how it can be implemented Everyone has now realized that we cannot afford to write so much of initial documentation Rigour is still there, with incremental development - nature of development has changed; everything now is ‘continuish’ Systems getting complex, regulatory requirements are also increasing We have to bake in compliance; no longer a bolt-on Feels model based development will have a significant impact and many freshers are not prepared for that Career advice: develop T shaped skills.. With multiple skills being deep and not just one Question to ask yourself: with your T shaped skills, how can you continuously contribute The benefit of lateral movement across different roles in an organization Internalizing the concept of ikigai - balance passion, mission and profession; magic happens when all these intersect Secret for rallying teams around a leader’s vision: People should know that the leaders are making the right choices What worked for him: Have seen a couple of transformation journeys - they were only partly successful; start with high aspiration and expectation; most often - may turn out the aspirations were unrealistic No matter what, this transformation journey is important There cannot be just one end point - it is a journey - with great learning for leaders and teams Prospects in IT: fantastic area to get in; so broad, you can pick up any area and make a positive impact using technology We have to be really aware that when we enter this technology area; there is a half life of skills; this is reducing dramatically There is no ways of getting into technology areas that will keep you ahead for 305 years Constant need for learning - new skills, honing skills, learn something different Now we have unlimited access to resources, to learn every day Robin Sarma - 5 AM club - daily learning; learn anything, every day

Sunita Rao and Chitra Gurjar are in a conversation where Sunita shares her stories and experiences about -Being a Hyderabad person, who chose a path of computers through Math & designed solutions for the Nasdaq using VC++ -Cutting teeth in the world of telecom tech working at companies like Nokia, Motorola & Ericsson -Moving from a file systems protocols engineering role into product management and the transition experience -Understanding customers needs via figuring out the problem first & being an ambassador for the company as a product manager -3 focus areas for managing outcomes & transitions from existing business models to new models -The importance of mentorship & developing a product management mindset -Managing customer requirements by doing your homework, understanding needs & hand holding them as you deliver -Defining outcomes & how to monitor and manage them, key aspects that PM's should note -Relationship building as a key skill for PM's as they have no direct control -Balancing the pillars of product network -Her “pay it forward” stories through social causes for caregivers, women & women professionals -A message for listeners on you can do anything & never to give up. Sunita Rao is Senior Director of Product management at NetApp, a leading storage infrastructure and data services technology company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. She has over 2 decades of experience in managing both rapidly growing startups and mature businesses. She did Engineering leadership roles prior to transitioning to Product Management and successfully led multiple business development and partnership activities across various technology areas. She currently leads “Keystone”, a strategic CEO initiative to transform the systems business to a recurring subscription / consumption model. Sunita, serves non-profits in India that foster creativity and growth in the minds of young girls interested in technology She can be reached via her Twitter and LinkedIn handles. https://www.linkedin.com/in/raosunitha/

Tune into a chat with a Mental Conditioning Coach Badri Narayanan, Founder of Quantum Leap Sports, with Gayatri Kalyanaraman from PM Power Consulting covering - -How he translated his interest in psychology to help him transition from software to being a mental conditioning coach -Squashing barriers to mental health -Players interest in data and insights to help manage their performance -Data and psyche of the mind -How he handles context switching across coaching sport, leadership and organizational change management -Managing multiple coaching relationships -Different players having different checklists, maintaining unique footprints for each athlete -Managing the coaching relationship using data to support the process -Data driven approach in psychology -Leadership coaching & material management company consulting experiences -Translation challenges across continental cultures Badri Narayanan is a Sports Psychologist, Mental Skills, Strategy and Performance Coach, Organizational Development Coach and an established Life Coach with more than 16 years of experience in this field. Badri works with a wide range of Athletes in the highest professional level across all sports, notably Tennis, Golf, Racing, Cricket, Soccer, Basketball etc.. He is also involved in Mental Training for sport parents as the family is often highly vested in the player’s development and parents benefit the most in knowing how to train their budding talent! His services are focused in improving their Mental Performance in their desired area of work. This includes understanding the mindset of the participants, their goals, motivation for success, monitoring and tracking their progress. He is also a Life coach and Organizational development coach for corporate and professionals. Prior to starting his Sports and Life coaching company, he worked as a project manager in Gladwell Technologies, Prosper Inc and Ingeo Systems. He did his engineering in NIT Trichy and Masters in Information Systems and a PhD in Philosophy from Utah State University. He can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebelbadri/ or https://www.topmentalsuccess.com

