Episode Details

In this podcast episode, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Shubhangi M Josiam, Digital Head APAC of Alstom about her 18+ year journey across GE and Alstom, moving from core IT and infrastructure roles to customer-facing digital transformation leadership across APAC.

Shubangi shares candid stories about career pivots, leadership programs, Lean Six Sigma, building IT from scratch post-acquisition, and navigating cross-cultural teams—ending with powerful advice for women professionals to be bold and go for roles before feeling “fully ready”.

00:00 – 01:50 — Introduction to Shubangi’s APAC digital leadership role and IT’s shift from backend to customer-facing solutions.

01:52 – 04:41 — Early inspiration for engineering, switching from electronics to information science driven by a love for programming.

04:42 – 07:56 — Entering GE through walk-ins, starting in captive IT, and learning end-to-end infrastructure fundamentals.

08:20 – 11:49 — Discovering GE’s leadership culture and choosing Lean Six Sigma for outcome-driven career growth.

12:06 – 14:28 — Leading a consumer experience transformation project and early exposure to Agile and product thinking.

14:29 – 16:08 — Managing ERP operations and learning real-world supply chain complexity during system transitions.

16:08 – 18:09 — Navigating acquisitions, making tough career exits, and prioritising personal sustainability.

18:46 – 23:51 — Joining Alstom during post-acquisition chaos and helping build IT systems from the ground up.

23:51 – 25:50 — Building digital and analytics platforms, hiring data scientists, and scaling analytics maturity.

25:51 – 27:47 — Transitioning into regional IT leadership and driving large-scale digital change during COVID.

27:48 – 29:37 — Moving into customer-facing digital rail solutions across APAC and continuous learning from the market.