Pushpa Ganesh
Summary
Dynamic, well-rounded engineering leader with 30 years of experience leading large (500+), global engineering teams in delivering networking and cloud datacenter storage products. Successfully managed large-scale software and tool development with both local and remote teams from prototyping to customer engagement in multiple functional team environments. Visionary and strategic engineering leader known for building talented teams and directing cross-functional teams of technical experts to deliver innovative products and solutions. Recognized for developing partnerships to deliver exceptional customer experience, leading unified global teams with a hands-on work ethic, increasing high-quality product output and team morale. Senior executive with a proven track record in driving growth and operational excellence, adept at strategic planning, project management, and leveraging data to inform decisions. Focus on fostering team collaboration and adapting to changing business needs while excelling in leadership, communication, and delivering impactful results.
Senior executive with proven track record in driving growth and operational excellence. Adept at strategic planning, project management, and leveraging data to inform decisions. Strong focus on fostering team collaboration and adapting to changing business needs. Highly skilled in leadership, communication, and delivering impactful results.
Knowledgeable Executive with proven background in senior leadership roles, driving strategic initiatives and fostering organizational growth. Successfully led cross-functional teams to achieve key business objectives, enhancing operational efficiency and stakeholder satisfaction. Demonstrated expertise in project management and strategic planning.
Overview
27
27
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Sr. Director Engineering
Intel Corporation/ Solidigm
01.2017 - 01.2023
- Lead large Global Engineering organization to deliver high quality Graphics & data center storage products to qualify innovative hardware supporting Cloud service providers by early engagement resulting in 70% improvement in deployment efficiency and 60% reduction in operational costs.
- Grew the team by 50% to enable support for more customers & products.
- Streamlined the customer Firmware development and validation process by implementing customer experience to drive quality early on in product life cycle.
- Collaboratively worked across teams to achieve #1 in quality on Customer Score cards with our top 5 customers.
- Identify opportunities for continuous improvements in our internal product qualification process to reduce the customer qualifications timeline by 60% for quicker customer shipment & revenue generation.
- Drove Engineering vision & KPI across the organization transitioning to the newly formed company Solidigm.
- Developed SWE Graphics architecture team vision while clearly defining roles & responsibilities thus enabling the team members to align their tasks as per their expectations and identify the gaps.
- Working with senior leaders to develop training for clarity on the PE/SR.PE/Fellow pipeline.
- Coaching and empowering the team to be customer focused on their approaches to design, working with OSV/ISV by challenging the status quo etc.
- Developed jointly & in progress a Senior Engineering women career development workshop for technical females promoting Intel diversity initiative.
Sr.Director Engineering
AOptix Inc.
01.2014 - 01.2016
- Built and managed a high-performance engineering team with hands-on talent recruiting and mentoring.
- Implemented software development process and set up test labs to conform with industry standards.
- Manage and execute project plans and delivery commitments by providing direction technically for day-to-day activities and customer support.
- Lead the team to successfully qualify products at top 5 leading service providers in the industry.
- Assess and change all the business functions including suppliers and products design/documentation, engineering, manufacturing, and customer support to support growth of the company.
Multiple Leadership positions
CISCO SYSTEMS INC.
01.1996 - 01.2013
- Key architect for design and development of innovative test automation framework and test best practices for the product.
- Measured health of operations relatives to goals, targets, and budgets to identify areas for improvement in all aspects of services operations.
- Identified and implemented best practice operational procedures for large and critical business and technology initiatives.
- Provided setup and support for the CRS product launch and analyst demo by CEO of the company.
- Managed the largest Innovation Summit, a global event across 8 major sites designed to encourage and enable engineers to submit innovative ideas for process and tool improvements.
- Build and manage a globally distributed Test development Engineering team of 100+ engineers to meet the needs of product under development.
- Create the next generation testing tools, Automation Techniques, and infrastructure to expedite release cycles with high quality and customer satisfaction.
- Directed the design, implementation, and quality audits for 15 critical initiatives, leading to a 30% reduction in product defects and ensuring adherence to industry standards for product reliability and performance.
- Driving a hugely significant transition across the test teams to transform our development model from Waterfall to Agile to increase engineering productivity, software release cadence and quality.
- Reorganized and restructured the team to prioritize and execute complex system level tests working with targeted customers to address their acceptance quality requirements.
- Participated in multiple Cisco Executive Briefing Center communication to Service Provider customers as an Executive Sponsor to share our quality best practices and quality improvement update on our products.
- Responsible to lead development test efforts for the next generation of Cisco Carrier Routing System product by creating a test strategy and automation framework to meet challenges & complexities of constant platform changes with the new operating system.
- Designed and implemented common topologies across the organization to maximize use of limited prototypes thus reducing the cost of equipment and tools by 50%.
Education
Bachelor - Electrical/Electronic Engineering
Bangalore University
Master Courses - Multiple AI/MLtrainings
San Jose State
Skills
- C
- C
- Python
- Java
- HTML
- Agile & Scrum Methodology
- Jira
- E2E Product design & development
- Servers
- Switches
- Software Development Leadership
- Product Strategy and Development
- Global team Leadership
- Customer Success
- New Technology Integration
- Cross functional leadership
- Collaborative leadership
- Culture transformation
- Team management
- Key performance indicators
- Organizational development
- Data analytics
- Stakeholder relations
- Pipeline development
- Core values management
- Verbal and written communication
- Decision-making
- Strategic planning
- Contract and vendor management
- Strategies and goals
- Legal and regulatory compliance
- Charismatic leader
- Crisis management
- Creativity and innovation
- Negotiation
- Issues resolution
- Goal setting
- Hiring and retention
- Talent acquisition
- Vendor relationship management
- Business strategy
Accomplishments
- Supervised team of 500+ staff members.
- Achieved #1 on Key Customer Scorecards through effectively helping with product qualification & early engagement.
- Collaborated with team of 100+ in the development of Carrier Routing System.
- Achieved efficiency & Quality by introducing Agile Methodology for development tasks.
- Documented and resolved Critical product issues which led to revenue acceleration.
Certification
- Multiple AI/ML trainings
- Generative AI for Leaders from Vanderbilt University
- AWS Cloud Technical Essentials certification from Amazon Web Services
- Artificial Intelligence on Microsoft Azure
- Foundation to Cybersecurity from Google
Awards
- Leadership Excellence Award, 2019, Intel Inc.
- Multiple Accolades from Customers for partnership and early engagement for higher product quality
- Cisco Quality Award, 2-Time Recipient, Cisco
Personal Information
Relocation: Open to relocation based on opportunity
Leadership excellence -Intel
Received Leadership excellence Award for driving the product team towards quality and customer excellence
Languages
English
Native or Bilingual
Hindi
Native or Bilingual
Interests
- Documenting and sharing travel experiences
- Sharing travel tips, recommendations, and insights with fellow enthusiasts
- Adventure Travel
- Enjoy creating and following travel blogs and vlogs
Timeline
Sr. Director Engineering
Intel Corporation/ Solidigm
01.2017 - 01.2023
Sr.Director Engineering
AOptix Inc.
01.2014 - 01.2016
Multiple Leadership positions
CISCO SYSTEMS INC.
01.1996 - 01.2013
Bachelor - Electrical/Electronic Engineering
Bangalore University
Master Courses - Multiple AI/MLtrainings
San Jose State
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