Leading Through Every Technology Wave with Indira vidyaprakash

Speaker A: Welcome to the Software People stories. I'm Shiv.

Speaker B: I'm Chitra. And I'm Gayati.

Speaker A: We bring you interesting untold stories of

Speaker B: people associated with the creation or consumption of software based solutions.

Speaker A: You'll hear stories of what worked and sometimes what didn't. You will also hear very personal experiences

Speaker B: and insights that would trigger your thoughts and inspire you to do even greater things.

Speaker A: Before we jump into today's conversation, a Special thanks to PMpower Consulting for encouraging and supporting this show. Right from the start. With over a thousand person years of collective experience, PMpower has helped many organizations, teams and individuals chart out their own journeys of excellence and make progress. Uh thank you PMpower. Now let's move to today's episode.

Speaker B: Today you will listen to the career story of Indra Vidya Prakash, Vice president for Workday and Chennai site leader. You will hear fascinating stories of grit and determination of um starting fresh in um college in PSG Tech and moving to Cornell University learning the ropes of uh software operating systems and she shares how um she enjoyed being in software as well as move to the product domain in Oracle, working with customers and understanding the problems in the uh pre cloud era and moved into cloud and building that basic curiosity and always learning uh building the momentum across the roles in Workday and Oracle. She shares some of the fresh perspectives of uh how to think about you know impediments as well as creating a joyful uh arena that you are working with by uh creating an uh environment where everybody can be successful and accessible for all. Listen on. Hi Indra. Uh so happy to have you in the software people Solis. Welcome, welcome.

Speaker C: Thank you Gayatri. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast.

Speaker B: So um, for those who don't know Indra Vidya Prakash, she's the uh site leader for Workday and a senior director and and extraordinary career development across two behemoths, Workday and Oracle. Today we will talk to Vidya right uh where she started her career in um, back in Coimbatore. So Indra I'm going to take you back to Coimbatore and understand what pulled you into software.

Speaker C: Uh okay. So from a very young age I was really fascinated by it was more about problem solving. Okay. And that's kind of how it started for me. Uh as a young kid I remember I was very fortunate that uh my dad had bought for my brother and I in Atari games. So that should you know I probably have dated myself uh on that. But uh that was like this really cool gadget that we got at that time, you could play games on it, but it also had like these small programs that you could create. Like back in the day, uh, you could have all this logical programming that you did. So I still remember that that was like my first sort of time when I started interacting with programming, logic, problem solving. And I was completely fascinated by it. And then I really knew from then that I really wanted to get into sort of that math, computers, it was all very new at that time, you know, when I was studying back in school, uh, and that's how my career really, I would not career at that time, obviously. Right. It was just, this is what my passion is. This is what I want to do. I want to like, solve problems. I'm so fascinated by all these programming languages. So back in the day it was. You were learning BASIC and Fortran, and those were the languages that I learned. And then when it came to like going to college, it became natural that I again chose like computer science and engineering. Uh, so that's how I really started, you know, falling in love with computer science. And till today, technology, problem solving is still something that I'm fascinated by.

Speaker B: Excellent problem solving. I actually heard stories right from uh, m. Writing algorithms or making tea or, um, having a nice AC room pulled me to uh, software. I think you're the first one who has come and told that problem solving pulled me into software. So you did your engineering in PSG tech and, uh, uh, PSG tech. Even today, uh, when I go to Coimbatore, it's a extremely esteemed college and uh, it attracts amazing set of students. And, uh, did you go into, um, uh, campus placement? You did. Got it or you directly went into Ms. After that?

