The 2022 Women Leaders In Technology: Renuka Kambli

Renuka is a Senior Director within Cognizant Consulting, leading the Consumer Lending practice through delivery of technology solutions for Mortgage & Auto Finance clients. Since joining Cognizant, she has successfully established and grown the Financial Services consulting practice with a focus on Innovation & Execution. Her focus has been to help Client organizations transform their business & technology while building deep relationships with leaders in the client organization leading to repeat business.

She has authored multiple Industry Perspectives, Industry Point-of-Views & is leading multiple GTM product strategies. Renuka is committed to building a dynamic & diverse team of future leaders in consulting. Prior to working with Cognizant, Renuka has had a diverse career leading large enterprise transformations in organizations like Oracle & CoreLogic.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

The achievement that I am most proud of is seeing the growth of the people that I have interacted with over the years. A mentor of mine taught me the value of real leadership (vs management), is measured by the objective results of an organization, but more importantly it is measured by the impact it makes in people's lives. Coaching & mentoring those that work with you has become a core principle that I live by. The team members that I have worked with & mentored over the years have become successful professionals taking on leadership roles (product, technology, operations) in various Financial Institutions after they left my team. Their success which was laid on a foundation that I helped build is one of the most fulfilling things as a leader.

While what I said above means a lot to me, something I am especially proud about is how I was able to lead our practice after the abrupt departure of our practice leader. I was able to organize the team, and refocus on client growth & objectives. At the end of the year, we exceeded the sales target by more than 200%, maintained very high utilization rates, setting our practice for a very successful year of growth. While leading the practice, I was able to bring diversity within the team with a focused effort to bring more than 20+ female consultants with varying degrees of experience within our practice. This was especially satisfying for me as a Female leader in Consulting.

What advice would you give a professional just beginning a career in consulting?

Don't plan a linear career with theoretical events/milestones that you imagine will come around in the future. Make the most of every opportunity, every project that you get involved in. The foundation of being a good consultant is to be a jack of all trades and a master of some. So every opportunity that you get is a stepping stone to start learning concepts, businesses, technologies, methodologies and so much more. Through repetition you will find what you really like and what you really like, will become the foundation of what you master. While learning "hard skills", never lose sight of the fact that "soft skills" are what is going to make you a complete Consultant. Observe everything & everyone, imbibe the best practices & through deliberate practice, improve every single day.

What have you loved most about your consulting career?

As a professional, what makes my working day fun is the opportunity to be challenged by a variety of business problems across different industries in companies large and small. It is not uncommon for me to have a conversation with the CIO of a top 10 Bank & then with a Founder of a Fintech startup all before lunch.

This challenge of being nimble, thinking through complex business problems, interacting with a variety of stakeholders within client organizations (business, technology) & execution through management of a large global workforce within my organization to bring solutions to life makes a career in consulting one of the most satisfying career options for me.

What's the best advice—personal or professional—you've ever received?

One of the best pieces of advice I have received from some of my mentors has been to Own the Subject, Listen with Intention & Communicate Clearly. This advice has been instrumental in my growth as a consulting professional. An additional piece of advice is to focus just as much on how I am saying things as much as what I am saying, because being an influencer is especially important in large organizations with multiple vested interests.

The years that I have spent in understanding the subject matter (Mortgage & Auto Finance), mastering the little nuances of the business & what moves the needle for these businesses has allowed me to play the role of a Subject Matter Expert & a Consultant guiding both Clients & internal Teams to best outcomes. Doing this consistently builds your brand within the organization and that is an invaluable resource.

It is one thing to understand the subject, but if you don't communicate & do so with absolute clarity & authority, the knowledge will not come through and it eliminates any possibility of being a leader within a Consulting organization. This is skill that you need to work on every single day because as a Consultant you meet different Clients & teams literally every day. Perfecting this art of bringing clear communication, backed by rich fact-based content in a way that brings people together has been the foundation of my growth & success.

What does being honored as a Woman Leader in Technology mean to you?

Having come to US as a professional and as a first-generation immigrant, this success will be validation of the challenging journey that I have been on for the last 15 plus years.

This recognition will allow me to continue this ongoing discovery of myself and my voice as a professional but more importantly as an Asian woman in what is still largely a male-dominated workplace. It is my hope that this recognition will give wings to the hopes & dreams of the female professionals that I am mentoring both within & outside Cognizant. It will tell them that the path to success is difficult but achievable.