Chetana Desai - Podcast Details

Shows

Gritty SerendipityHealthset Edition - Integrative Nutrition Health Coach - Neha Shah - The Balance ChaosEpisode 1 - A former engineer turned certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Neha Shah. She is an IIN certified science-backed nutrition counselor & a compassionate health coach. She is the founder of The Balance Chaos, she believes in ditching the drama and advocates a thoughtful approach to nutrition and lifestyle. Helping others achieve a better and balanced version of themselves is an honor & privilege she gets to indulge in daily.Enjoy listening to her traditional approach to livelihood and how to connect back to our roots to stay healthy!Are you ready to make your health habitual? Then sign-up f...2022-01-0514 min

Gritty SerendipityNew & Fresh Gritty SerendipityI have shared the reason behind the change in charter for Gritty Serendipity and what will the new Gritty Serendipity offer to you my lovely audience! Mindset Mondays, Healthset Wednesdays and Heartset Fridays!--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chetana-desai/message 2021-11-2901 min

Believe you can because you can!77. How To Manage Products with Chetana DesaiYou might have a lot of products. How to choose priorities and manage them. Chetana Desai shares her valuable insights. She is creative by Heart, pragmatic by the brain, and Tech-Biz leader by Experience & Education! ™️ She is Senior Product Manager at Microsoft and Founder and Host at Gritty Serendipity. As a lead PM… 2021-11-2743 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - VP of Tech, Expedia Group - Mamtha BanerjeeEpisode 5 - A reminiscing conversation with Mamtha BanerjeeAbout Mamtha Banerjee:She is a Tech entrepreneur and is currently the Vice President, of Technology at Expedia Group, where she leads the AI platform architecture and acceleration for travel. An accomplished technology entrepreneur with a track record of providing technology and product leadership at both startups and larger companies. She has developed and launched 10+ innovative game-changing products on the mobile, web, and other channels for millions of users. Extensive experience in large-scale distributed systems, lean methodologies, architecture, saas platforms, and cloud services. Building and leading high-performing...2021-08-2608 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - Founder at PMDojo - Bosky MukherjeeEpisode 4 - A candid and heartfelt conversation with Bosky, who is a mother, wife, and founder of PMDojo!About Bosky Mukherjee:She is the Founder of PMDojo a diverse learning community for people in Product, Design, Entrepreneurship, and Technology.She has been in tech, specifically in the product, for over 20 years and is deeply passionate about making tech more inclusive and accessible.She has been fortunate to have been part of startups and Fortune 500 companies both in Vancouver and Silicon Valley. She is an entrepreneur, a builder, an innovator, a product...2021-08-2619 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - Tech Director and an entrepreneur - Masha KubyshinaEpisode 3 - An authentic and heartfelt conversation with Masha, who is a mother of two and currently working as a Tech Director!About Masha Kubyshina:In her own words, "While I always loved math and science, I graduated in English Philology in Barcelona (Spain). I moved to Bay Area in 2003 and worked for almost 10 years in marketing. In 2014 I decided to change careers to EdTech. I created my own startup (a tool to improve English vocabulary for professionals), went through a lot of ups and downs, learned to code in R and Python. Needed to get a full-time job, decided...2021-08-0318 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - Founder at PMDojo - Bosky MukherjeeEpisode 4 - A candid and heartfelt conversation with Bosky, who is a mother, wife, and founder of PMDojo!About Bosky Mukherjee:She is the Founder of PMDojo a diverse learning community for people in Product, Design, Entrepreneurship, and Technology.She has been in tech and specifically in product for over 20 years and is deeply passionate about making tech more inclusive and accessible.She has been fortunate to have been part of startups and Fortune 500 companies both in Vancouver and Silicon Valley. She is an entrepreneur, a builder, an innovator, a product strategist, and a...2021-08-0219 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - Part 2 - Principal Advocate for Microsoft's Power Platform & Named Fast Company’s 100 Most Productive People - Dona SaEpisode 2 - Part 2: Dona spends her days living her purpose as Principal Advocate for Microsoft's Power Platform--a product specifically designed for tech upskilling.Previously, she leads the global community of 17M people as the Chief #NinjaCat of the Insider Program at Microsoft.She spends her nights:- writing fiction and non-fiction books to help young professionals have the careers of their dreams- running an ethically made fashion line called #PrimaDonaStyle tailored in Nigeria, Kenya, and Seattle- coaching entrepreneurs in emerging markets on how to turn an idea into a profit- sharing...2021-03-2713 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - Part 2 - Principal Advocate for Microsoft's Power Platform & Named Fast Company’s 100 Most Productive People - Dona SarkarEpisode 2 - Part 2: Dona spends her days living her purpose as Principal Advocate for Microsoft's Power Platform--a product specifically designed for tech upskilling.Previously, she leads the global community of 17M people as the Chief #NinjaCat of the Insider Program at Microsoft.She spends her nights:- writing fiction and non-fiction books to help young professionals have the careers of their dreams- running an ethically made fashion line called #PrimaDonaStyle tailored in Nigeria, Kenya, and Seattle- coaching entrepreneurs in emerging markets on how to turn an idea...2021-03-2713 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - Part 1 - Principal Advocate for Microsoft's Power Platform & Named Fast Company’s 100 Most Productive People - Dona SaEpisode 2 - Part 1: Dona spends her days living her purpose as Principal Advocate for Microsoft's Power Platform--a product specifically designed for tech upskilling.Previously, she leads the global community of 17M people as the Chief #NinjaCat of the Insider Program at Microsoft.She spends her nights:- writing fiction and non-fiction books to help young professionals have the careers of their dreams- running an ethically made fashion line called #PrimaDonaStyle tailored in Nigeria, Kenya, and Seattle- coaching entrepreneurs in emerging markets on how to turn an idea into a profit- sharing...2021-03-2719 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - Part 1 - Principal Advocate for Microsoft's Power Platform & Named Fast Company’s 100 Most Productive People - Dona SarkarEpisode 2 - Part 1: Dona spends her days living her purpose as Principal Advocate for Microsoft's Power Platform--a product specifically designed for tech upskilling.Previously, she leads the global community of 17M people as the Chief #NinjaCat of the Insider Program at Microsoft.She spends her nights:- writing fiction and non-fiction books to help young professionals have the careers of their dreams- running an ethically made fashion line called #PrimaDonaStyle tailored in Nigeria, Kenya, and Seattle- coaching entrepreneurs in emerging markets on how to turn an idea...2021-03-2719 min

