Customers, career, and a cup of tea: A chat with Anuradha Pentareddy

As Head of Adobe Customer Solutions in India & Global Shared Services, Anuradha Pentareddy leads a team in charge of multiple customer touch points in their digital experience journey. When customers choose Adobe, they want to be ensured that they’ve made the right choice, which is exactly what our Customer Solutions team is there for. In order to learn more about Anuradha and her team, we caught up with her to hear about her customers, her career and more.

What’s a typical work day look like for you?

I start my day by looking at my calendar—at the high priority items that need immediate focus as well as those spilling over from the previous day. I like doing this with a good cup of tea.

I plan and prioritize my day so that along with business meetings and stakeholder connects, I get time to stay up-to-date with digital marketing trends. 10-15% of my day typically goes in firefighting. I love connecting one-on-one with team members, unplugged sessions with teams, and as often as I can, I try and have one or two people-connects.

However busy the day, I never skip lunch and always make room for tea breaks.

How do you approach your work and personal life?

I don’t believe my professional and personal life can be neatly separated and instead of a balance, I look at integrating the two. That’s worked for me during the last two and a half decades

The reason it worked well for me is because I’m available to handle customer issues during my off hours and am able to attend to family needs during work, if required. There is no specific time period to handle customer escalations. We need to be able to respond with agility when it happens. What’s key is the ability to prioritize so you don’t get overwhelmed trying to do it all.

Regular meditation helps in bringing clarity to prioritization. And on the weekends, I like to put my phone on silent for a couple of hours and get a refreshing nap.

In your role as the Head of ACS India & Global Shared Services, what’s exciting and what’s challenging?

What’s exciting — people, changes and learning opportunities, of course! Change is good as it brings nimbleness and agility to the organization. Also, leading such a large people-intensive organization is extremely satisfying. Lastly, the sheer opportunities to learn new products via new acquisitions and the ability to provide value for our customers is extremely satisfying.

What’s challenging—in a Global Shared Services set up, it’s extremely important to stay connected with the stakeholders and take them along in decision making progress. At times this can take longer than what we anticipate and can become challenging as we may not have a direct line of control.

What is your leadership mantra?

Always be authentic and honest. Give answers with clarity. Values are non-negotiable. Always live up to your commitments.

What were three turning points in your career?

1. Moving to the US early on in my career. This gave me a global experience in dealing with customers.
2. Moving back to India from the US. This move allowed me to hone my leadership skills.
3. Moving from Hyderabad (a comfortable choice as it was my home town) to Bangalore. At the same time, I moved from a services company to a product company.

Some moves were deliberate career choices, and some were shaped by personal circumstances. But through these, I learned that there are no good or bad opportunities. Every opportunity comes with a lesson. This is why when I look back, I wouldn’t want to change anything about my career. I’ve taken things as they came and never said no to any opportunity.

Lastly, for those interested in joining your organization, what do you look for in an ideal candidate?

When interviewing a potential candidate, I try and discover difficult situations they’ve been through as these make people stronger and more agile. I look for qualities like authenticity and a strong sense of commitment. References from my network help me make an informed decision.

Interested in joining the Adobe team? Check out available career opportunities at Adobe or read more stories about Adobe careers.