Step Forward &Take up New Challenges Date:   Monday , August 31, 2009 "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference", says Robert Frost, the American poet, in one of his most memorable poems. And this stands true for Uma Maheshwari who believed in carving out a career for herself that not many women dared to. In the late 90’s when jobs in the IT and ITeS sector were available a dime a dozen, Uma followed her passion and went on to obtain a Ph.D. in the Aerospace Engineering department at the Indian Institute of Science. Today, she heads a 110-strong team of engineers at GE Labs in Bangalore. "The entire journey has been a rollercoaster ride for me, with unexpected surprises," says Uma. Upon completing her doctorate in 1999, Uma was the first to join GE Energy in a project that was a joint venture between GE and TCS, at the engineering level. As a young engineer, during the first few years she focused more on learning the technology and developed the skill sets that were essential for the analysis of complex fluid dynamics for gas turbine combustor components. With expertise in computational fluid dynamics, she was involved in the analysis for gas turbines followed by the design and development of gas turbine components. "It was quite exciting for me as I had great interest in core technical work and was involved in every level of it," she says. A few years later she got an opportunity to lead the six-sigma Black Belt role for close to one and a half year. This was greatly unexpected since till then she had focused on growing only on the technical side. Though initially skeptical, with a little encouragement from her managers Uma took up the new responsibility and successfully completed the implementation. During this period, she got broad exposure and learnt coaching and mentoring skills, driving organizational initiatives, and developing strategies and roadmaps. She mentored more than 40 young engineers to apply the six-sigma principles to their product design and developed a business metrics dashboard that was later followed as a best practice across the GE Energy global sites for effective review of business operations. After a maternity break of five months, Uma joined back GE Energy as the Leader of the Gas Turbine Combustion Center of Excellence (CoE), leading a team of 10 engineers working in the area of structural and fluid dynamics analysis of combustor components for gas turbines using computational methods. During the two years when she led this team, Uma gained rich experience by focusing both on technology and leadership skills. Her leadership skills and technical strengths were put to test when she was promoted as the leader of the Accessories and Systems Engineering team. "The accessory here refers to the systems present outside a power plant and the team was involved in designing these systems," she explains. She grew the team from 20 to 80 in just 3 years, while diversifying and adding technical competence and domain knowledge with added focus on quality and technical depth. Currently Uma leads IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) at GE Labs, a process in which a low-value fuel such as coal, petroleum coke, orimulsion, biomass, or municipal waste is converted to low heating value, high-hydrogen gas in a process called gasification. The gas is then used as the primary fuel for a gas turbine. "This process had been in place in GE soon after it had acquired a Texas based gasification company, but GE wanted to build the core technical team in India that would engineer and deliver the design packages. When I took over, the team was still learning the technical dynamics. It was a challenge for me too, as my competency was more on the computational and mechanical fronts where the role required knowledge in chemical aspects of the process," says Uma. For her it was 'back to basics' and she left no stone unturned in gaining in-depth knowledge of the process. The team currently works on delivering engineering packages to utility customers that build chemical, fertilizer, or power plants using GE’s gasification technology across the world. Under Uma’s leadership, the team has grown from 45 to 110 with increasing levels of ownership and contributions to developing new technologies and product and process design. Within two years of inception, the team has added immense capability and domain expertise to deliver license packages to China region, owning all of the process design and engineering, as well as developing tools to deliver them at a faster pace (30 percent less cycle time). Leading such highly technical teams has been challenging for Uma but she says that her personal philosophy of 'Compete with yourself' is what has helped her drive growth in the teams she has led. "I believe in being open and candid with the team I work with. This helps me shatter any barrier between me and my team," she explains. Be it any work related issue or otherwise, Uma likes to follow an 'open door policy'. Giving back to the organization and the communities around her is what is close to Uma's heart. Whenever she finds time, Uma likes to spend it in participating in leadership forums and development classes where she shares her rich leadership and technical experience, focusing on nurturing and mentoring employees who want to take up either a managerial or a technical career path. "In most cases I have observed that the engineers that join fresh out of college do not have any seriousness about the processes that an organization follows. Also, having been working on one's own during school and college years, they often find working with the team difficult. It requires a large amount of mentoring to get them attain the momentum," says Uma. She also reaches out to several woman professionals in the organization who often seek guidance for balancing work and personal life. Uma herself excellently juggles her role at home and work, courtesy her family and the flexibility provided by the organization. Looking back, though she does miss her days of being on hands-on technical work, she is equally excited in her new managerial roles. "Sometimes I help my team in certain technical tasks and this helps me brush up my technical skills," she quips. Uma attributes her exciting and rewarding career at GE to her family. Her father, who instilled strong values in her, has always been the motivating factor behind her as she was growing up. Also her husband is a great mentor and sounding board and her six-year old daughter is a source of energy and inspiration. Outside work, Uma enjoys reading and catching up on the latest happenings in the technology space.