Speaker C: Uh, okay, so my journey, I am, uh, just to give you some of my background. Uh, I am from Coimbatore originally, where PSG, you, uh, know, was founded. Uh, I am part of that founding family as well. So I'm very, you know, privileged that I got to study in that institution. My grandfather was, uh, one of the founder trustees, GR Damodran, who set up the college. So from him is where I got the passion of, uh, learning, education and how that is so important. Having always that growth mindset. Uh, now I did, uh, at that time, you know, um, when you're young, you know, my aspiration really was to go into another college. I was like, hey, you know, I've lived in Coimbatore so long, it's one of those things, right, where you live at home and you're like, no, I actually want to Go somewhere else and study. So I really, really wanted to go to Anna University actually. But uh, finally I think I didn't get uh, I had really good marks but still didn't manage to get in there. And then eventually uh, uh, got into uh, PhD tech where I was very fortunate again to be able to do computer science and engineering there. Uh, when I graduated from PhD Tech I actually got uh, placement into uh, HCL. Uh at that time uh, HCL had an office here, here in Chennai. So I actually spent one year working in Chennai and then I did want to come to US to do masters again. You know like my goal was at that time computer science. There was so much happening in, in the US Also in terms of you know, computers, computer engineering. Uh, so then I applied to get my master's at Cornell University in New York State. Uh and then after a year at HCL Tech and again it was a very great experience experience in Chennai, uh, working for HCL Tech. It was an R and D lab at that time, uh, doing uh, in fact hardware. It was a lot more on the hardware circuit boards and again that was something at that time you know, didn't know whether I wanted to go into hardware or software. Right. It was more of like I said computer engineering. What are the problems you're trying to solve? Uh but it was very fascinating of course and then landed up in Cornell to do my Master's again. A very great experience. Right. The way of teaching itself, like everything from how you interact with your profess, the way you're taught, a lot more self taught, you know in, in the US when you get there, um, really went deep into some of the engineering, computer engineering principles. I remember taking courses like OPERATING Systems and that was when Java had just come in. You know the Internet had come in. So there's the fascination of oh my God, there's you can go in and you know like uh, even if it's like the green terminal right where you're uh, you know, asking questions, uh, or trying to look up stuff uh, on the Internet. Email was like a new thing back then. Programming a lot of like graphics, a lot of you know, graphics processing, Image processing was new as well. So learning that so just really. And then above it all having that experience of being in you know a campus in the US working with other international students, like a lot of exposure to that, you know, international arena as well. So it was a very enjoyable time at that time, uh, that I got into the college there, did my master's and again from college in Cornell is where Oracle had then come for campus recruiting. And then I was fortunate to like you get placement via that. And then landed up in Silicon Valley of course, right. Like at that time everybody wanted to go to Silicon Valley and it was that really big aha moment for me when I, when I landed there and I got a job with Oracle.

Speaker B: And that would have been the. Right@the M.com uh, boom, right. Uh, when you had, when you would have been in uh, Silicon Valley, all the big ones, right, including pet, uh, pet stores to uh, all of them were trying to create their own website, E commerce and so on and so forth. How did that space feel?

Speaker C: Yeah, so started in uh, my career at Oracle in 1997, uh as uh, you know, uh, working there as a software engineer. So I did definitely, you know, I think around the 2000s is, you know, when we saw that dot com boom, right the E commerce. So I got to see all of that. But I felt like, you know, I was still at Oracle at that time so I got to see all of that. But from sort of, I would say the safety and comfort of being at Oracle. Oracle obviously a very big company. When I joined them itself they were about 25,000 people. At that time in 1997 there were about at least 25,000 people worldwide who worked at Oracle. So it was a great experience even there being part of that enterprise, uh, seeing uh, how to interact with customers, the type of software the customers were asking for and building for that and also building at scale, like learning how to build uh, software at scale, thinking about performance and security for enterprise customers. It was a lot of great experience, uh, and also got to work with a lot of great people, like smart people and eventually Oracle, we have I think so many alumni around the world now, like people who left and started other companies and slowly started to build up that network as well in Silicon Valley. So even though I was not part of like a startup at that time, you were right there in the middle of it, right? And working with the people there or using some of the technologies that came out of that. So definitely a very interesting time to be in the Silicon Valley at that time.

Speaker B: Yeah. And Oracle and HP made it very cool to work out of your own garage and uh, built that sort of fashion statement to wear your uh, simple, you know, you know, T shirts and your pants right. When you were in that uh, product, when you were in the engineering and moved to product management in the, in Oracle, um, I don't think that point in time product management was um, that well Known. Right. At least when I was in uh, working for Infosys during the. If I'm able to relate to the same time because all around projects, program management, because I was in the services space. M. It makes sense, um, given that Oracle had like huge products and uh, it needed that product management, understanding where your customers are and how the customers are using it and so on and so forth. How did you go about um, being a product manager and what made you fascinate towards that? Because um, this is your uh, when you are delivering through a cd, right? Or I don't know if um, uh, floppy disk, I'm not sure but Definitely there were CDs.

Speaker C: We literally shipped CDs out to our customers back then.