Conversation with a RPA and MI Lead Anuradha Venkatesh, at Ford with Gayatri Kalyanaraman from PM Power Consulting on Starting her journey as a civil engineer and built bridges After taking a career break during childbirth, Anuradha started in Geographic Information System as she stepped into software development Anu shares her exciting journey across Java, BI Dev and RPA technologies while solving real problems with innovation and focus Anuradha covers some of the interesting stories on keeping her day enjoyable and having fun with everything you do How she keeps learning at the core even if there was lot of trepidation in the recent leap with RPA and soon in ecommerce Anu shares her wisdom on how she’s chosen to travel for work based on impact that creates for the family and the risk it takes to make the change Anu shares her perspective on Data security and how one has to have a balance while using apps and understand personalization benefits Anu talks about being the first engineer in the extended family and talking about choice of his father to have got her married after 10th standard Shares RPA story - Consider bots as another system in the team without any knowledge of system boundaries. It removes silos in the org and brings short term quick benefits Creating a new frontier using image search and AI ML coming together would revolutionize day to day work As a takeaway she asks everyone not to tag themselves in a specific bucket - be open and continue to explore Anuradha Venkatesh, RPA AI & ML Lead – Ford Motor Company Anuradha has spent over 25 years in the software industry; working on application delivery, business strategy, captive management and vendor management specialties. She started her career as a civil engineer working in Kolkata and Mumbai. She stepped into software development after she took a break due to childbirth. She was a MIS manager for a GIS firm. She joined as a java developer in Hexaware in 2000. She later took up several interesting programs in Java and became a program manager. She joined HP in 2008 as a Sr. program manager and made the switch to ERP and BI systems. In 2016, she joined Ford motor company. She continues in Ford right now. Anuradha is the RPA and ML lead for the marketing team within Ford. Throughout her career, she has been recognized for bringing excellent relationship management and program management capabilities to the table. She’s also known to look at different ways of making delivery models effective. Anuradha passed out of NIT, Warangal. For more details, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/anuradha-venkatesh-a301764/

Conversation with a Chief Digital Officer Sundar Sukavanam, at firstsource with Gayatri Kalyanaraman from PM Power Consulting on Role of CDO has always been there with work done by CIO, CTO and the CEO Digital has made people think of business models differently - Digital office has quite a few roles like Intelligent Automation (RPA), machine first capability, partnerships, evangelization Talks about 18,000 puzzle pieces coming together as an art! Sundar talks about experience as an account manager working in the US for P&L leader Wearing the architect hat (not being an empty suit), powering the enterprise for Cognizant and learnt how to make the most of it Business Operations manager for the insurance team and understood the need for automation and shares stories Sundara speaks about traveling across the globe and themes that triggered moves Enterprise IT is like utility. No one knows when only till it stops working! Think of the users in enterprise IT rather than the sponsors or the conduits Alvin tofflers’ quote on twentieth century literate are those who learn, unlearn and relearn soon Today it has to be fail fast, learn faster Key takeaway for everyone should be to how do you balance what the technology can offer and what Human ingenuity can make happen Sundara Sukavanam is Chief Digital Officer (CDO) at Firstsource Solutions. He drives the ‘Digital First, Digital Now’ agenda for the organisation with the focus to help our customers in their digital transformation journey. Sundara leads Firstsource’s Digital Services including Intelligent Automation, Analytics, and scaling Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) offerings. He also manages global partnerships with industry-leading platforms in RPA, ML/AI and SaaS and integrates that IP into their solutions. As part of the CIO’s office, Sundara built large scale enterprise platforms across Operations, Sales and Marketing, Planning and Forecasting, and Enterprise Performance Management, in partnership with the business. Sundara is a business and technology leader with over 24 years of experience in the IT & Operations industry, working with the world’s leading corporations across the Manufacturing, Utilities, Retail, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Media & Information sectors – delivering solutions in Application Development, Core Modernization, Cloud Migration, Quality Assurance, Analytics and Intelligent Process Automation. Sundara has a Master’s degree from National Institute of Technology, India and Certifications from the Stanford Business School. He is based in the US with his wife and teenage son. Sundara is an avid reader and a sports buff. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sundarasukavanam/

