Startup Struggles to Global Leadership with Vidya Kabra

Our regular and long time listeners know that we dedicate the month of March every year for our special women guests.

Welcome to the first special episode for March, 2025.

In this episode, I am in conversation with Vidya Kabra, a Global Tech and QA leader with over 30 years of experience in the global IT industry.

She talks about:

  - Overcoming challenges from a traditional Marwadi family to pursue education and career.

  - Early struggles with a startup due to lack of job opportunities in Maharashtra.

  - Transition to corporate roles in Bangalore.

  - Rapid growth from project management to leading quality for Toshiba worldwide.

  - Challenges of managing family expectations and career aspirations.

  - Importance of discipline, meditation, and effective time management.

  - Utilizing domestic help and prioritizing quality time with children.

  - Tips for women to communicate their career goals to family.

  - Encouragement for women to pursue leadership and strategic roles in IT.

  - Managing work from home vs. office dynamics.

  - Creating a supportive home office environment.

  - Leveraging work-from-home benefits for women in IT.

  - How horizontal roles help in being more visible and enable Career Growth

  - Encouragement for exploring various IT roles beyond development.

  - Collaboration between developers and testers for improved quality.

  - Career Tips

Vidya is a Global Tech and QA leader for around 30 years in IT industry driving Strategic Transformation at scale and Quality Automation for large Global Tech driven businesses at Wipro, Toshiba, Fiserv, HSBC, Intellect, Diebold Nixdorf. 

She thrived in new initiatives and reinvented herself multiple times - At Toshiba: Processes developed across functions. Looking at the simple and practical approach to process and management dashboards, she was given responsibility to lead Process management globally for Japan and Germany centers.  

At Wipro: She led Global functions - 1) Process Simplification and audit Function with Lean and Agile techniques impacting 40 percent efforts saving 2) Engineering and Quality automation with 10X ROI globally for Wipro's 3000+ projects (2 patents filed on Quality engineering effectiveness). 3) Risk management function for 3 BUs.

At Fiserv, Intellect Design Arena HSBC Core Banking , Diebold Nixdorf - Led Global Product and Process Quality Management, Audit & Delivery Excellence functions.

All the functions and initiatives she led across above organizations resulted in sustainable qu