Gritty SerendipityEntrepreneur Series - Miss India Washington 2020 & Security Engineer @ Uber - Nabanita DeEpisode 1: Nabanita De is currently a Security Engineer at Uber and currently crowned Miss India Emerald City Washington 2020. She is passionate about solving world challenges through tech and entrepreneurship. My work has been recognized on Business Insider, Washington Post, Mashable, Huffington Post, BBC News, NDTV, Fortune, Wired Magazine, and over 90% of news publications worldwide and she was invited to Forbes Under 30 by the Forbes Team. She has won several awards from big tech companies and institutes like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Uber, Harvard, MIT, and Qualcomm. Currently, I work on defending hackers as a Software Engineer at Uber. She has a M...2021-03-1112 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series: Technology Leader & Guinness World Record Holder - Jayanthi SampathkumarEpisode 7: Unlike some of us, Jayanthi has worked at a single company, Microsoft for 20+ years to grow from fresh graduate engineer to technology leader, managing 100+ employees. She recently made the decision to move and work for Google Cloud! She shared a ton of insights from her career.About our guest Jayanthi Sampathkumar:She is at present working on Data Analytics in Google Cloud. Her team works on various products of GCP including Dataproc and Data Fusion! Previously at Microsoft, she held various roles and worked on many products namely SQL Server, Bing, and Azure. She made Guinness world...2021-02-2213 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series: Silent Leader - Vasumathi LakshmananEpisode 6: Vasu shared her career blockers/challenges at each stage with finesse and addressed them beautifully! Listen to this unplugged episode.About our guest Vasumathi Lakshmanan's:Vasumathi is a Principal Software Engineer and a leader who is leading an engineering team to build an Expedia Group Recommendations platform for all Expedia Brands. She design, implement and deliver software products as a full-stack engineer. Her interests include visualization of analytical and scientific data.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chetana-desai/message 2021-02-1517 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series: Silent Leader - Vasumathi LakshmananEpisode 6: Vasu shared her career blockers/challenges at each stage with finesse and addressed them beautifully! Listen to this unplugged episode.About our guest Vasumathi Lakshmanan:Vasumathi is a Principal Software Engineer and a leader who is leading an engineering team to build an Expedia Group Recommendations platform for all Expedia Brands. She design, implement and deliver software products as a full-stack engineer. Her interests include visualization of analytical and scientific data.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chetana-desai/message 2021-02-1517 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series: Executive & Career Growth Coach at Empower Coaching - Julie SchallerSpecial Episode 5: In this episode, I spoke to Julie Schaller and you do not want to miss the immense wisdom that she shared in the show!Julie and I met serendipitously but grit is what got us together which culminated in making this episode!Julie helps her clients find work they love and has a natural talent for inspiring them to new levels in their careers. It’s like she has x-ray vision for seeing their greatest potential. The most common results her clients have received include next-level promotions, increased confidence and credibility, and landing ne...2021-02-0826 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series 1: Executive & Career Growth Coach at Empower Coaching - Julie SchallerSpecial Episode 5: In this episode, I spoke to Julie Schaller and you do not want to miss the immense wisdom that she shared in the show!Julie and I met serendipitously but grit is what got us together which culminated in making this episode!Julie helps her clients find work they love and has a natural talent for inspiring them to new levels in their careers. It’s like she has x-ray vision for seeing their greatest potential. The most common results her clients have received include next-level promotions, increased confidence and credibility, and landing new jobs that ar...2021-02-0826 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series: Head Of Products at ISSQUARED, Inc. - Neelu JainEpisode 4: This week I spoke to Neelu Jain, who works at ISSQUARED as head of products. I found her humble, soft-spoken, and down to earth personality