Jayashree Vaidhyanathan, 34
Director and Unit Head – Business Consulting Services, HCL Technologies
1. Started the Business Consulting division at HCL Technologies.

2. Started career as management trainee at Vishakapatnam Steel Plant.

3. Graduated from Cornell University with an MBA.


What’s the litmus test of convincing your management to start a Business Consulting division within your company when there has been no similar precedent in even competing companies? Jayashree Vaidhyanathan of HCL Technologies who has been voted the Outstanding Woman Manager of the Year 2005 by the Madras Management Association should know better. Her leadership has nurtured a team of brilliant consultants specializing in compliance consulting in just three and half years since she took on the mantle. The methodology developed by HCL for compliance-related consulting has won accolades from Gartner and Meta Group.

No wonder the consulting unit that she heads at HCL has had zero attrition for the last three and half years.

“I always pick up my son from school,” she says displaying her dexterity at doing the balancing act for her home too. Vaidhyanathan avers that workingwomen who spend quality time participating in activities with children score better than homemakers who leave children to fend for themselves with television serials. That is a point well made Ms. Manager.