Passion and Commitment, something that you will hear throughout this conversation with Pravin Gandhi, a pioneer in the Indian IT industry. With over 50 years in the industry, Pravin is known nowadays for his angel investing and mentorship of entrepreneurs. What you may not know is that his association with the industry started as a software professional! In his journey over the years, you will hear about spotting opportunities, wanting to solve other people’s problems and dreaming big. In this conversation with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, Pravin Gandhi talks about many things, including bringing Digital Equipment Corporation to India and closes with the need to embrace Digital! Other things he speaks about include: -Learning computers and programming in the 60s -Being among the first 100 employees at TCS and them moving to Mafatlal Computer Services -Switching out of the software development industry into an OR role -Moving again, soon into a sales and marketing role to find his calling -Leaving Coca Cola, just before they had to close down in India -Converting an opportunity to join Tektronix, an instrumentation company just as they started introducing computerized instruments , to become a promoter of a new company, Hinditron -About creating a pull by approached the end users -How every entrepreneur should be nimble and read to pivot, when it comes to survival of the business -How they were able to establish partnerships to make and sell PCs and solutions -The experience of working with and selling to government officials -Why he considers punctuality and respect for time to be very important -What is a reasonable measure of success, for an entrepreneur -Being a company builder and not a financier -What the right age would be to start up and what it takes to make it work -The role of a mentor, particularly for startups to grow and scale\ -2 questions he would like to ask entrepreneurs -His experience and lessons learnt from starting a software company to build an ERP solution -We, as a country, needing to dream big and large scale impact -Opportunities in the IT sector for both entry level aspirants and mid-career professionals Pravin Gandhi has over 50 years of entrepreneurial operational and investing experience in the IT industry in India. He was a founding partner of the first early stage fund India – INFINITY. Subsequently a founding partner in Seedfund I & II. With over 18 years of investing experience, he is extensively well networked in investment and entrepreneurial scene and is an active early stage angel investor in tech & impact space. Pravin holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Cornell University, and serves on the board of several private corporations in India. Pravin is a former President of the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (an IT manufacturers association in India), He is a Past President of TiE Mumbai as well as an Ex-Global Trustee of The Indus Entrepreneurs. He was an Executive Committee of Nasscom in the past. He is on the board of SINE, IIT Mumbai Incubator. He serves on Investment Committee of Aavishkaar Bharat Fund.

A conversation with Kishan Malur, Product Manager andChitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting on - -His experience working with digital pay TV,Industrial IoT and Cloud Infrastructure -Passion for Products, moving from the what to answering the why? -A story about buying a computer and building a POS software -Wearing different hats as a product manager -Mastering empathy in 3 different ways -Staying connected to your network, during the pandemic -Coaching, paying it forward and other passions -How to ask the right questions, 3 steps towards practising it -3 messages for young people aspiring to be product managers Kishan Malur is a Product Management Professional at VMware on Cloud Infrastructure. In his career, he has had the opportunity to build products in various areas like Cloud Video Delivery Platform, Internet of Things, Manufacturing, and now Cloud Infrastructure. In this exciting journey, he has been instrumental in setting up high performing Multi-Site, Multi-Cultural Global Agile Teams, and leading complex global Tech Integrations for premium Customer Accounts. Kishan is involved in contributing to the Product Community in India. He actively mentors professionals in Product Management. As a career coach, he helps professionals in Career Transformation and Acceleration. He has more than 300 hours of coaching experience and Counting! Kishan holds an Executive MBA from the Institute of Product Leadership, M.S. Software Systems from BITS Pilani, and a Bachelor’s degree from BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore. A fresh brew of Filter Coffee and Great Product conversations is something that Kishan usually doesn't say no to. He can be reached via - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kishanmalur/ Twitter - @KishanMalur

