Sumeeta Panda
AVP - Quality
Mahindra Satyam
Sumeeta Panda is a member of:
- Expert
Strong Decission Maker
Achiever for many, the word creates a vivid image of a survivor,
fighting against odds to emerge victorious, taking the un-trodden path
to achieve his/her ambitions in style. For a select few, it indicates a
journey, made fruitful through choices and decisions—or in the words of
Sumeeta Hari, Assistant Vice President, Quality at Mahindra Satyam—“Just by being
the best that one can.”
Fresh out of college, Sumeeta decided to gather job experience than
opting for higher studies. When her peers were packing their bags to
cross the oceans in the hope of fulfilling their ambitions, Sumeeta set
out to chase her dreams at home, armed with only a Bachelors degree and a
Diploma in Computer Applications. She rejected a seat at a top
institute and started working as a Software Developer in a computer
firm. Her naive but assured mind was not the least scared.
Attitude Matters
Twenty years down the lane, a mature Sumeeta muses at her ‘yester-year’
enthusiasm. “I got carried away with work experience, something I would
not have done today,” she admits. But the choice stands testimony to her
leadership qualities. “As a leader of a highly qualified team, I tell
myself that I may not have grown this way if I had considered education.
Real merit lies in the ability, the capability and the kind of attitude
you show.”
Hard Work Leads to Success
Thanks to her abilities, today she is leading the global quality
consulting business at Mahindra Satyam , with over 180 consultants and
70 plus live consulting projects. Her expertise is reflected by her
title as a Carnegie Mellon certified CMMI Trainer and CMMI Candidate
Lead Assessor. After all, she is credited to have played a pivotal role
in large organizations like DSQ Software, Citibank Technologies and even
Satyam in achieving the ISO 9000 and the CMM Level 4 and CMM level 5
accreditation in Quality. And she is probably among the youngest to
reach this high seat.
Career took Speed
For a woman who had ‘no plans’, Sumeeta’s career was showing remarkable
growth. At this point, her acceptance of a job at Satyam was the second
most important decision in her professional life. She says. “There were
times when I wanted to drop my job and manage my life, especially when I
had my daughter. I had this offer from a leading degree college to
teach computers and I would have been a happy lecturer.” But the sheer
motivation received from her family ignited the lost spark and soon she
found herself back to what she knew best—Quality. It was only after
Satyam acquired the CMM level 4 accreditation, did she decide to join
them full time. Along with the challenges of dealing with a new culture,
a new team and meeting demands, she also inherited the business acumen
of the company.
Career - Roller Coaster Ride
Reminiscing, Sumeeta describes her career as one roller coaster ride,
where it was never about planning, but choosing to take the bus when the
opportunity arrived.
She took one such opportunity to make a transition from product
development to software testing. Six years into her career as a software
developer at OMC— Sumeeta was looking for a change Quality was an
emerging area and people with development experience who could write
processes were required. But there was always this dilemma of switching
from the firefighting mode of development to the tamer world of quality
assurance; not to mention her lack of prior knowledge in this field. A
passionate pitch by her mentor on how processes can impact consistency
in quality, convinced Sumeeta and she was ‘sold’ to Quality. Thereafter
she surrendered herself to the job on the condition that she won’t have
to travel too much.
But Sumeeta soon realized that the job was anything but relaxing and
suddenly she was traveling and working much more than before. While
leading a consulting team at one of the largest electrical company in
the U.S, she was handed one of the most important assignments of career.
Her Quality team had to use CMM as a common thread to establish a
single process in development across six functional units spread over
geographies. The problem charter was to compare and measure the benefits
the company was getting in terms of Quality including the ROI. CMM had
just replaced the old ways of ISO certification, which meant stumbling
on to new stuff while executing the project. The tough job had Sumeeta’s
team monitoring the processes of each of these six units, picking their
best practices. After ten months of research and a year of
implementation, her team achieved the desired results. For Sumeeta, the
victory was the confidence boost on leading this success story.
Agility - the Key to Success
Agility, she claims, is the key to success in this field. The changing
landscape in technology, gave her research skills a push and she was
steering million dollar projects that required the integration of latest
frameworks & best practices in CMMI, ISO 20000, ISO 27001, Six
Sigma and CoBit for large global organizations. “Today when we work with
Six Sigma we are already looking at what’s next. How do we leverage an
organization to get leveraged with best practices, with best multiple
models? I cannot sustain myself or grow if that research bent of mind to
enhance our portfolio and agility is lost,” she says. When Carnegie
Mellon University and Satyam brought out a model she had the honor to be
considered among the authors. But the task required her to relocate to
the U.S. and she chose to stay back and let her team go instead.
She applied the same agility in her professional ascent as well. Due to
an oversight on her part, she once lost a couple of her best employees.
But it did not deter her from the leadership role. She describes it as a
work of tact to manage and convert people into the systematic path.
After all Quality and processes is about a systematic approach. Even at
home this process orientation is rubbing off on her children. At 12, her
daughter organizes her schedule on an Excel sheet! For Sumeeta, success
and growth came with the right attitude and ability to learn—a lesson
she constantly drills into every one of her employees. She learnt new
principles and her belief in her ability gave her the necessary faith.
Silent High - flier
And she walks the next few steps of her career with this firm belief.
Even after owning a professional graph that many crave for, Sumeeta is
the silent high-flier she was yesterday. “Ambitious, yes, I do see the
peak. But truly speaking I’ve always dreamt of doing what satisfies me
and to the best of my abilities, never really aspiring to grow higher
and higher,” she confesses.
For the girl who held nothing but her ability as merit, the journey has only just begun.