Diva Tech Talk interviewed Sireesha Mandava, CIO and VP of Innovation at Greenpath Financial Wellness, a nationwide nonprofit with a mission to empower people to lead financially healthy lives, and realize their unique dreams, at all stages of life. With a family legacy of social justice, Sireesha was born near Hyderabad, India. “My grandfather was a great activist, who gave up everything he had for the village he grew up in,” she explained. He passed away in his 40’s, and exhorted Sireesha’s grandmother to empower their children. “I don’t care if you even feed them but make sure the girls are educated,” he declared. Sireesha felt inspired by her aunts, so she matriculated at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, in Pilani, India. She graduated with an electrical and electonics engineering degree; but took all electives in programming; and performed her senior year internship at a company where she became proficient in Oracle databases.
Sireesha’s first post-university job was supposed to be in electronics engineering at a New Delhi, India company but they needed her Oracle experience. Several years later she moved to TGK, another Indian company, whose innovations included a new variation of SAP software called “i-SAP” an ERP system. I learned so much there,” and also met her husband at TGK. Confiding in the company’s managing director that she was going to leave, he referred her to Metamor Global Solutions, with a position in Detroit, Michigan. Her soon-to-be husband simultaneously moved to Detroit and “a year later we got married.”
Sireesha took a job in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for Triad Guaranty Insurance for less than a year but came back to Michigan for a position at NSF International. With a mission to improve global human health, non-profit NSF develops public health standards and certification programs to protect global water and food supplies, consumer products, and environment. Starting as a Project Manager, Sireesha developed her NSF career over 18 years. While there, Sireesha enrolled at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where she obtained her MBA, which “gave me a 10-year acceleration” in career evolution. Promoted to Business Applications Manager, and Director of Business Applications, her team “built this wonderful application” which they pitched as a global spin-off, that morphed into an NSF subsidiary (NSF TraQtion). This gave Sireesha “the ride of my life, doing everything as an entrepreneur.”
Having fun running that new NSF division, Sireesha was approached by Kristen Holt, CEO at Greenpath, to take a “culture walk” at the nonprofit’s headquarters in Southeast Michigan. “The culture of ‘human centered design’ thinking, putting people in the center” is part of Greenpath’s organizational evolution. The staff showed clients “a path to get out of crisis and achieve their dreams.” Greenpath offers financial education, counseling and aid to people in dire circumstances, and serves 200,000 households annually, with free counseling “I want to make the most impact.” So Sireesha was hooked on Greenpath’s BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) to “remix the American dream so that it works for everyone, because everybody deserves a chance to attain dreams.” As a financial organization, “everything runs on technology” and Sireesha’s team of 28 IT professionals ensures internal technology always works. Her vision includes “technology as a differentiating factor” in everything that Greenpath accomplishes. This includes a significant investment in mobile applications for clients so “they can engage in self-service, see their progress, and be encouraged.” One of her other technology investments is current tech solutions, to enable the services team to operate at highest efficiency.
The personal traits that have marked her success include courage, flexibility and intellectual agility. Sireesha’s Greenpath colleagues have pointed out she possesses a rare “multidimensional thinking capability, applied to problem-solving” complemented by a propensity for strategy and results-orientation. She also counsels young people to make career and education choices through SAT and ACT coaching for high schoolers. Sireesha’s greatest fear is that she will “accept mediocrity.” So, she picks a handful of meaningful activities (work, church, mentoring/coaching) and focuses on those.
In the greater global community, Sireesha strives to make an important impact by supporting another non-profit founded by her husband and herself in 2005. It is Sphoorthi (which means “inspiration” in Sanskrit). Completely funded by them, this nonprofit is focused on providing food, clothing and education for underprivileged youngsters in Vizag, India. “It is my husband’s dream, but his dream is actually bigger,” Sireesha said. “We have helped 125 kids, thus far. Our goal is to have an orphanage, and a senior citizens home, together. We want to bring them together so seniors’ experience will help the kids. The kids, in turn, will rejuvenate the seniors.” Their plans include the orphanage, a holistic health center, a school, and a senior center, centralized together in a single positive community, powered by sustainable energy.
Sireesha’s counsel to striving women and girls includes some practical advice. “The way you portray yourself is exactly how others will see you; network, network, network.” And “always make it a point to make a difference for someone other than yourself.”
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