Her Story
About Sandhya
Sandhya Gopalan serves as a Product Manager, a role she has held since 2020. Her main areas of expertise include business automation on a platform that enables end-to-end process automation for customers, with a focus over the past three years on RPA and more recently on integrating Agent AI capabilities, particularly in the MCP space. She transitioned into product management from a pre-sales role where she positioned the same product to customers through presentations and POCs. Sandhya earned her Bachelor's in Engineering in Computer Science and Information from MS Ramaya Institute of Technology in 2010. Prior to her current position, she held solutioning roles involving service-oriented architecture at Dell for three years and NetApp for two years, followed by a pre-sales role at Oracle. She attributes her success to hard work and consistency, values being a good listener, empathetic, and a strong team member who trusts her team and steps up to help others. Sandhya advises pacing oneself for a long career, staying open to new opportunities, and adding value through continuous learning and effective communication.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Sandhya
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to hard work and consistency. Being consistent, showing up every day, doing the work with a lot of sincerity. Considering they have multiple things to do, like being a mother, being a wife, all of those do cover, but from a work standpoint, being consistent.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
One of my girls in my earlier organization told me if you want to be heard, you need to be a person who can add value, which comes only by a lot of reading and keeping yourself updated with what's happening in technology. I try to be very careful when I talk in any gathering or meeting. It's not about just making the presence felt but making those statements very valuable and backing it up with the right kind of information. Effective communication and being a good listener helps, especially on customer calls.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Career is a long-running thing, it's not about a couple of years. So, pace yourself. Don't have to burn out the 5 years. Pace yourself with a long-running thing. Very often, you will start with something, but then keep your eyes and ears open. You might find new opportunities in totally different areas, but be open to exploring new things.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest opportunity is definitely AI. Anything that is happening in the AI space. There is an opportunity for us to think about how we can leverage it to solve any problem. The challenge could be AI, because not everything can be solved by AI, but it's difficult to communicate to customers the same.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Being a good listener, of course, and then being very empathetic really helps. Being extremely trusting your team and being a great team member. Stepping up for people, just helping around, being there. I believe in teamwork.
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