Professional Career

First day I joined Intuit, I was asked to meet with all the leaders by the then director Milind. It was a great experience interacting with all the leaders of Intuit, and I would summarize it in one word - Welcoming! Fast forward 2 years and I got a chance to move teams - my then manager, Venky did not bat an eyelid while saying this was great opportunity and I should pursue it... Not even ask me, why I was leaving his team, etc... In fact, he even went out of his way met the current manager to make sure I was headed to the right team and leader! And finally when I decided to leave Intuit to join a startup, I am amazed by the care and affection received from all corners. My previous manager's bosses - Saradhi and Pratik (previous startup founders!) reached out to me asking where I was going? which domain and what is my role? Etc. I was so touched that they were interested in even financials of the startup to ensure that I was taking the right discussion. As I was leaving Intuit, I ...

I have worked with a lot of designers, but during my stint at Walmart I managed to launch products going through extensive cycles of design with ease like I was writing the PRD with my right hand and designs were generated by my left? With a nod to all the designers I have worked in my career, I need to talk about a designer who refused to listen to the Product folks, who needed no validation, no direction and most importantly had a vision for the user experience! Varsha Patil was my office soul mate who I first met during a call for designing reports for Walmart's Auto Care center. Our entire career of great collaboration was online, thanks to COVID. I remember Varsha waiting on my zoom, and I would apologize for making her wait. Her simple response was if we were working in Walmart office, I would be sitting on your desk waiting for you! Sometimes I wonder if it was this attitude that helped me with the launch of soo many products at my short stint at Walmart. Another instance th...

 I first spoke to Mala over phone from US. I got introduced through a common friend saying she is a great leader and this was soon proven beyond doubt.. Leading up to a quick interview with Dell, after we decided to move out of US for good was an offer from Dell. As we were in a hurry to move to India for personal reasons, I had back to back interviews. Mala was my hiring manager and she helped me quickly close the process as well. When Mala called me to inform that I had been selected for that position, I had a much bigger update awaiting her. I had just visited my doctor as I was losing weight to be told I was pregnant with my second child. When I interviewed, I had no idea and while still trying to wrap my head around shifting continents during pregnancy - I decided honesty was the best policy. I haltingly told Mala that I did not want to hide anything and that I was 6 or 8 weeks, a time usually no one gets informed about pregnancy! At the same time, Mala was hiring me from over...

  I came running from my first day of B-school claiming I wanted to have a career in Operations! All it took was watching a BMW video on the big screen? Or was it Amazon fulfillment center? I do not remember, it was just spectacular watching something being built and the engineer in me was howling...  The next day was apparently consulting, and somewhere I settled on marketing or to be more specific - Brand Management... Like love, it is hard to pin point when it exactly happened :) So this is what I wished for being Brand Manager in the food industry (being the big foodie that I was, somehow it seemed a perfect fit). I started working diligently towards it... I started my toil from the career services, Sophia in her usual direct style told me - You are as international as it gets, this quest for getting into the CPG industry is not going to be easy... and for some reason that only strengthened my resolve to pursue brand. I networked aggressively, reaching out to every Tepper ...

I remember this case for various reasons - first time working all night with a bunch of 5 strangers (who later became best buddies!), first time getting a case competition and understanding how to works, first time I got to present in my formal suit, etc. As this was the first case competition, we were randomly assigned team mates. I got an European, 2 Americans and 2 Asians (not Indians, Asians in US are non-Indian folks from Asia :) The first problem statement was shared, and we came up with thoughts, slides and numbers. I gladly don't remember any of it. What I can vividly recall is the fun we had while coming up what we thought would be the best course of action for us ...  I loved working hard without sleeping all through the night and preparing the deck. We finally divided the slides and I rehearsed round the clock to perfect my talk. The person who opened for us had a British accent and I have never seen anyone present so professionally, I was left dumbstruck with the style ...

My hands were shivering and heart thudding a gainst my chest as I realized I was being shouted at... in front of the entire team. Apparently I had pissed off my colleague by disregarding what he said and checking with his senior for details. And in my eyes it was just a confirmation before I go through the implementation from an engineering perspective. What I saw as well intended requirements understanding turned out to be a blow to his ego... I had around 4 years experience in the corporate world and was still developing an understanding of dealing with human ego :) Anyway coming back to point of this blog, I sat staring at this person yelling at me. Frozen to the spot, I could not think of what to say at his outburst. Of course, at hindsight I can think of tons of colorful ways to defend and offend. However I was not planning on a retort as I just sat there humiliated by the scene created with me in center stage, Out of nowhere came my tech lead in shining armor saying, "no rai...

 "Ramya, what are you waiting for?" called out a friendly voice when I was standing in a corner wondering what to do!  I was at my first office outing in a bowling alley (another first!) and got called out by a wonderful, kind and generous mentor. In his trademark Tamil lingo he asked if I was waiting to be invited into the celebration with Betel leaf ( வெற்றிலை பாக்கு ).  Though I always thought of myself as an extrovert, I stood shyly not able to join the boisterous crowd with beer mugs! Subbu, our friendly guide from above walked up to me and said - "In an office environment, never wait to be formally invited to join any discussion - be in a technical brain storming or dinner party conversation". I pasted a smile on my voice and joined my team to display my severely lacking bowling skills. However, next day there was a burning issue with the code in our project. I saw an animated discussion going on, and though it was behind closed doors - I didn't hesitate t...

  As I look back at my career, or discuss with anyone about my vast experience - one of the questions I get is "Soo many changes/ Companies?" I thought it would be a good idea to address this.. Initially this post was a list of pointers to remind me of the rich journey and experience gained from my last 20 years in the corporate world. Typical human nature, we tend to remember the negative experiences so I wanted to create this reminder for all the wonderful memories I have created in the past 2 decades! HP Labs - In the spirit of starting from the very beginning, HP Labs was the reason I moved to Bangalore and got a taste of corporate life. Thanks to wonderful mentors like SriGanesh, Ajay, and other wonderful PS mates (Ash, Naj, Dabba, Ramya, Prabhu..). I got exposed to AI - handwriting recognition, multi-model interfaces! All big words for a 20 year old me :)  Dell (1st Innings)  -  For all practical purposes, Dell is where I learnt my trade and a lot of things abo...