intriguing. A little bit about her in Neelu's own words:Highly energetic, motivated, and a very social person. I have a passion to learn new tools and technologies and want to be challenged each day with a new challenge. I bring a wealth of experience from working at large organizations to small and have held various roles!ISSQUARED, Inc is hiring, and here is a link to kn...2021-02-0111 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series 1: Head Of Products at ISSQUARED, Inc. - Neelu JainEpisode 4: This week I spoke to Neelu Jain, who works at ISSQUARED as head of products. I found her humble, soft-spoken, and down to earth personality intriguing. A little bit about her in Neelu's own words:Highly energetic, motivated, and a very social person. I have a passion to learn new tools and technologies and want to be challenged each day with a new challenge. I bring a wealth of experience from working at large organizations to small and have held various roles!ISSQUARED, Inc is hiring, and here is a link to know more: https://www.is...2021-02-0111 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series: Director Of Engineering at Clearcover - Sree TalluriEpisode 3: I was excited to catch up with Sree Talluri, who I worked with previously at Expedia. She shared some of the gems in navigating your career.Sree is from South India. Sree came to Chicago 20yrs ago to pursue her Master's in Computer Science. Sree served in several engineering and leadership roles in consulting, travel, and now fintech startup. Sree is a huge believer in empowering women, champions inclusion and diversity, and often known by her colleagues as someone who is authentic, confident, and is cautiously optimistic.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.f...2021-01-2411 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series 1: Director Of Engineering at Clearcover - Sree TalluriEpisode 3: I was excited to catch up with Sree Talluri, who I worked with previously at Expedia. She shared some of the gems in navigating your career.Sree is from South India. Sree came to Chicago 20yrs ago to pursue her Master's in Computer Science. Sree served in several engineering and leadership roles in consulting, travel, and now fintech startup. Sree is a huge believer in empowering women, champions inclusion and diversity, and often known by her colleagues as someone who is authentic, confident, and is cautiously optimistic.--- Send in a voice message: https://a...2021-01-2411 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series: Scientist & Startup Coach - Anita BalaramanEpisode 2: I sat down to speak with Anita Balaraman and you do not want to miss the immense wisdom that she shared in the show!Anita Balaraman is a scientist and technologist passionate about teaching, and curious about the intersection of the future of work, learning, education, and AI/ML technology. Committed to enabling education to serve as a tool for social and economic mobility for all by democratizing occupational identity. Growing up as a girl in a traditional, modest household in South India, being an entrepreneur was not an occupational identity she knew: “I didn’t beli...2021-01-1723 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series 1: Scientist & Startup Coach - Anita BalaramanEpisode 2: I saw down to speak with Anita Balaraman and you do not want to miss the immense wisdom that she shared in the show!Anita Balaraman is a scientist and technologist passionate about teaching, and curious about the intersection of the future of work, learning, education, and AI/ML technology. Committed to enabling education to serve as a tool for social and economic mobility for all by democratizing occupational identity. Growing up as a girl in a traditional, modest household in South India, being an entrepreneur was not an occupational identity she knew: “I didn’t believe that beca...2021-01-1723 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series 1: Serial entrepreneur - Preethi MohanIf you have an idea and do not know where to start then this story helps you navigate. And even if you are not thinking of starting your own this story does have a lot of advice and tips for you!Hint: Creators, podcasters, and startup enthusiasts, this episode have a lot of learnings and tips for you!About our guest Preethi Mohan's: Preethi has worked across several markets around the world in boutique and global organizations such as Google. She has 12+ years of experience spanning marketing, product management, and digital transformation. During this time, Preethi has h...2021-01-0918 min