In conversation with Preethy Padman, Product Marketing Executive with Freshworks with Gayatri Kalyanaraman from PM Power Consulting Preethy talks about her career starting in India working for networking software firms She discovered her passion for technology and later in product development and later in product marketing. She has also tried being Chief of staff. She talks about building a career leading to be a General manager and how all these career choices have made sense Preethy shares a story on the risks that she has taken for a role and how that had helped her to understand new ways of working It has also brought a real sense of being out of the comfort zone and continuous learner Preethy talks about tips on building your first few weeks in a new firm She elaborates on being a mindful practitioner and teacher as well as a volunteer and how the social engagements have helped her take decisions in her professional life Preethy talks about stories around investing and how she chooses them Preethy is passionate about creating a self awareness in oneself and taking time to do that She also advises on building strong mentors relationships that work around you and create a habit that grows with you Preethy Padmanabhan is the Head of Platform Product Marketing at Freshworks. Prior to joining Freshworks, Preethy was the VP of Marketing at Panzura. She is also an angel investment partner with SV2, Portfolia and a Board Member for Nextstem.ai. She started her career as a Software engineer at Hughes, India. She moved to the US to take up technical and business responsibilities in large companies such as Cisco and Dell. Later she moved to hi-tech startups such as Nutanix, Panzura and grew her career across product management, marketing and sales. Preethy has 20+ years high tech and leadership experience across marketing, sales & engineering. She is a strategic problem solver and connector who brings teams together to create exponential value for companies. Preethy has strong leadership, management and people skills. She has effective interpersonal and communication skills with customers, partners. She has delivered multiple customer EBC, demos, sales & partner training, trade show presentations, webcasts etc. Preethy has a high tech background in virtualization, Cloud, SaaS, Networking, Security, Collaboration, Video, Mobile, Enterprise & Service-Provider marketing. She is a self-starter, strong communicator with customers, partners, internal teams and a business leader with a can-do attitude She served in various non-profit boards focused on economic empowerment, women, children and education. She’s a mindfulness teacher and lives with her husband, teenage son and their dog in Palo Alto, California. Preethy can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/preepadu/

In this episode, Manoj Deorukhkar, CIO of Sterling and Wilson Pvt Ltd, shares his experiences and stories with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting about: That he got into IT by accident -His love for nature -Starting his career in the steel industry -Playing various roles in the organization, from shop floor to executive assistantship -His transition to a CIO of a group company after implementing a corporate wide SAP rollout -How entering IT at a later stage in his career and working with much younger colleagues created mental pressure -How guidance from his CEO helped him identify his core strengths in the software development process -That there is much more in the world than just IT -That person to person conversations are very powerful and effective & how to bring out the best in individuals to make great teams - Making time for intra-networking - His advice for persons considering an entry into IT and for mid career IT professionals - Three important things to keep in mind Manoj Deorukhkar is the Chief Information Officer of Sterling and Wilson Pvt Ltd. (SWPL), part of the Shapoorji Pallonji group company. Manoj brings a treasure of software development expertise and a massive track record of 20 years in the industry. He is an engineering leader with technology strengths comprising SAP portfolio, Information Security, Infrastructure, Cloud Strategy, Digital Transformation, Office applications, Budgeting, and Procurement. He has driven various roles and tasks in business transformation initiatives across several domains. He trusts IT leaders must adopt a strategic management role and drive transformation throughout the enterprise. During his career, he has been associated with Real Estate, Engineering & Construction, EPC, Utilities, Oil & Gas, Metals, and Manufacturing sectors. Manoj has earned his B. Tech degree from IIT Mumbai and holds an MBA degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. He has wide experience in leading large projects and has directed the planning and implementation of enterprise IT systems in countries like the UK, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Singapore, and India. [email protected] [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/manoj-deorukhkar-1180316/

Listen to a conversation between Deepak Visveswaraiah, VP of Platform Engineering at Pega Systems and Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting a s Deepak talks about -His early days growing up as a Bangalore native and how he started out in software development -Experiences as a C & Unix Programmer -His work across several domains like Nuclear Energy, Semiconductors, gaming and publishing -Co-founding a healthcare startup and learning key customer empathy lessons -Essential fundamentals of product engineering, writing your best 2 lines of code, user empathy & designing products for the enterprise -Investing time in learning & being adaptable -Transition to leadership roles learning people engagement and flourishing as leader -Lessons from driving innovation- future perspective design & doing a few things insanely well -Customer centricity; all about the empathy, and what customers really want from you -Hard lessons; from building a product the way “we engineers thought” -Building relationships with a mindset of establishing a relationship and not to sell or make a transaction -Balancing the sense of urgency with instant gratification and moving on the curve of constant change, a formula 1 inspiration -Defining moments in his career; being the first SVP in a global role outside of the US -Message for leaders and those aspiring to take up leadership roles Deepak Visweswaraiah is a leader in the technology industry playing global roles based out of Bangalore, India. He specializes in leading large engineering organizations, driving innovation and bringing products into the global markets. He has extensive experience in establishing Global In-house Centers (GICs) for multinational companies. Passionate about building next generation technology, transformative approach, business leadership and mentoring startups. Deepak brings 30+ years of experience in the enterprise software development industry. Deepak is currently Vice President of Platform Engineering at Pega Systems leading the core platform organization out of India.

