As an innovative leader specializing in technology & AI, Renuka Sajjan, CTO, Increasingly, is the first female engineer in her family. Her parents have guided and led her to think independent and free and to pursue that anything she wants for herself without fear of judgement. She attributes her parents' ability to see the big picture to their willingness to empower her by offering the courage to see the distance between reality and her dreams as an opportunity rather than an impediment.

She is passionate about the ways technologies impact lives. She is the face of the Increasingly's technology platform; an evangelist to developers, customers, and to her team. Being a tech expert, she has been offered challenging opportunities to learn & grow from health care, to digital advertising, and to create AI bundling products. She enjoys solving problems for her clients & teams and building products that can create a better future. Her mentor, Satish Jayakumar has been her driving force throughout her journey, believing in her abilities, fueling her passion and showing her the way to success.

Renuka has a great deal of potential to work independently and develop innovative software solutions. She has exceptional experience in architecting technological services, building core teams, and working with teams at a global level. Being a startup enthusiast, she has escalated businesses for multiple start-ups in the digital marketing and e-Commerce sectors. The inspirational leader is on a mission to create opportunities for aspirants in the field of technology and elevate people, especially women, in their careers. Let's hear it from her.     

What is your leadership style, and how do you leverage values in the organization?

I have always told myself, `Don't be the same person year-on-year'. It is important for me that I continuously learn, grow and acquire new and upgrade existing skills' year-on-year'. And, my team is no different to this. Over the years, my role has transformed from being a core programmer, a technologist to being able to set up the core team, structure teams, lay the grounds for leadership positions in the company, to building high-performing and scalable teams. At Increasingly, we promote a great sense of accountability, ownership, deliver speed, and quality and above all help each-other and be happy. We focus on identifying people's talent and map the individual's potential growth to the business goals, so it is a win-win situation for both.

Tell us about the various responsibilities you shoulder as the CTO of Increasingly? What are your current focus areas in your present role?

Hmm, this is hard to answer, in a start-up, the role of a CTO cannot ever go with a defined job description and is fill-in as required. And, I love the dynamics of being a start-up CTO. I get to work with the team in individual and team capacity and find opportunities to solve their problems and at the same time learn from them. I am amazed to see how the team delivers an exceptional outcome that far exceeds my expectations. We are focused towards creating a better world for our people, and my primary role is to work with the leadership team to delivery business, people and technological excellence.

My prime focus area is always been to grow people and business together.

Tell us about the challenges that you have encountered in your role as the CTO. How do you successfully mitigate these challenges?

Coming from a technical background, I have always loved to play with technology. But my role in Increasingly demanded me to build and scale the core team and work on the technologies that I have not worked before. And that is where I was tested. But eventually, we were able to build a team, right from three to around 70+ people. It has been tough, but challenges always lead to success.

“Chase your dreams until you succeed”

In your opinion, how do emerging technologies create a significant impact on the way business functions? How can businesses put the best use of technology for a better future?

Every technology that has come into trend has taught us new ways of doing business. In my opinion, there should be a balance between AI and human intelligence. Technology should be used in a way that could touch real life; that includes empowering the people in the rural areas, especially farmers. India is called a land of villages and has approximately 597,483 inhabited villages. Technology should be deployed to create better life for people living in villages and stabilizing health-care systems. To be able to carve a better future, it is crucial to make technology accessible to every individual in the country at an affordable cost and spread awareness among people to create a better world, better life for every human being.

What would be your advice to young women who aspire to become business leaders in the future?

Think about your dreams: how far will you go to achieve them? When the answer is 'as far as it takes', you have already learned how to become not just a successful business leader, but anything else you desire. Always listen to your inner calling, stay focused, act wisely, take calculated risks as it is too dangerous to be stuck in the comfort zone. As soon as you are comfortable, it's the time to start over and hunt for the next milestone.

Renuka Sajjan, Cto, Increasingly

Coming from a technical background, Renuka has 15+ years of professional experience in digital advertising, ecommerce, has built and scaled multiple organizations. As the CTO of Increasingly, she drives teams and successfully deploys data-driven product bundles for international brands.