Gayathri Devi Jayan, Senior Delivery Head, Verizon India

A technology enthusiast, Ga­ya­­­­thri Devi Jayan has over 25 years of experience in the IT and do­main. She has been associated with companies such as Wipro Technologies and Virtusa­Pola­rious over the years. In her current stint at Verizon India, she leads IT Delivery for Veri­zon Enter­prise Solutions, in the areas of sales, service deli­­very, billing, service management and self-service, catering to the Enter­prise and Wholesale market segments. She also lea­ds the Verizon Partner So­lu­­tions team. According to Devi, “The IT industry is set to witness a significant revolution, driven by the introduction of various advan­ced technologies. Hence, the teams must pick up the pace and grab the opportunities that th­e­se new technologies bring. At Ve­rizon, we are constantly loo­k­i­ng to automate pro­ce­sses us­­i­ng emerging technologies to step up the speed to market.”

When asked about her most memorable assignment, Devi says she has learnt something from each of them. “I have been fortunate to be a part of an evolving industry, which has matured over the decades and is standing at its peak today,” she says. How­ever, one of her most challenging and satisfying assignments has been the development of a large multi-million dollar programme, spanning three to four years, which involved user acceptance. The code delivered had thousands of defects that had to be rectified over time. “The programme did not gain much traction initially and we had to attract talent through word of mouth and nurture people culture in the team. However, when delivered, it was a surreal moment for us,” she says. This progra­mme won her an award for “Best People Manager”.

When it comes to managing people, Devi follows a four-stage process – understand, assess, delegate and control. “Of course, coaching and mentoring are part and parcel of all these stages,” she says.

Devi has an engineering de­gree from BITS, Pilani. In her free time, she likes reading, dancing, horse-riding, bl­o­­­g­­ging (often about movie rev­iews), and public speaking. She is also learning Spanish. How­ever, technology remains her big­g­est area of interest. “I want to continue to be hands-on with va­rious technologies,” she says. Devi also likes watching mo­vies with her family. Her husband, Jayan, whom she met at BITS, is an entrepreneur, who runs his own marketing process outsourcing firm. Th­ey have two sons – Abhinay, 21, who is pursuing a career in music production and Pranay, 11, who is studying.