RAJITHA UPPUGUNDRI JUGGLES MYRIAD TASKS as Senior Director of Finance at eBay. And she attributes this to her ability to pick up new skills. “I have aligned my skill sets constantly with the growing needs of the business. The job that I do today is significantly different from what I did just six months back. My approach is to focus on continuous learning and how I can upgrade skills in other areas,” she says.

Needless to say, this trait helped her move up the hierarchy rapidly. Today, with her team of managers, she oversees the finance of various infrastructure groups. She constantly looks for ways to trim spending while ensuring that the business groups get adequate funding to support growth. She also develops metrics that will accurately measure productivity and cost improvements over a period of time and ensures that eBay is on top of all the changes that are taking place in the business.

Collaborating with functional VPs and helping them strategize for the future, she identifies countries that eBay wants to enter, besides evolving alternate business opportunities/ investments. “The key is to strike the right balance between understanding the group needs and ensuring that you don’t spend in excess,” she notes. Interacting with various group heads also requires the right combination of assertiveness and interpersonal skills, which Uppugundri feels she has refined over the years. And she thrives on challenges.

“Having someone tell me that something is very difficult to do would be the surest way to getting me to try and do it,” she says.

So from where does Uppugundri find the energy to manage all her various tasks? “At eBay, I have learned to use the information gained from my past experiences to influence decision-making. I have learned to challenge status quo and look for newer and better ways of doing things.”

“As I have taken on more senior roles and increasing responsibilities, I have realized that you are only as good as the people you hire and manage. It is smart to hire people who are very competent and help them maximize their potential.”

Even the crazy work hours at eBay have not prevented Uppugundri from spending quality time with family. “I keep my days very packed and when I go back home, I spend a couple of hours with my kids before their bedtime. I catch up on emails late at night,” she says.

It was Uppugundri’s passion for numbers that has brought to eBay from India. “I enjoy working with numbers. Growing up, I loved mathematics. At that time, the options for me were to pursue either engineering or finance. Finance interested me because I liked analyzing things and enjoyed managing and investing money,” she says.

At 21, soon after she had completed her chartered accountancy, Uppugundri landed her first job in a Delhi-based firm. And strangely for someone in her first job, she found herself managing a group of people, some of who were twice her age.

“I remember being intimidated by them initially but in a few months felt comfortable managing them,” she recalls. Here she picked the nuances of company finance. The due diligence, which she did for a number of deals, motivated her to pursue an MBA.

Her head for numbers coupled with a thirst for excellence brought her to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where she did her MBA. The U.S. economy went into recession just as she graduated. “There were hardly any finance jobs,” recalls Uppugundri. Luckily she found a job in a California-based semiconductor company, Compass Design Automation. This was her first exposure to how companies in the U.S. were managed and run.

As financial analyst and senior manager (financial), she dealt issues ranging from budgeting, financial analysis, operations and business support to sales tax, accounting and legal issues. She closely watched then CFO Gary Bengier at work, learning from him the essentials of managing the finances of a medium sized organization. And when Bengier left Compass to join eBay as CFO, Uppugundri followed her mentor.

She notes the importance of choosing a company. “Choosing the right company is as important as choosing to invest in a company. You are investing a lot of time on it. So you chose a company that you are comfortable with. You are spending a good part of your day on your job, so enjoy it.”

“Do not limit your options by putting a ceiling on what you think you can achieve. And demand more from yourself.” And Uppugundri’s career in finance certainly proves that there’s more to accounting than just getting the numbers right.