Her Story
About Geetha
Geetha Padmanaban has been designing and building products for almost eight and a half years, with a total of 10 years including her education. She began her journey with a 4 plus 1 program at VIT University in India, earning an MS in Software Engineering in 2015. After an internship and full-time role at Intellect Design Arena Limited in fintech, she joined Cerner Healthcare Solutions, now Oracle Cerner, where her passion for healthcare design grew from personal family experiences. Transitioning from UI engineering to design, she pursued a Master's in Human-Computer Interaction at Indiana University, completing it in 2021. She now works at a private company in the design field and recently joined Design Bay Area in San Francisco. Geetha volunteers extensively, including with Design Bay Area, community service for the homeless in Mountain View and Los Altos, the First Hand Foundation at Oracle Cerner for children's healthcare, tutoring underprivileged students, blood donation, and founding Jaguar Chats at her university. She attributes her success to her upbringing, parental values of helping others, and self-drive, and advises maintaining curiosity, resilience, and a learning mentality.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Geetha
01What do you attribute your success to?
It's a combination of my brought-up from my parents, the power and intention to do good things for good people that has come from my parents' DNA, and my self-drive. It makes me feel satisfied when I have helped someone. That drives me, initially sparked from my dad and mom especially my dad who is helpful even if he doesn't have a lot.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Keep the curiosity and learning mentality because every single day there's something new coming up. Your enthusiasm to just get onto the track, and even if life puts you down, bouncing back, being resilient will lead you to the highest takes you haven't even imagined. Keep going. Mentors told me keep that spark in your eyes, don't stop.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be resilient, curious. Find supporting mentorship, supporting people. When you come out as a butterfly is when people start seeing the colorful painting the hard work behind. Just to even get out the hard work and be inspiring, you just need to be that butterfly, you need to work really hard.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Both opportunities and challenge is navigating the AI artificial intelligence. Every single day there is something new, endless opportunities to do something better. There are very less people that are understanding this world. When you know that you can understand this world, we're able to help others as well as you could be the next one who's getting the best possible way possible, an invention out in the world, or you could be helping people understand and you could save a lot of jobs.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
In my work, work ethic, doing the right things even when no one is watching, ownership, things that are a little beyond your capacity giving you that stretch, curiosity, learning, being ethical. In personal life, empathy, being kind and humble, expressing gratitude to people who helped you, never leaving those roots behind.
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