Popular women’s digital business magazine Women World India is pleased to feature Padmini Sharathkumar, Chief Talent Officer, Intellect Design Arena Ltd in its latest edition, Women in Tech Leaders 2025.
Padmini Sharathkumar develops such philosophy in her working environment. Founded upon a strong platform in business enablement, marketing, banking, and technology, she spearheaded strategic initiatives, developed high-performing teams, and established team cultures to drive business impact.
She employs all of this amazing experience in developing a culture where speed and accuracy get merged with imagination and can-do. In this interview, Padmini talks about her learning in terms of developing a culture, leadership, and also learning about some of the critical experiences in her career. Padmini had a diverse career in Technology and banking sectors and had functional experience spread across Treasury, Sales, Chairman’s office, Integrations, Marketing, Media Relations, and HR. Frankly speaking, my own career has been the biggest melting pot, with varying roles in Nucleus Software, American Express Bank, American Express Technologies, Polaris Financial Technology, and Intellect Design Arena. Padmini gained the invaluable experience and exposure of her varied career to thinking outside the box—functional or industry lines, as it were.
She learned by watching the leaders who surround me, how to deal with ambiguity, how to think framed, how to frame questions and above all, how important it is to say and do. She learned from the Chairman, how to search for strength of talent that is available around us and leverage the same. It’s really a case of observing the three levels in combination, how they work in conjunction with each other and combining them, she says. Another may be that Talent leadership is harnessing human energy and dynamic power.
In the era of AI, the analogy would be replacing the wings of a flying airplane! Most of the leadership qualities that have worked for her are inflicting mammoth pressure in aligning thoughts & energies towards the bigger agenda and generating a “We before I” and team culture. Padmini truly connects with her team and its change. One of the lessons she has learned on her way is how to initiate hard conversations! Taking a bullet is always better than having things go awry.
