[Year in Review 2021] Top five women in technology who continue to inspire us

A study based on a survey of 300 companies conducted by online career platform JobsForHer in November revealed that about half of Indian companies are actively hiring women returnees.

According to the study, while the number of women employed in IT in India has seen an increase in the last 10 years, with more than 30 percent of entry-level jobs being taken by them, their numbers decline as they move up the ladder.

There are a number of factors responsible for this decline – the presence of a boy’s club at the top, different priorities, the inability to juggle home and work effectively, lack of networking skills, good mentorship programmes, and more.

This year, we featured a number of women in leadership positions in technology – who have reached top positions in their areas of interest. These women are inspirations and role models, and will hopefully ignite interest in other women to work hard and climb the tech ladder.

Here are most inspiring ‘women in tech’ stories of 2021.

Shalini Eswaran, Texas Instruments

As Digital Design Manager at Texas Instruments (TI), Shalini Eswaran oversees Physical Design and Design For Testability (DFT) domains in the Connectivity Business Unit, catering to key verticals such as SmartGrid, Industrial, Auto, and IoT.

In her current role, Shalini manages a team of 20+ engineers who are responsible for the successful implementation and testing of IPs and SoCs across both domains in the Oslo, Israel, and the US sites.

She tells HerStory that thinking of your career as a marathon, as opposed to a sprint, keeps you grounded, humble, and makes life easier. She believes the potential among women in STEM and technology is high and organisations need to provide the required support to women during crucial life stages.

Dhanya Ros Mathew, Fujitsu Consulting

Dhanya Ros Mathew joined Fujitsu Consulting India in 2021 as the Service Delivery Director for the Oceania region (Australia and New Zealand).  

She heads the lead service delivery for clients, ensuring delivery excellence, business, and revenue growth, strong stakeholder management and operational efficiency, focusing on technologies, including Infrastructure Services, Business Application Services, Multi-Cloud Services, Service Integration, and Digital Transformation.   

She tells HerStory, “To attract and retain diverse talent, mentorship programmes and a well-connected support network are essential. Also, it’s imperative to promote STEM education for girls early on, thus opening up better opportunities going forward.” 

She is happy that organisations today are stepping up and ensuring work-from-home opportunities, flexible working hours, and empathetic managers to attract and retain more women in the workforce. 

Megha Yethadka, Uber

A computer Science and Engineering at NIT-Jamshedpur, Megha Yethdaka explored different tech roles before joining Uber five years ago. At the time, she was one of the few women opting for engineering, but didn’t actively question it and became conscious of the fact only years later.

Megha leads the Global Scale Solutions team that cuts across all lines of business – the company’s mobility arm, Uber Eats, delivery, freight, and advanced technology divisions like UberAi.

Interestingly, she joined Uber in the third trimester of her pregnancy and happy for the support system, both at home and office.

In addition to mentorship, Megha emphasises the role of women as peers and buddies.

“I would advocate for women in tech receiving feedback and inputs from others – people who have your back. I have personally benefitted from both mentors and a peer network investing in each other’s journeys,” she said.

ALSO READ

[Year in Review 2021] Meet the top 10 techies we celebrated this year

Shylaja Krishnakurup, Verizon Business Group

As a Director for Verizon Business Group, Shylaja Krishnakurup leads a team of 1,500 engineers in India to help build leading-edge technology and business solutions to serve Verizon’s global enterprise, business markets, wholesale, and public sector customers.

She joined Verizon in 2012 as a software engineer and in a span of two decades has grown to become a director.

At Verizon, Shylaja was part of a signature programme - the Power Program for women who are top talent, focusing on advancement of women in taking up leadership roles. This programme is a unique combination of mentoring and sponsorship support provided by the senior leaders of the organisation to the budding leaders for enhancing and progressing their career.

“In our growing up years, as we continue our education, both men and women have equal ambitions to pursue a successful professional career. However, women today still tackle the lion’s share of the house and child-care work, and hence they do not ascend to the highest levels of leadership and often lose their ambition and opt-out,” she said. 

Sindhu Gangadharan, SAP Labs

As the MD at SAP Labs India, Sindhu Gangadharan oversees the functioning of over 10,000 SAPians spread across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Hyderabad - Labs India being SAP’s second-largest labs outside Germany.

In late 2019, just months before COVID-19 hit India, and after spending 19 years in Waldorf, Germany, Sindhu moved back to Bengaluru to lead Labs India unit as its Managing Director.

She is now responsible for product development and innovation at SAP's Research and Development facilities in Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Gurugram. She also leads SAP User Enablement as Senior Vice President with much of her team based out of Waldorf.

In an interview with HerStory, Sindhu said, gender imbalance is primarily due to the misconception that women professionals are weak and will not sustain the rigorous work that leadership demands. 

She added: “The way I see it, I think male leadership traditionally means being more decisive and aggressive, whereas women leaders are more empathetic, have more patience and emotional intelligence. This makes people believe that we aren't capable of making hard decisions. We have numerous examples to prove that. For instance, for the first time in the history of NASSCOM, we have two women tech leaders holding the offices of President and Chairperson.”