Speaker B: So how did that transition came about? Indra? I'm very curious about it.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. In fact it wasn't uh, I'm not going to say it was hard or a challenging problem, but definitely took me some time. Okay. So like I said, I started uh, as a software engineer and just really enjoyed that whole process. You know, learning a lot, brand new, uh, you know, in a company like Oracle, like a lot of resources available to us. Also had the mentorship of some really good engineering senior engineering people who had been there as well. Um, so I did that for quite a while. I almost spent uh, about eight years as a software engineer moving between different teams at uh, Oracle, learning new products and all of that. And then uh, at that time it was very much like you said, that waterfall method. Somebody came and gave you a requirement like a project manager or your manager or we did have product managers as well, uh, marketing. So you got some kind of requirement, somebody wrote a document, you know, you like sort of handed off to you and then you went and did like the problem solving the solution, the coding and then you like sort of handed it off back like you said. You know, eventually it all got the software got loaded onto some CDs and then shipped off to a customer. And then for me I always felt like, okay, who's really using my product? Like I'm doing all this work, what are they doing with it? Uh, is somebody using it? Do they like it? Is there something wrong with it? Like sure, you'll hear about bugs that came in. But you know, what was really happening behind the scenes? Like how are customers using it? So I felt like I never had that sort of interaction with the customer or that end user, I wouldn't even call it the customer at that time. I was almost like, wait, who's using all this stuff? Uh do they really like it? Like, what's going on? So at that point, you know, I had done, you know, computer science, engineering for, for about, you know, the software development phase. I felt like, okay, I've gone through phases. I'd worked on a couple of different teams as well at Oracle, you know, seen a couple of different product lines and then started really feeling like, okay, what next? Right? Like both from a career perspective. How do I grow? You know, what are some new skills I can learn? Uh, so at that time, I decided to actually take a break. I said, I want a break. I think I want to maybe go do an MBA or something, right? Like, I felt like maybe I don't have some business aspect, like, should I go study some, you know, something about the business? Right? Like, let me think about what I want to do next. I wasn't really sure what I want to do. It wasn't very clear, but I decided I would just take a break during that time. Um, so I said, okay, let me take some time off. Uh, my family also, you know, in India, uh, some of my family was. My grandparents weren't doing too well and I thought, it's also a good time. I can come and spend some time with them, uh, while. While, you know, um, they were still, uh, fine. So I came to India, actually, spent a couple of months, I took some time off, I traveled. So all that was really great. And then, of course, it was six months. I'm m. Like, okay, now I need to get a job again. I need to figure out what I want to do. So I was pursuing two things. I was like, should I do an mba? Because, you know, product management might be one area. So I'd be talking to a lot of product managers at that time. Both people I knew from within Oracle itself I'd worked with and externally to say, like, hey, you know, if I wanted to switch to it, what kind of stuff skills do I need to have? Do I really need an mba, uh, or not? So those were two things that I was pursuing. And then an opportunity came along where, um, one of the managers who I'd worked with, One of the PMs who I'd worked with at Oracle, they had mentioned that there was a product management opportunity sort of in the same area where I had been an engineer. So which meant, like, I knew the space, but I had to learn how to be, you know, a product manager and learn those skills. So I interviewed for this position and actually went back then to Oracle again as a product manager for one of the teams that I had worked, worked with uh, and again very fortunate that I built up some network of uh, colleagues out there in um, Oracle and was able to be a part of a product management team. And they were mentoring me on product management skills and eventually grew into it and I really started enjoying it. That interaction especially at that time I think we were moving more towards uh, not so much the waterfall method, but getting into that. Okay, what do customers really want? Why are we building? Don't just solution something, make sure we're really addressing the problem for a customer, their end users and solving problems for them. Um, there was also the time where it was a lot more design centric, design focused user centric, solving problems for users. So I started really enjoying all of that. Talking to our customers, hearing from them on what problems they're having, being able to then provide work with the engineering team from the other side and provide solutions. That was something that I really started enjoying. So that was like that switch for me between you know, from software engineering or software developer into product management.

Speaker B: Wow, this is fantastic. Yeah, in terms of, you know, uh, I thought it would have been a, somebody had settled, uh, try this for some time and uh, that is the story I was expecting. This is fantastic story. In terms of self discovery, building your own muscle. In terms, in terms of talking to uh, you know, customers and uh, creating that design thinking. Right now design thinking is the in thing, right. Everybody talks about customer experience, user experience. And so you did you have to learn also those things in terms of analytics, customer experience, user experience and how to build all of that. Yeah, of being a product manager.

Speaker C: Definitely, definitely.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, I think those are skills that had to learn, you know, like taking, sometimes it was certification courses, sometimes even just you know, working. I remember like if there are designers, user experience, people just sit down with them, right? Like learn from them what they do. You go on like customer visits, uh, you sit in on usability testing for example. Right. And you just follow almost like just foreshadowing someone even and you learn all these uh, practices. So um, I think that's like some of the different ways in which people can get experiences. Right. It's not always you're learning from a textbook or learning now online, but sometimes it's about just sitting down with the people and seeing like, you know, things in action.

