Her Story
About Bhavana
I originally entered this field because I was always interested in life science and science, and how it directly impacts day-to-day life, especially public health. Over time I realized how critical food safety is, especially given our supply chain and protecting the customer. That kind of led me to get into this field and specialize in that. I currently work in food manufacturing, focusing on food safety and regulatory compliance, especially for ready-to-eat meals and meal kits. My role basically involves designing food safety systems to ensure we are compliant with FDA-USDA regulations. Whatever is sent out to the customers needs to be safe to consume, so I build those systems to prevent any kind of contamination or issues that can happen to the food. My day-to-day involves managing those systems and making sure the food supply chain is good. I'm most proud of joining an early startup and helping build the food safety systems up from the ground, helping the company scale to the level it is today while keeping food safety at a top priority, and taking the technical expertise I have and using that to translate into business operations and influence other cross-functional leaders like operations and executive leaders to be compliant with the regulations.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Bhavana
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think for anybody trying to figure out what they want to do, being open for opportunities and exploring different fields to see what they like is important. Also, realizing what you're good at is crucial, because especially when picking a degree, if you want to advance in your career, it will be really important to see how you can utilize it in your future life and how you can translate that into a career. Do that background work and get that realistic idea of where and what career success looks like to you. If it's more of a financial success that you're looking for, then make sure that, realistically, your degree can translate into that skill. Or if you're looking more at work that you're just passionate about and you don't care about corporate or growing into those roles, then look into those options. I think it's important to do that groundwork. And then once you have that, networking is something that really helps, because you cannot learn everything from a book. Joining different clubs or networking with different people that come from your background gives you more ideas and experiences without you actually doing the work.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the biggest challenge is balancing the operational efficiencies with the controls we have and translating that, because manufacturing environments move pretty quickly. But food safety systems have a lot of rules and regulations that require us to be consistent and maintain that standard throughout it, so even a small gap or a small error can cause a lot of issues and put public health at risk. Bridging that gap between fast-moving manufacturing environments and maintaining that discipline and consistency in food safety systems is the challenge. I would say getting ahead of the problem and not being more reactive is important, because in today's world we see a lot of recalls happening with food. So being more proactive and getting ahead of the issue is critical.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Showing up and doing your work, being intentional with your work is most important to me. The field I am in is not something where you can take anything lightly, because this is not just a financial impact. If you make a mistake or if there is any issue, it can affect a life. So being disciplined and intentional and focused and detail-oriented are the things I mainly focus on.
Keep Exploring
More Influential Women · Illinois
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.