Her Story
About Sahana
My career path has been shaped by my marriage and my journey as a military spouse. I started in brand management and advertising fresh out of university, but I didn't really enjoy doing that as a young woman. So I moved into brand management for education and then traveled the world teaching internationally. I taught high school psychology for the IB in the Middle East, and then I went to Southeast Asia for school improvement programs. I moved to the U.S. in 2024 to be with my husband, who is an active duty Air Force military member. Starting my career here, I began with learning and development at Oracle, focusing on AI trainings and upskilling non-technical people to use AI effectively and improve their AI literacy at the company, just so they can have conversations and solve enterprise problems for our customers. Recently I moved to a team where I support executive communications and presence for our senior VPs and our CEO's office, which is more of a role that helps carry their messaging and what they want to drive within the organization and outside. At my current role, I do a lot of program management for communications, internally and externally. We have a couple of events that we invest heavily in, and I also own ensuring that we're getting those stories told well across the organization. I also support and co-lead one of our veteran internships program, which focuses on transitioning veterans and spouses. Being able to give back to the community that way, that I personally come from, has been my favorite achievement.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Sahana
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I am who I am and where I am because of all the women that looked at me and picked me up, and they've had so many lessons to share. Finding a group of people that you really care about and making your life about helping them has helped me personally. Professionally, never settling. That's something I've received as advice that helps me in tough moments - don't settle.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think there are a lot of opportunities right now. Everyone's going to talk about AI, and it's definitely changing the landscape of how we do everything. If you find an opportunity to be a little bit more curious about AI and work closer with it, definitely take that and understand it. But also, understand how to use it to solve actual problems, not innovation for the sake of it. There's a lot of gaps in that area because it's like this new toy that everyone's playing with. We also need to be mindful about how we're going to use it to solve problems and really elevate what we're doing, because it is an expensive tool as well. When radios went away in certain fields and industries, it was a huge change in how we did things, and when computers came in, the landscape of employment changed forever. That's kind of what's happening now. It's going to stay, it's going to be there, there's no point resisting it. It's about looking at that opportunity and going forward. The second thing I would say is an opportunity is focusing on your customers, whoever you're solving the problem for. That's always going to be in fashion. Understanding your customers and their life and what they want and value. Really understanding context is going to be something that AI cannot take away from you at the moment, and maybe longer. So focusing on that.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The Air Force has three core values that resonate with me a lot, and it's about integrity, excellence, and service. It's integrity first, excellence at everything that we do, and service before yourself. Those, I say, are pretty much how I try to navigate my life.
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