Speaker B: Oracle also is, you are huge on conferences, I'm sure now, uh, uh, conferences, both online as well as offline has become center stage and uh, if I remember Silicon Valley actually brought in that coolness in conferences including gaming and uh, you know, ah, those goodie bags and T shirts and whatever and all those paraphernalia which made it very cool. Earlier conferences used to be that suitcase and going and attending boring ones, but

Speaker C: I think we had some amazing. Uh, yeah, no, that was one of my highlights as a product manager because we got to go to these yearly conferences. Both Oracle and even the company that I work for now, Workday, every year, you know, they have this yearly customer conferences. That was one of the highlights for me, you know, every year because it was a great way to interact with our customers but also showcase, you know, what our product teams had built. Right. So we would have like these demo stands or demo booths where, you know, I wouldn't mind, like, I really enjoyed standing out there showing the demo, talking to our, um, end users and our customers, getting that quick feedback from them. That was always a great experience and of course it was always a great event. Like, um, especially, I think Oracle after it had acquired a lot of companies like sun and some of the other acquisitions. That conference was one of the largest conferences that would come into San Francisco, right, which is where I lived. Um, so it was amazing, like downtown. We would like pretty much close out all of downtown, take on one of the really big conference centers and host this event. And uh, our customers also, I think, enjoyed coming and speaking to us. And then also analysts, right, like industry analysts, like Gartner and like other analysts would also come out there to talk to us. So it was always a very great experience to talk about, like our innovations, our product, you know, what we are building for the next next year, the roadmap, and just get all that customer feedback.

Speaker B: Wow, fantastic. In fact, uh, so was it very difficult for you to move from Oracle? I know you are working with Workday right now, um, to undo that move from Oracle to Workday, particularly you are working in, back in the engineering side of it. Um, uh, was that a smooth transition back into engineering? How did that happen?

Speaker C: Yeah, so again, another interesting journey. Right. So when I was, uh, at Oracle, I had the opportunity to work with some really good, uh, engineering team, specifically, uh, a VP who was managing one of our teams. And at one point they went off and they started their own startup company. I didn't join them at that time. Very small startup company. And then a couple of years later, uh, that company got acquired by Workday. And once that happened, they actually reached out to me and, you know, were asking if, uh, I would be interested in joining them at Workday. And at that time, like, you know, I had uh, by then spent almost 15 years at Oracle and I thought it's a good chance range. Uh, and I still get to be in the Bay Area, right, Like, which is where Workday was also located. So I was like, this is great. I get an opportunity to also work with this engineering team which, you know, I had some really brilliant smart people and had really enjoyed working with them. And um, they were based out of another uh, region in Boulder and Colorado. And then you know, they were like, hey, Workday is located in Bay Area where you are like, I can be the product manager and sort of like help, you know, you know, as a conduit. And so that's how, you know, I decided to, you know, it's time to like wrap up an Oracle and follow them here to Work Day. Uh, so it's been really an amazing journey and for me also the affirmation that, you know, building people networks is also very important, right? Like you can be an engineer, you can be a product management, but I still feel like uh, if you work with really good people, high performing teams and you know, it makes a huge difference that experience that you have, your engagement at work, your joy for work, uh, it really is great when you work with people that you really like. And for me that was number one. I said, you know, let me uh, you know, come and work with this for this team. And at that time Workday also was known for its culture, of course very different from Oracle because the people who started or uh, Workday were you know, the original founders of PeopleSoft. And after Oracle, you know, took over PeopleSoft, they decided to go start Workday and was a completely different culture. So I was like, I had heard so much about the culture of the company as well. So for me that was also another very important factor to say like, hey, this is, is another company that I want to go try. And then I felt like I could also offer something. You know, it was also an enterprise software company which is where I had a lot of experience and I felt like that I could bring some of that experience as well into, into my new uh, organization. So I came into Workday and now I've been there for almost 10 years at workday again. I had started in Workday. Now it's sort of that reverse right at Workday I started as in product management and you know, managing like more of these innovative products. Like I said, a startup had been acquired. We integrated that into Workday, uh, so building a little bit more of that innovation, uh, you know, into some of the Workday Products learning about Workday and Workday had some, has some amazing customers. Right. They were customer like one of Workday's like core values is also like you know, customers and customer satisfaction. And so we have some amazing customers. So again going and you know, talking to those customers, getting their feedback, all of that, you know, has made it really very exciting. So that's kind of the start of my you know, workday journey when I started as pm.