In this conversation Pankaj Rai, Leader of Strategy, Digital & Innovation teams at WellsFargo shares his stories with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting related to -Growing up in a small, but cosmopolitan city -How he was inspired by his Dad -Getting into IIT, IIM and a startup -The advice he got from his boss, when he moved from a consulting role to a lending advisor role -When he decided to focus more on earning than learning -The 4Es he learnt from Jack Welch -About taking leaps of faith, particularly when it comes to role or career transitions -On not having a fear of failure -Comfortably navigating in what might appear as chaos -Organizational strategy and culture -The significance of collaboration and why win-win is so natural -Importance of inclusion and diversity in deploying organizational strategies -Not having different ‘official’ and ‘personal’ versions! No version control challenges -Creating a personal priority list rather than a todo list -Being updated on what is happening from the network -His advice for IT career aspirants as well as mid-career IT professionals -3C framework that he recommends for everyone -Problem discovery more than problem solving, as a life skill -Moving from a deterministic, order taking world to an agile world Pankaj leads Strategy, Digital & Innovation teams at Wells Fargo where he is responsible for creating a culture of 3Es (effectiveness, efficiency and experience) in the operations across India and Philippines. Prior to this he was with Dell where he led the Global Analytics team of over 400 members in Bangalore, supporting all the segments in Dell, i.e. marketing, online, supply chain and product quality, contact centers, services and DFS. Pankaj started his professional career as a management consultant at Feedback Ventures and then went on to work in the financial services industry in India. He worked with ICICI and GE Capital in a variety of roles covering sales, risk management, six sigma and operations. He moved to Standard Chartered Bank leading the Program Management Office in their Singapore regional office where he helped grow their shared service centers in India and Malaysia. Pankaj has been actively engaged in D&I and sustainability initiatives and has been engaged with various industry forums including NASSCOM. Pankaj studied Electrical Engineering at IIT Delhi and went on to complete his MBA at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is also a six sigma “Quality Leader” from GE. While at ICICI, Pankaj was among the 12 bankers selected for the British Council Chevening Fellowship (Young Bankers Program) administered at the London School of Economics in 1999. Pankaj’s wife Ritu is an artist and they have two daughters Pragya and Paridhi. He is also an avid marathon runner, cyclist and dabbles in badminton. Pankaj’s linked in Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pankaj-rai-he-him-b3923a/

Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting in conversation with Anu Kannan, Partner Technology Manager at Google as Anu shared her views on -Being a quintessential engineer -Starting her career in embedded systems working on set top boxes -Love for travel, meeting new people and developing relationships that have helped her personally and professionally -Handling different use cases while building software for tangible hardware -Walking the floors with her father to understand products and how they were used -Visiting customers and incorporating a “DILO” approach to building products -How she built a network of trust as a fellow of engineering Creating a culture of innovation -A peak into what automotive software could look like - Her message for aspiring engineers Anu Kannan is a partner technology manager at Google, an embedded systems engineer and mother to two young boys. She has had extensive experience in designing and developing software for tangible hardware in the course of her 17 year career where she built entertainment set top boxes, android based data capture solutions, and now working with automotive software on android. She recently completed the LEAD business program Stanford University on Innovation. Anu is a telecommunications engineer from RV College of Engineering Bangalore and has a masters degree in Computer Science from New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering. She can be reached at http://www.linkedin.com/in/anukannan/

Today is a special day for us @ Software People stories where we are commemorating 100 stories completion and we decided to record with All three co-hosts Sivaguru, Chitra and Gayatri and talk about why podcasts and what makes them stay. Please expect some overlap conversations as this was a live conversation. Highlights of the conversation Sivaguru spoke about the origins of the podcast and how he wanted to capture the evolution of technology and the developments and it transitioned to real life stories and anecdotes that were never told Chitra spoke about her penchant for the platform and wanting to be an RJ and how it has been a very satisfying experience. She shares her chance conversation with Neeraja to come onboard. Chitra also shares how the platform has helped to get ideas and implement them in a sustainable way. Gayatri spoke about her interest in digital tools and ability to move away from her comfort zone and how nice it is to talk to people and connect with long lost relations. It is also wonderful to see emotions flow. She talks about listening to podcasts has pushed her fitness and hosting podcasts has made her a better listener. More information about this special day is here http://pm-powerconsulting.com/podcast-100-episodes/

