Sonie Kalidindi 
Guidehouse
Excellence in Leadership
Sonie Kalidindi will tell you the best advice she ever received came to her from her father. "My dad was a college professor and the reason I got into computer science. When I was a kid, he brought computers to the local university where we lived in India, and then to my school. The technology was of course very interesting, but my dad's guidance was always to approach technology with a management lens or a problem-solving focus. That guidance stuck with me, and it's been helpful in all phases of my career, but especially in my consulting career. I've made it a habit to ask questions like 'why' and 'what for' to understand the business problem we are trying to solve. This approach has helped me bring siloed teams together, get to the root of the problem, and create solutions that are data-driven and address the challenges at hand."
She humbly notes she is honored to be recognized by Leading Women in Technology and grateful to be a part of an industry that she loves, "I hope to inspire more women to be part of this industry in the future through this platform. Technology has been the focus of my career since I joined the industry more than 20 years ago as a developer, and today, I'm still passionate about using it to help solve my clients' challenges. As technology continues to advance, I'm excited to see how we can use it as an enabler to solve challenges on an even larger, global scale."
Kalidindi's biggest achievement came in 2009 when a federal agency client received $4.5 billion in Recovery Act funding to construct and convert federal buildings to high-performance green buildings. As part of the project management office, she served as deputy project manager to support the reporting and transparency goals of the act. "This was a huge undertaking, and it meant assessing vast amounts of information related to the agency's systems to gain an understanding of the end-to-end lifecycle of the project and see how we could best assist in meeting the goals. We found many instances where processes were manual or dependent on Excel spreadsheets, and I knew we needed to find a way to automate and integrate processes so that the agency's decision-makers could have a full picture of the data. At its heart, this was a change management project, and our team worked to convince stakeholders to add new functionalities and adapt their systems for a more holistic approach. Ultimately, we created solutions and processes that set the agency up for success long after my team transitioned off. That's a tremendous point of pride for me, and the experience helped me to grow professionally, develop deep relationships with my colleagues, and manage team and client expectations."
Q&A: What unique challenges have you experienced being a female consultant in the technology field?
"Earlier in my career, in work and in networking groups, I was often either the only woman or the only person with a technology background. Luckily, that's less common today as the technology industry continues to evolve and as the barriers to entry let up. What's inspiring is, as the barriers to entry let up, so do the barriers to innovation, and we now have a lot more women bringing their unique perspectives and experiences, which propel innovation. Women often have a softer side that can be helpful in bringing people together, which is so beneficial to breaking down silos and connecting different players who are working toward the same goal. As more and more women join the industry, it's up to us to help inspire and mentor them and to give them a more supportive and inclusive culture than we may have had ourselves. This is one of the reasons why I have been involved in Women in Technology networks and in Guidehouse's Inclusion and Diversity programs."
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