Speaker A: Very nice.

Speaker B: Because, because uh, Workday, uh, Workday also is known for disrupting the whole uh, uh HR software. Uh and uh, compared to. It's very similar to Salesforce if you can. Salesforce is completely disrupted on the sales.

Speaker C: Yeah. And they both started around the same time, right. Like Salesforce was putting sales and marketing to the cloud and Workday said we are the first HR and financial ERP software into the cloud.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I mean I'm not surprised that you had the best of the time working with customer satisfaction because customer uh, if you think about it, the one of the best people whom you can interact with in the whole globe will be working with HR because they are generally also personable in terms of their Persona and how they work with people. So was it very uh, straightforward for you to move from a different domain in Oracle, uh, working in uh, product innovation, even though product innovation is the same horizontal, but you had to switch domains uh when you move to Workday. How was that domain transition?

Speaker C: I think that is where being at workday has really, you know, uh, sort of the people centric company or the employee centric company that it is has really helped. So I had to come in and I had exposure to HR domain, uh for example working uh, at Oracle. But here uh, you know, really going deep. Right. Like more in depth into that, you know, HR domain financials, the ERP suite of products, uh, as well as you know looking at it from a perspective of how Workday has been. You know again HR company we have to be very careful with customers data. It's like trusted data. Data has to be compliant, you know and all of that we need to sure that we understand the risk and we keep up data like protected and secure for our customers. Right. So understanding that, understanding how like Workday had like this unique one platform of building, you know, in the cloud, all of that I think were what uh really helped me in the beginning to like really understand all of that. And for that I think where uh, I felt that really helped again like you know, Workday being a very people centric employee centric, uh, culture is working with all these different teams across like cross collaboration I learned was very important. So um, I still joke saying like some of my best friends are actually in the legal and the compliance and the security team. Because for me it was very important that I learned like ah, you know, what are the things we need to do to make sure that customers HR data, financial data secured, it's you know, compliant and you know free from risks and working with these teams from a product perspective. Right. Like when you're building product and you're engineering product like have that partnership, that collaboration early on from with our product legal teams and compliance teams. I think that was really important. So it wasn't just learning the domain but some of it was also learning some of the processes around how we can build software that's trusted and used by our customers.

Speaker B: Wow. Okay, that's very cool because um, in the end of the day um, each country will also have different HR processes and how uh, each of them also uh, change dramatically. Right. Because that's a very unique way to think about it. Indra, I have a couple of questions around your um. I know you've been part of, of uh Naitri uh Investment M. Investment circle and that is also close to what I do right now at Sangatna. So I want to hear ask more questions around that. So I, you are working in all this amazing um HR solutions in workday. I, I see that around the same time you've also be. You become interested in the whole investment space. I, I see that you're part of a fund. I don't know if that is. You're comfortable talking about it about the fund itself being an investor. What pulled you towards that? And particularly I know um, in India uh only 2% of startups are run by women. Women when I say than 50% women. While um, if you look at the workforce that 40% women in workforce and so is in the social sector or teaching sector but very very few and far between in the. When it comes to actual startups and um, you know uh, so I'm just checking how, how did you get interested in that, that space.