Today is a special day for us @ Software People stories where we are commemorating 100 stories completion and we decided to do an experiment with live guests and a panel discussion with 4 of our past guests in Software People Stories comprising of Gopal from Global Automation, Neeraja from Jobsforher, Jacintha from Enquerro and Sukumar from TinyMagiq. All three co-hosts Sivaguru, Chitra and Gayatri also have participated in this special episode that we recorded on International Podcast day. Please expect some overlap conversations as this was a live panel convo which was largely unscripted with three questions forming the base part of the conversation. Highlights of the conversation Sivaguru spoke about the origins of the podcast and how he wanted to capture the evolution of technology and the developments and it transitioned to real life stories and anecdotes that were never told Gopal being the very first guest of our podcast spoke about being ready for experimentation and how he had always been moved by audio right from the initial radio days and how the focus on the topic stay right from origins of Quinoa. Gopal shares his ability to understand topics in audio medium far better than in any other. Chitra spoke about her penchant for the platform and wanting to be an RJ and how it has been a very satisfying experience. She shares her chance conversation with Neeraja to come onboard. Chitra also shares how the platform has helped to get ideas and implement them in a sustainable way. Neeraja shares her experience with Podcast and how she used this podcast to share her life journey in all her speaking engagements. She felt that the hosts made her at ease and how some of the clarity in impromptu has been unnerving at first and found it great with clarity. Neeraja also shares her experience with using audio as a medium for storytelling and how she’s talking to more people as the in person shyness is slowly come down Gayatri spoke about her interest in digital tools and ability to move away from her comfort zone and how nice it is to talk to people and connect with long lost relations. It is also wonderful to see emotions flow. She talks about listening to podcasts has pushed her fitness and hosting podcasts has made her a better listener. Sukumar shares his experience on coming on board and how covid has made him a convert of this platform. He also shares how he’s used recording training materials and made the online training for conversations and questions. This has fundamentally transformed or flipped the art of teaching. Sukumar shares how hearing or recording audio is the most natural way to record anything as there is no real changing of information. Its coming as-is from one to other. Jacintha shares her experience with giving an audio message as part of her Onmobile job and taking it further to provide a daily audio message on positivity. She also shared her experience in COVID using gram vaani to teach disadvantaged students, cooking using network of volunteers for migrant population and continuing her consulting work from her home. Jacintha added that how podcasts have become like honey flowing in your ears and this would be here to stay. We also heard stories from the audience More wishes from all our past speakers and audience please visit below http://pm-powerconsulting.com/podcast-100-episodes/

In conversation with Jayant Swamy, Program Manager and Author of many books with Gayatri Kalyanaraman from PM Power Consulting He started his career in finance with a CA, went on to do his MBA from IIM Bangalore, and learnt his penchant for teaching While doing his MBA Jayant swamy taught MBA students art of presentation and persuasion skills • Jayant Swamy has coached MBA aspirants in public speaking and taught finance at local B-schools • Jayant moved to the US in 1998 and works as a management consultant and corporate trainer • Jayant is known as the program manager who is also the glue that hold the team together. • Jayant ponders over two project implementation experiences and says how continuous learning has made him the person to be sought out for problem solving • His deep expertise in Finance and management made him the perfect conduit to interact, translate and influence program outcomes • Jayant shares his interest in writing stories and how he started unsuccessfully during his college days. He didn’t lose sight of it as time progressed. He has authored many books and has 2 under the works. More about Jayant’s books are here www.jayantswamy.com • Jayant shares his experiments in storytelling in his corporate career be it creating reports or saying a story via the presentations • Jayant narrates his teaching experience across decades starting with aspiring entrance exam students to a professional training for the University of Washington • Jayant talks about staying true to program management while pursuing many interests in storytelling, IMPROV and teaching at the same time. • Jayant talks about compassion for fellow human beings and bringing empathy in every transaction as a key message You can reach Jayant at the below address www.jayantswamy.com

