WorkYogi Diaries Podcast

In conversation with Vidya Iyer, Founder, and CEO of Unbound Solutions on her mission to empower women.  Women traditionally have had to take breaks from careers due to various reasons including parenting and family priorities. Getting back to the workforce after a gap is often riddled with a lack of opportunity. This is primarily due to hiring managers having concerns about the loss of skills during the gap years.  Unbound solutions provide Agile scrum master training that's helping women come back to the workplace after gap years.  Unbound through its services is helping customers access a talented pool of professionals equipped with the latest Agile methods.  We get behind the scenes of this amazing entrepreneurial journey with a mission.

Chapter timelines 

0:00 Background and intro

2:35 Unbound Solutions founding story

6:37 Bridging the gap on the demand side

7:35 The challenges of being agile

11:06 What is an Agile mindset

17:24 How does one develop an Agile leadership mindset

20:00 Qualifications for becoming an Agile coach

22:47 Are women more amenable to being Agile

23:25 Challenges of placement

24:55 What’s the future of Unbound Solutions

27:40 The last word

In this episode, pleased to have Uday Kumar,  an old friend, and a technologist, who has been passionately on a quest to document and preserve the local history of one world’s most important cities, Bengaluru.   

If you thought Bengaluru is a colonial city that mushroomed into a metropolis because of the industrialization and technology boom, you are in the majority  However, the truth is that Bengaluru has had a history that goes back to 1000+ years. Through his passion and drive, Uday has pulled together a citizen coalition that searches, preserves and in some cases recreates ancient inscription stones that tell local history. This project will serve the many future generations to come.

Our guest today describes herself as someone who is passionate about the future. Her focus is to anticipate, strategize, activate and infuse the future into today's organizations through futures studies, foresight, strategy development, and planning.   

Additionally, she applies this expertise to some of the current societal challenges, one of them is in the area of mental health and suicide prevention, through her involvement in the Texas suicide prevention collaborative.  We dwell on what got her attracted to becoming a futurist, how does one trains to become a Futurist, the importance of future planning, her choice of suicide prevention as a cause, and what's next on her horizon.  

You can learn more about the collaborative at https://texassuicideprevention.org/about-us/

Episode Youtube link https://www.youtube.com/c/WorkYogiDiaries

#careers #music #journey Vishwesh Bhat has been a senior IT professional for over 2 decades and has lived in India and the United States. He is also a versatile musician, composer, singer, actor & cartoonist. 

He is trained in both Carnatic and Hindustani styles of music and has developed his own style of singing multiple genres seamlessly leading the Indian classical creative band, “SvarAmrita”.

We unearth how music entered his life, how he built his rich body of work while having a full time IT job and where his musical journey is headed next.

Youtube link https://www.youtube.com/c/WorkYogiDiaries

#montessori #career #coaching #americandream

In the house today is Magdalena Ponurska, an Executive and Leadership Coach and an AMI Montessori Administrator, founder of Zone of Genius, and co-founder of Global Montessori Network.  She has worked for 15 years in corporate settings and having trained in team management and leadership development.  From her roots in Poland to arriving in America without the knowledge of English, to getting her education and then thriving in the American corporate, followed by a pivot into her passion for education and coaching, it's a dream come true.  We explore how she did it, and what gave her the courage to plunge into her passion for education and launch her own business.

In conversation with Shyam Gopal who took the plunge in pursuing his passion after decades in a successful corporate career.  His first innings took care of his survival, the second is driven by his love and passion. It takes courage and immense patience to stay in the game. Beginners' mindset is easier said than done, managing one's pride takes immense maturity and focus.  

We delve into the origins of his love for acting and cinema, the courage to commit to a journey, the pitfalls of working in a less organized industry, and where he is headed next.  Shyam Gopal has to his credit movies like Hindi Medium, Bhoomi, Baazaar, Kolaigaran among many other Indian TV series and OTT platform series on NetFlix, Amazon Prime etc.

#growth #csuite #executive #management #leadership #people Satish Dhanasekaran is the senior vice president and chief operating officer at Keysight Technologies. As a chief operating officer, Dhanasekaran is responsible for growing orders and increasing annual recurring revenue for the company. He oversees the functions that contribute to these objectives, including market and technology research; development of new technologies, products, and solutions; services; marketing; and sales.

In conversation with Santosh Iyer, SVP and Head of Strategic Account with a leading technology consulting company.  

We explore the basic question of pros and cons of a career in sales and cover ground across important and yet topics that include mindsets, value creation, effective relationships, and the advent of AI on sales.

My guest today has crossed many milestones to get where he is today as one of the pioneers of podiatry in India.   We speak about his journey and his choices, and what makes him who he is. 

From studying ayurvedic medicine to administering a troubled college, pioneering telemedicine, and more recently pioneering podiatry in India, Sanjay lives on the edge and makes a difference.

Chef Biju is a lifelong entrepreneur, cyclist, and food industry pro who has worked his way up from scrubbing floors and dishes to being a food writer and co-author of the best-selling Feedzone Cookbook series with Dr. Allen Lim. Born and raised in south India, Biju found his love of all things food while growing up on a small family farm and cooking alongside his large family. Biju has been the executive chef to The Amgen Tour of California, The USA Pro Challenge, The Tour of Utah, The Nissan / RadioShack pro cycling team, BMC pro cycling team, Quickstep, and Dempsey Del-Piero Racing team along with numerous high-profile clientele globally. In 2014 Biju launched the Little Curry Shop restaurants in Denver which would go on to spread the message of bright, flavorful, and lighter South Indian-inspired food to Americans. Biju has appeared along with Guy Fieri on the Food Network's DDD, the show "Scraps" on A&E, dozens of local and national TV shows, podcasts, and is a sought-after speaker to businesses, entrepreneurs, and anyone needing a change of view.