Rising to any Challenge with Cynthia Swarnalatha

In this episode Cynthia Swarnalatha Vice President – Engineering, SW CoE, Compute Business Group & HPE India Site R&D leader, is in conversation with Chitra Gurjar on a variety of stories and matters that that span 3 decades and include 

• Choosing to study computer science with her love of math, being the 2nd batch of CompSc graduates from her college
• Having a “give-it-my-best” approach and curiosity to learn attitude starting with a role in customer tech support
• Navigating learning, delivering and communication by reaching out to people, asking questions and consciously looking at “What I can do differently”?
• Plunging into new roles and a 3 yr self-checkpoint rhythm to see where she is
• Transition from IC to manager roles and embracing the decision making challenge
• Being a “customer first” person in all roles she has played
• Keeping focus on the problem space - an approach to customer driven innovation
• Her view on “iterative development” and agile in large organizations
• Managing transformations
• Managing global teams
• 4 point message for aspirants in tech - anticipate change, adaptability, curiosity and passion

A global engineering leader with over 3 decades of experience spanning various technology domains. Cynthia’s diverse career includes roles with many enterprise organizations like Wipro, Motorola, Cisco, NetApp, [24]7.ai, Intuit, Pega Systems and now at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She has led diverse functional teams in Product Development, Quality Assurance, Engineering tools & infrastructure, Solutions Delivery and Operations.

She has also led global engineering charters out of India and has been recognized for organizational transformation, institutionalizing processes, building high performing teams and creating an exemplary work culture within the teams I led. She’s passionate about driving value through strategic growth, ownership and delivery of key product development and innovation.

She is a strong champion of Diversity & Inclusion and has been the executive sponsor for the Technical Women’s community in her previous companies. She has served on the NASSCOM Regional Product Council for Karnataka, and has been part of ABI’s Grace Hopper India Conference advisory council.