In this conversation Harsha Mutt is sharing his career story with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting where Harsha talks about *Lessons from role transitions *A Bangalorean, helping his father run a printing press during school days *Studying Engineering and cost accounting, in parallel *A career choice to join Infosys, that he is very happy about *Learning basics of computer science and languages from the founders of the company, as a trainee *His first major transition in life - moving from Bangalore to the US, from a day-scholar, cycling from home to the first flight overseas *How this was like hostel days, learning about new countries, cultures and people *Handling the first major transition in its stride, by not having any fear or inhibitions *When work is play, time passes quickly *How an introspection for annual planning helped him evaluate and consider options outside his first employer *About the many ‘firsts’ in his career with Infosys *On a daring approach to get re-immersed in the Indian ways of life, on returning from the US after a long stint there *The three main differences in his work scope, when he took up a job in HCL and what he learnt from that *What he learnt in becoming an investor and entrepreneur *How learning management concepts on campus and actually adopting these in practice are different and difficult His tips for entrepreneurs on what it means to ‘live within one's means’ *His story of the transition to being a coach from doing things by oneself *The value a coach can bring in with an outside in or a ringside view *His current interests to pay it back or forward *We conclude with his advice to both entry level and mid-career IT professionals Harsha brings more than three decades of General Management experience serving as Head of strategic business units, and from multiple global assignments. He is a mechanical engineer and a management accountant. He started his career at Infosys, building commercial software solutions to leading US companies in retail, distribution, manufacturing, telecom and financial services, and went to become a business leader leading multiple accounts and teams. He completed an Executive Education Program PMD at Harvard Business School. He went on to play a leadership role at HCL Technologies heading Technology and Operations for Capital Market Services. He is an accredited Executive Coach from Coaching Foundation India and actively coaches a select few CXOs each year. He started his entrepreneurial journey with Lukup Media Pvt Ltd, playing role of CFO and Board Member, which has since been wound up. He has enabled projects, teams, and businesses to scale multi-fold and grow. https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshamutt

Tune into the conversation between Chitra from PM Power Consulting and Nitya Krishnamoorthy, a seasoned IT veteran and leader. Nitya shares her journey and experiences on -Career choice, supporting parents & wanting to be far away from Biology -Start of career and 10 years as a technologist -Personal and professional transformation and taking a break in the middle of her career -Transition from an Individual Contributor to manager to IC again and managing teams across countries -Recognizing her own passion, strength and belief in “anything is doable” -Building capable, extensible and scalable teams -A complete shift in her view of people thanks to the mode of remote working -Messages for freshers on patience and working on pretty much everything -A few of Nitya's special interests Nitya can be reached at - linkedin.com/in/nitya-krishnamoorthy-770a6486 In her own words:- "I am a fun loving, passionate and self-driven individual with over 18 years of experience transforming people, processes, businesses through my project management and business operations skills. It's been an exciting journey working with brands, companies and businesses helping them transform their Digital processes and thus also evolving, learning and transforming myself."

In conversation with Tech Executive and Principal consultant from PM Power Consulting, Zafar Ahmed shares his experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey. Zafar draws out his 4 decades of experience as 4 phases in a cricket match with one exciting inning built over another. Started as a passionate programmer in Tata steel working in their transformation In the second innings, became part of IT services revolution shifting base to US and owning a start up He moved to India in early 2000s and headed technology in Hughes software where he learnt the ropes of management, leadership and went through a transformation within Zafar is currently in his 4th innings where he wants to share his rich learnings as a leadership coach and a consultant in PM Power Consulting Zafar shares his many defining moments in his career starting with his focus in becoming part of Tata steel and completely falling in love with software He shares a story on how he stumbled upon agile transformation and became a student and internalised the mindset over practices Next big defining moment is his understanding of leadership style and his transformation along with an agile way of working. He talks about being a taskmaster and how he transformed later as a people’s leader away from his task orientation He talks about setting long term goals in his career as one of his misgivings and not taking enough risks in his career Zafar signs off with a positive note on covid situation and how technology has changed each and every human being on earth. Zafar can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/zafar-ahmad-4704b76/ and https://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/zafar-ahmed/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In this conversation, with Sivaguru from PM Power Consulting, Ramesh Emani shares Starting his career with Tata Burroughs and after 3 years moved to Wipro Infotech, at that time - and stayed on for 25 years Being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug when he was almost 50, with a desire to have a startup before he retired How he became a manager in his second project itself, with less than 2 years of experience and had to manage most team members who were senior to him His principle of spending only 50% of his time in ‘management’ work and take up some individual contribution goals as well His tips for sharing the workload with the team(s) How he chose areas where he can add greater value and started focusing on them The importance of getting an executive level understanding of technology That one should always be a student, in the tech business His experience of being a business leader - getting and servicing a large account and being the first sales person in the US for his company What he learnt and why he enjoys the role of a Business Unit head About being comfortable with ambiguity and making the ambitions, possible How and why failing is not failure and being ready to take calculated risks About how he picked up healthcare as the domain for his startup Why you need more doers in a startup The role of meetings and how to carry the team with you in an organizational transition What retirement means to him and his hobbies His secret to avoid burnout Ramesh Emani can be reached via https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramesh-emani-4053a4/

PM Power Consulting is launching its second book soon, 5 Tantras of Enterprise Agility. Tune into this conversation to listen to the how the book evolved through the story from the author Paramu Kurumathur, the product owner J Veeraraaghavan and Sivaguru.