Speaker C: Okay. So I actually was a part of. I, I was first interested in nri the professional networking associ, you know part of it before the, the fund itself. The fund was sort of a, I guess the, the byproduct of me being part of that NRI circle. So nri, uh, and I don't know how much you uh, you know looked into it but uh, in the US it's basically uh, for South Asian professional women, uh, uh, to like, have a space to, like, engage and have a community itself. So, uh, this was really something that, you know, as part of being in Silicon Valley, the Bay Area, uh, I had been to, you know, typically a lot of, like, these networking, you know, events, right? Like, there was. There would be like, women in product or women in tech meetups. And typically you go to a lot of these networking events, and that's how you build up, like, your. Your network, uh, in. In the Bay Area. But then, uh, it was actually, actually sometime during COVID when, you know, all of us were working from home that I heard about N3, and at that time they were having a lot of online events, um, and I joined some of them. And it was really great to see, like, this community of, you know, South Asian, South Asian, you know, network and living in the U.S. like, I had been, you know, living in the U.S. for almost, uh, more than 25 years. You know, I finally felt like, oh, this, this is your tribe, right? Like, you. You see people who are like, you, uh, you know, such successful women. And also, it was not just women in tech, which was another thing I really liked about netri as well. Um, that there were, you know, people from all different, you know, industries who were, you know, like, maybe banking, financial sector, like health, healthcare, education. So it was a really strong, powerful, you know, network of women. And it was an amazing experience, really, because especially, you know, during COVID like, all of us working from home, there was some connection that you had, like, with this community. Um, and then once we got out of COVID there were like, other, you know, networking events that happened as well. One of which was they created something called, uh, you know, if you became a member, then for members, they had things like salons where you could, you know, potentially those of us who lived in a particular area, like six to eight of us, we could form a salon. We'd meet like once a month or once in two months. So a little bit more like, you know, physically as well. You met, you got to see people and interact with them. It was amazing that I've discovered that there were so many people who were part of that Netri who lived like, right within 10 minutes, maybe even walk, walking distance of where I was. And I didn't even know they were there till I, you know, joined NETRI itself. And of course, you know, then there was. Netri had set up this investment fund and I be, you know, I wanted to contribute to it in some meaningful way. I haven't been Deeply involved in it. There's a group of people who manage the fund itself, you know, to figure out, like, which companies are part of the fund. But yes, you know, I did invest in it for the same reason, you know, that you were saying that there isn't enough, you know, funding available or you need more representation of women. And how do we empower them, uh, to be more, you know, founders? Like, I have great respect for people who are entrepreneurial, who take risks. Right. Like, I feel like I've done the safe thing by working in enterprise companies, but I know, like, what. How much it must be to, like, you know, want, uh, to get the funds if you have an idea. And I want to, like, really, you know, empower them and give them a voice and a space as well. So that's how I got interested. And I've invested in the fund, but, uh, the fund itself is managed, obviously by people from the NETRI organization, and I haven't been really, really involved very deeply in it.

Speaker B: Very nice. And have you found a tribe now that you're. You are in India? I think you've been in India for, what, less than a year?

Speaker C: Uh, yeah, just about a year. Coming up now. Gayathri? Yeah, no, it's been, uh, again, like, my journey to India has also been, like, very great. Uh, you know, returning back after 30 years and then coming to Chennai. Like I said, I spent one year in Chennai, but Chennai had completely changed. Right. Like, I couldn't. I couldn't, like, recognize most places. The beach, of course, course is fabulous, but I love it. But, uh, it's been amazing coming back and having this opportunity to come and set up a, uh, workdays office here and scale it, uh, in this last one year and grow it. And again, like, amazing talent, you know, finding really great people, connecting with them. It's been a really, really good experience. But one of the things that I was also, you know, when I was coming back, obviously thinking a lot about, you know, how is it going to work out here. Personally, it was fine because I have family close by and. But professionally, I felt like I really good, big network in. In the Bay Area, having lived there for so long. But that's been really good coming out here. I think through friends have been introduced into a couple of different, you know, organizations, um, and. And, you know, built up some of that professional network as well. So it's been really good.

Speaker B: Fantastic. I. I just realized, I didn't ask you why you took the decision to move. I know. After three decades, I think, I mean, Was there a personal reason or was it um, um, purely professional? What made you take that?

Speaker C: It was, it was purely professional actually. You know, so, uh, workday, you know, was looking at, you know, what, what is uh, a sort of one of our strategic locations outside of the US because we did want to set up operations looking for, you know, as workdays global growing, expanding globally. We felt like we also wanted to have some presence outside. We do have a site in Dublin, Ireland, which is a big, you know, products and technology. Uh, but we were looking for another site in India and Chennai was chosen. Uh, I felt like, okay, it's like, you know, someone's calling out to me, right? It was a great opportunity, I felt that to come and set up workday and I wanted to be successful, you know, in the state where I am m from, it felt like a matter of pride as well. And uh, so that was one of the biggest reasons, right? They were looking for a permanent site leader. They wanted of course, someone from the US to come here because it would help like, you know, in the initial, initial stages to, to set it up and you know, be communicating with stakeholders and sort of bring that experience. Like I've had an amazing 10 year experience at workday and bring that same culture and experience out here, but also blend it with the local culture. And I felt, okay, I, I speak the language Tamil, so that's really good. And you uh, know, culturally I, I understand uh, you know, the culture here and I'll be able to fit in. But, but most of all it was that opportunity I felt right, like I had built products, I was on the PM side, the software side. Now it's like, okay, this is more like operations but also being very strategic about how we set up the site, what kind of products we want to build here, how do we organize teams here to be successful, how can we empower them to like be autonomous, all of that, you know, and bring that workday, uh, culture in was very important. So when I heard that they were looking for someone, I basically put my hand up and said, hey, you know, can I be considered? So it was purely from an opportunity and a professional perspective. Uh, but it's been great otherwise too because I'm m able to spend a little bit more time with my family and my parents here.