Gritty SerendipityStories Series: Serial entrepreneur - Preethi MohanEpisode 1: If you have a (business) idea and do not know where to start then this story helps you navigate. And even if you are not thinking of starting your own this story does have a lot of advice and tips for you!Hint: Creators, podcasters, and startup enthusiasts, this episode have a lot of learnings and tips for you!About our guest Preethi Mohan: Preethi has worked across several markets around the world in boutique and global organizations such as Google. She has 12+ years of experience spanning marketing, product management, and digital t...2021-01-0918 min

Gritty SerendipityChetana's 5 Pillar Model for Fit and Sane LifeBonus Holiday Series: Episode 5Before I start to share, a quick disclaimer: Please consult your doctor before making any dietary or physical, or life-altering changes. These are purely based on my personal journey/experience which has worked for me. We all have unprecedented access to information more than ever. There are plenty of such models out there and in fact, my model draws inspiration from several of them which I modified to suit my lifestyleAlright let me share what are the 5 pillars:1. Balanced Nutritious Meals2. Hydration3. Quality Sleep 2021-01-0211 min

Gritty SerendipityChetana's take on the book "How I Built This by Guy Raz"Bonus Holiday Series: Episode 4Once I got my head straight with handling the COVID situation both at work and home, I was yearning to learn some of the inspiring stories of new-age entrepreneurs. That’s when I picked How I built this by Guy Raz.Just like classical mythology, which is filled with superheroes who do things differently, face a near-death experience, doubles down on their beliefs, and finally achieves fame & wealth. All of the above holds good for new age super entrepreneurs too.Guy Raz beautifully walks us through the journey of so...2020-12-3111 min

Gritty SerendipityChetana's take on the book "I thought it was just me (but it isn't) by Brene Brown"Bonus Holiday Series: Episode 3Ah huh, this is my favorite topic which I shied away from discussing but now can dare to talk openly, the feelings of shame, embarrassment, pain, and a sense of isolation.The key takeaways from this book are, what can trigger shame, how empathy can be a powerful antidote to shame, and why we should all give up on the pursuit of perfection.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chetana-desai/message 2020-12-2208 min

Gritty SerendipityChetana's take on the book "I thought it was just me (but it isn't) by Brene Brown"Bonus Holiday Series: Episode 3Ah huh, this is my favorite topic which I shied away from discussing but now can dare to talk openly, the feelings of shame, embarrassment, pain, and a sense of isolation.The key takeaways from this book are, what can trigger shame, how empathy can be a powerful antidote to shame, and why we should all give up on the pursuit of perfection.--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app--- Send in a v...2020-12-2209 min

Gritty SerendipityChetana's take on the book "The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman"Bonus Holiday Series: Episode 2This book helped answer two of my main questions, understanding the fundamentals of stoicism with a problem description and how to use some of its guiding principles to lead our best life.You must be curious how am I applying stoics philosophy? I shared my mantra at the end!--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chetana-desai/message 2020-12-2210 min

Gritty SerendipityChetana's take on the book "Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman"Bonus Holiday Series: Episode 1This book helped answer two of my main questions, how does emotional intelligence develop in individuals and why is it key for society as a whole to evolve and thrive. I shared a few of my habits influenced by this book at the end.I highly recommend reading it, if not for you but for future generations whom we nurture and touch their lives on a regular basis. Here are some of my insights and high points from the book.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chetana-desai...2020-12-2209 min

Gritty SerendipityChetana's take on the book "Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman"Bonus Holiday Series: Episode 1This book helped answer two of my main questions, how does emotional intelligence develop in individuals and why is it key for society as a whole to evolve and thrive. I shared a few of my habits influenced by this book at the end.I highly recommend reading it, if not for you but for future generations whom we nurture and touch their lives on a regular basis. Here are some of my insights and high points from the book.--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest w...2020-12-2210 min

Gritty SerendipityBonus Holiday Series - IntroThis bonus holiday series was requested by you, my dear listeners, who were curious to know more about the books I read and my fitness regime. It consists of 7 episodes, where 6 episodes focus on my takeaways from the top 6 books and the 7th episode is all about my 5 pillar model to fit and happy life.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/chetana-desai/message 2020-12-2201 min

Gritty SerendipityGenesis of Gritty SerendipityHello everyone, you are listening to the introductory episode of the new podcast called "Gritty Serendipity". I'm your host, Chetana Desai. Before I share my motivation to starting this podcast, let me introduce myself, once again my name is Chetana Desai, I passionately describe myself as creative by heart, pragmatic by the brain, and a Technology and Business leader with 15 years of experience. Now that you know a bit about me, let me share 3 key reasons behind starting this podcast!Reason Number 1, my own lived experiencesReason number 2, the opportunityReason n...2020-11-2608 min