Sujata Chaudhry has always had to prove herself professionally.
Starting her career with the U.S. Navy, she learned early on to arm herself with education and hard work to stand out in a male-dominated field. Now, her work as CEO of Tangible Development aims to create more inclusive work environments for everyone.
Who has been a mentor to you and what have you learned from them? [It has] always been my dad. I’m one of three girls from a very, very traditional first-generation Indian family. And you know, my father and mother not having a son, I think that they put all their aspirations in their girls. … My father was extremely progressive for a mindset of somebody from that era and constantly was encouraging us to strive to be anything we wanted to be and guided us through it, and was one that inspired us to go after our degrees when we could. And even when I would go through challenges and struggles in the early part of my career, I always called him because he’d been through so many similar challenges, just at a different time.
What were some of the challenges that he helped you with? Just establishing credibility. Being a female minority — Indian, especially — was a rarity. And I went into technical industries. So when I started my career, I was a market analyst for the U.S. Navy, and come on, the U.S. Navy — how many Indian women in the 1980s were in the U.S. Navy working as a market analyst?
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