Speaker B: Very, very cool. Indra. I think this is fantastic, right in terms of bringing back your own learning and creating that roots, um, if you will, for so many uh, people. And uh, one of the things I often tell uh, executives like yourself is it's um, the. I mean while startup and startup life is school, but um, staying in an executive role and building the careers for so many hundreds of people and uh, training them and mentoring them is a calling by. In itself it is not, um, because it has its own uh, you know, flow. Right. You will actually have your. Have your flow as well as it's. It's also not straightforward to say there will be no failures in large organization. There will be times when there are. Your metal is tested. So are there any points in which your, you uh, know, metal has been been tested and said, man, this is extremely hairy problem. How do I solve it? Has there been such cases that you can share without breaking confidentiality? Of course.

Speaker C: Yeah. No. So one thing is, yes, the. What you talked about being, uh, a very fulfilling experience. That's kind of what I'm experiencing right now. You know, coming here to Chennai and setting this up, I feel like it's been really rewarding and fulfilling. Like I feel like a sense of purpose because it's like, okay, you have to go and scale but make the people here really successful. And we've had some amazing talent here. Like this is what has really energized me this last one year. You know, setting up the site is, you know, all that uh, talent here, like especially we did college recruiting and hired like interns and they're just amazing the kids coming out of college here. Right. Like with all this AI native skills and all of that. So it's been really rewarding when I think about it. Uh, I'm making a big, big push to ensure that we are a lot more gender diversity, uh, as well. Like especially you know, seeing women leaders, I think, uh, empowering them. It's something that I have been really striving for. So doing a lot of mentorship guidance for all of them, making sure that, you know, as we are hiring as well, being very thoughtful of what does that pipeline look like to make sure there's enough, you know, gender diversity in the pipeline. We're bringing more women into that, you know, leadership positions and growing them that I, that's been, I think for me the, the more personal thing, uh, from a challenges perspective. So far I would say in Chennai it's been going pretty well. But I'm sure as you said there will be something right? Like year one is like, I think what the, uh, it's the honeymoon phase. Everybody's come in, they're all new and I'm sure we'll go through some challenges along the way itself. Uh, ah, so uh, you Know, so far though, it's been going pretty well.

Speaker B: I was, uh, I was talking about more from a Harry problem, not just with Chennai, but over your career. Has there been any, um, any decisions that you had to take, which were difficult decisions, um, that you can, uh, share with us? Um, now, now that you think about it, it was a right thing to do. Was there any anecdote or anything that you want to share?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. There's definitely been, you know, quite a few. Right. Like, you don't go through. That's the. That's how you get the experience and you learn to be, you know, you learn from it and you're more resilient. Uh, you know, when, um, as part of, like, one of the organizations, we wanted to introduce, like, a really new technology to our custom. That time, this was more than five years back, uh, before all the LLMs and all that, we wanted to introduce a chatbot. So it was very new for, you know, even our customers. Right. And some of it was like, hey, you know, we want to see what a, uh, different user experience can be. How can people use natural language processing to ask questions and receive information? But it was something very, very new to all of our customers and our, uh, end users as well. So a lot of that meant, like, we had to think about, you know, we can't just release this product as it is. So how do we have like, very sort of structured program on getting feedback from early adopters? Uh, we need some customers who are willing to test with us and validate, give us access to their data. Right. And that was very important. Like, the data had to be, like, good data, where it had to be production data, not like, test type of data. So how do we earn the trust of our customers in order for them to help us? How do we bring them on this journey of innovation with us? So those are some of the areas where we had to really think through it. And, you know, it was something that we learned along the way. Right. And but one of the things that we did, I think what we did right, at least was saying, like, okay, let's, uh, take a very small customer base, even if it's like two, three customers, and then the company itself also using it internally, like, you know, use your own product to get feedback. That was the one area we really put a guardrail on saying, you know, let's not. Not like, this is not something you can release to all customers. And then, you know, something goes wrong if there's data leakage or security or risk. And again, as you Said different countries have different compliance needs, right? Like what you can do with the customer data. So we had to be very selective and it kind of slowed us down uh, to some extent. Right, like you can't go so fast, you only have small number of customers. But I think that was one of the areas where we did learn like you know, picking you know, smaller group of customers, getting that feedback but being able to quickly iterate. So then again you know some challenges internally so that teams get used to this sort of new ways of working. Um, so that's one of the things that I think really learned some good lessons from it. Uh, but again thinking through, working directly with customers, taking that feedback I think helped us um, internally we tried to make sure we can have at least on our end quicker decision making so that when we learn something you can quickly make a decision and rapidly prototype again and iterate on different responses. So for that like you know we had, I had an opportunity where I could bring a small group of people at that time like engineering and product management so I could like manage them and be that sort of quick, you know, decision maker, uh, where it was a little faster and quicker so that otherwise in big organizations sometimes you go, you know, it's like product is in one side engineering and you have to like go all the way up the chain to make these decisions there as well. I think workday also gave me the opportunity to be able to lead such projects, projects where I could have that you know, quick, uh, you know, have product engineering under me, be able to make some of these decisions so that we could iterate and move faster.