Episode Sub-Title: Living the Product Leaders’ Dream In conversation with Product Management Leader, Krupa Natarajan where her software experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on her journey Started technology journey with fervor to learn and curiosity about Technology Transformed her thinking during the dot com bust to understand value delivered by her and for the customer Established a career as a product leader after spending many years in the engineering side Engineering driven products have made our life smoother, as a product leader I see what else is possible? Product needs to fit in the users’ ecosystem and life completely.. Else the product wouldn’t stay in the market Understanding of 3 levels of users in the enterprise and creating a value prop early and continuously has been valuable In the consumption driven software economy, you will be outdated quickly if you don’t adapt Living the product manager’s dream as one doesn’t have to worry about maintaining number of versions or having a perfect feature set due to the shipping constraints. Its liberating to know that one can make small changes and see how user reacts and hence take several small bets along the way and has become less risk averse Staying in the wave of technology enablers and providing the needed features for enterprise customers has been quite enriching Consumers have more gadgets today than a CEO of the organisation. Envisions that would change and AI will be given in everything that we do Always ensuring that you wow people’s expectations beyond their dreams and out of the box and not just meet or exceed them doesn’t cut work. This has been her guiding principle Krupa can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/krupanatarajan/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with Coaching Guru, Sivakumar from PM Power Consulting , he shares experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey Discovered passion in a cascading manner by way of experimenting Current full stack developers and enjoyed starting in software as a full stack engineer Software projects are social organizations that needs to be nurtured Understanding of fulcrum and levers that you have to balance people and capability development Stories of two contrasting software deliveries One with a large development project that started off with great fanfare ends up in legal tussle Second that starts with many SLAs ends up with customer accolades Bridge between the two lies alignment of vision, trust and teamwork Changes are evident now in business investing energy and effort in technology teams Stakeholder and People management - two sides of the same coin to manage culture, communication Can you become a person of influence - providing support, person of values and continuous beacon to facilitate conversations Highly momentous time personally to let go of control and let the team do their work Being a coach, Shiv points out various dimensions he’s found to add value based on the situation - as a mentor, agile custodian Imparting learning through story telling and case study nuggets Experiment early and understand your passions like Shiv has found passion for writing caselets/stories/monographs Find an unforgiving mentor to hold you to high standards or an uncomfortable mirror early in your career Shiv can be reached at https://pm-powerconsulting.com/experts/sivakumar/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/sivakumar-subramanyan-1a78101/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with Coach Extraordinaire and Technology Executive, Arun Swamy where his software experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on his journey Multi touch point start in software - as a research assistant, contract job after doing MS and finally landing US Army related work Returned to India to seek stability and part of the growth wave of product companies HP taught the value of Org values and profit being a side effect Proud to be part of two generations of agile way of working - initially in 1990s for small project development and later as EVO in a more formal way HP also saw challenges in org upheavals and learnt to stay in the web portal specialization Proud of being part of a product sunset which was executed in a least risky way Moved to be a leadership coach based on his experience of being a coach Coaching Stories based on his strengths on communication, empathy and staying impartial Understand what hat you are wearing a mentor, coach or a friend Fall in love with your work but do not romanticise it by staying realistic Staying truer to process and design and continue to adapt with technology Arun can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/arun-swamy-843410/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/

In conversation with career Project Manager, Sankar V S, Regional Digital Services & Products leader in Arup he shares his journey starting from a part time trainer to IoT and analytics experiences with Gayatri From PM Power Consulting on His start of journey with software as a trainer in C++ Considers himself as a self starter and staying a continuous learner Difference in communication and unsaid patterns in HK China and that made him move to Project management/Business Analysis Fearless in taking high risk immigration project and learnt lawsuits, coding, quick thinking and sensors Leap towards IoT even before it got the name. Narrates a story of pattern recognition of cows vs human using lasers As a creative director in Arup, he’s enabling construction projects use data in the center exploiting IoT and analytics His view of technology has changed from using to increase commercial purposes (behavior analytics) to improve environment (plastics and landslide deduction) in the construction industry He shares his experience of being a fulcrum of IoT innovations across the globe by creating an alliance and connecting various players Collaboration is one skill he highly recommends to have as the team needs to sound like a symphony and not a single instrument solo Sankar can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sankarvs/ Gayatri can be contacted at https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaya3k/