Managing complex programs by influence with Srilakshmi Ranganathan

In this conversation Srilakshmi, Program Manager shares her 30+ year story with Chitra through her essence of being a person who naturally brings people together. Her story board contains

•  Science as her forte and choosing to study engineering
• Getting her first job in HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd) to build the Light Combat Aircraft or LCA, her first exposure to program management
• Learning slowly and a project definition phase of 2-3 years
• Working on mini computers and coding in machine language
• Moving to the US for a PhD, choosing computer science over management & economics, multiple transitions
• Being the first batch of computer science graduates from portland state university
• Joining Intel and staying there for 15 years
• Working in bunny suits inside fab labs on software for p-n junctions
• realising that software engineering was a job and her passion lay in bringing people together and organizing things
• Being part of various server teams at Intel and becoming a program manager in 2002
• Moving to India, discovering that leading by influence was her preferred way of working, working at NetApp, Cisco, VMWare
• Sharing her Program Management principles of equal authority, responsibility and weightage to all functions of a group
• Collaboration via a “map day” exercise and common understanding of the “why” of a project, examples from her experience at Intel and ADE (Aeronautical Development Establishment) & the importance of keeping the vision in mind at all times and to know how everything is connected
• Changes across time around collaboration
• How the pandemic has brought about awareness of different ecosystems
• Exploring influence without authority in the role of a program manager, knowing yourself when a job is well done and being approachable
• Her passion around voluntarism
• Looking long term, making technology an ally in your work and finding happiness in what you do.

Srilakshmi Renganathan was a Software Developer and is now a Release Manager & Program Manager. She started her career at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited HAL in Bangalore and moved to the US for her Masters in Computer Science. She  worked in various MNCs – Intel Corp, NetApp, Cisco & VMware. She is currently a Software Release & Deployment Program Management at Zebra Technologies ( for Reflexis Retail Task & Schedule Management Software products recently acquired by Zebra).

She describes herself as a mother, daughter, wife, friend, ever longing to be a social worker.

As a software Program Manager trying to stay connected to technology by doing hands-on tactical coordination work assisting in moving products from inception to entity. She’s touched various domains albeit from the periphery including aircraft communication systems, chip manufacturing, storage technology, cloud infrastructure to more recently SAAS – Software as a Service. Sri continues to engage & adapt  through changing tools & technologies through the past 3 decades!  Electronics & Computer Science Engineer by Education & Software Engineer by training. Multi-Tasker, organizer, blogger & constant social media updater 🙂 who lives by the phrase “sharing is caring”.