Speaker B: Wow. This amazing story. In the end of the day, as long as there is a uh, ability to, for you to bounce like the uh, Gia Dhamogaran story that you mentioned in terms of growth mindset I think that is really key in terms of understanding what is it, what is happening under the hood and uh, you know, moving forward. Indra, I'm realizing at the time I, I can't even believe that it has been such a long.

Speaker C: Thank you for uh, mentioning the whole growth mindset. I think for me that's been if I was to give advice to someone, you know, if anyone wants to hear, I would say continue to learn and grow. Especially now we are in such an exciting time. When I think of my career, right like the last 30 years and I've seen the different shifts, right like on premise to cloud and you said like E commerce at one point, the shift to mobile but now with this AI, you know, AI Era. This I think is the most exciting that I've felt and things are moving so rapidly. So if you're not willing to have that growth mindset, you know, you can definitely be left behind.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean also uh, how exciting it is in terms of learning and availability of information. It's no longer that you have to be in Stanford to know design thinking or the best of the minds. You actually, actually uh, it's a lot

Speaker C: more demo, so much more accessible and it makes it more inclusive for people. Right. And I see that now, I think coming to India where you know, at every level it's accessible like across age, across like, you know, it's not just demographics but across like you know, urban population or rural population. Right. Like I feel like this is what's really going to be a game changer for everyone. Even beyond that, like I'm um, uh, one of the things I was blown away by coming to India is like how, how, how there's an ah, app for everything which has made my life like so much convenient in the last year. Like pay your bills or like get help or you know, service delivery and food delivery and all of that. And it's so quick and easy. Like that itself is like a big leaps and bounds compared to like you know, the India I left obviously many years ago. But I think the AI is definitely going to make it, I feel a lot more accessible and inclusive for like, you know, at all levels of our society as well. Yeah. Um, and it's funny because now I, I, I taught my parents how to use ChatGPT so now they're like, you know, always asking it questions.

Speaker B: I have not done that I should, it's a good reminder for me to do it. I just taught for my help which who comes and I taught her how to use it and in fact I ah, taught her how to use a local language rather than, you know.

Speaker C: Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, that's the other thing I see like you know, sometimes I, the other thing I see people do a lot of here is like use the voice right. For translation and things like that. I see that more in India than probably, you know, like when I was in the US that how easy it is for them to use their native language. You know, they talk into it that translates and then again like information is now accessible to them as a result.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Uh, when, when you, you actually, I heard a lot of people using voice note to actually communicate earlier there will be a typing even if it is native language. Typing is a bigger problem for different sets of people. So all you have to do is voice note and it is all clear. Um, voice to text and text to is a lot more making it easy for people to do, uh, what they want to, as long as they don't get, uh, you know, they have a goal where they want to go. So, um, thank you so much, Indra. I just wanted to share, I wanted you to any, uh, last thoughts or advice apart from having the growth mindset and continuing to learn, any advice that you want to share, uh, to our

Speaker C: listeners, you know, um, adding to that is like, be curious, right? Stay curious. Like I said, this is an exciting time to be in. Uh, but don't forget that at the end of the day, day, it's still, you know, for me, uh, having a network or connections with people, collaborating with people, that makes the big difference, right? Like when you're going into work, for example, or you're working with a group of people, like, uh, you know, you, you want to have the joy of working with them still, right? Sure. There's like AI and AI agents that can help you, but at the end of the day, I think we're all human centric. Like, you know, how do you serve your customers? How do you, you know, work within a team? And I think that's still very important. So I'm always telling people, like, don't forget the human element of it. Right, right. That's still the, the most important thing.

Speaker B: Perfect. Thank you so much, Indra. Thank you, thank you. I know we've been trying to get you in from March and I'm so happy that we are able to talk to you now.

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. It was a joy to speak to you today, Kai3 and thank you so much for having me here.

Speaker B: Thank you. We thank Siddharth for the music and Anita for promoting the software people stories. If you like this episode, please subscribe

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