Every evening, a schoolgirl and her mother walked five kilometres home, sharing a small packet of biscuits. Neither of them could afford the return bus, and neither made a fuss about it.

It sounds like a story from fifty years ago. It happened when Tejaswini Manjunath was in classes seven, eight and nine.

Today she is Vice President, Operations at Rippey AI, leading teams in India and Nepal for a US-based company, in an industry that still looks surprised to see a woman at the table. On The AboutHer Show, she explained how she got there: a mother and an aunt who treated every problem as solvable, a CTO who spoke up for her in a room she was not in, and a habit of doing the same for other girls.

Her most quoted line is also the simplest: “If you have one person who can vouch for you, it will really change the trajectory.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Mentors shape your thinking. Sponsors change your trajectory.
One person who vouches for you in a room you are not in can move your career further than years of advice.

2. Treat problems as figure-out-able.
Tejaswini learned from her mother and aunt that if they could get through hard times, anyone can figure out what comes next.

3. When you have a seat, use it for others.
She now makes it a point to champion girls whenever she is in the room.

4. Coaching is slower than doing, and worth it.
A team you trained lets you take a week off without worry.

5. Bridge generations by building a bond first.
Ask younger and senior colleagues to get to know each other before they try to collaborate.

6. Tell people it is okay to rest.
Some of us place every responsibility on ourselves until someone says otherwise.

7. Hire for smarts and hearts.
Brilliant credentials without team spirit create chaos.

The walk that taught her everything

Asked for one memory that still shapes how she leads, Tejaswini chose an ordinary one. Money was tight, and her family moved to a neighbourhood with cheaper rent, about five kilometres from school. There was only enough for the school bus in the morning, so she and her sister rode it one way.

In the evenings, she walked home with her mother. Her mother bought a small packet of eight biscuits, and the two of them shared it along the way. “She made sure that it was fun for me” Tejaswini says. They used the walk to talk about the school day, not about the problem.

Looking back, she sees a mindset she has carried ever since: that everything is figure-out-able. If her mother and her aunt, without much formal education, could get this far, she reasons, then no matter what comes, anyone can figure it out.

If we got out of that, we can get out of anything and we can do anything.

There were other moments too: borrowing money from neighbours for a rental costume for a dance programme, for instance. The lesson was the same each time. The problem will be there, but you can always find a way if you are willing to.

The person who spoke up when she was not in the room

Tejaswini once left a corporate job for a startup, which she calls “a big gamble in itself.” She joined as an integration manager, a role meant for someone with about ten years of experience. The company was US-based, with teams in India and Nepal, and she found herself juggling nearly all of it.

The company’s CTO, Brandon McKittrick, noticed. He told the CEO that she was doing far more than her job required and deserved a better title. Others pushed back: there were more senior managers in the US, so how would a director of operations from India fit in? He held his ground. She was bringing value, he said, and she was running the show.

Tejaswini was not in that conversation. She had not even thought to ask. “I just thought this is my work and I’m just going to do everything that’s required,” she says. “It took somebody else to have that belief in me.”

She became director, then VP. She still goes back to that moment, and to what it taught her about the difference between mentoring and sponsoring. A mentor gives advice. A sponsor puts their name behind you.

If you have one person who can vouch for you, it will really change the trajectory.

It mattered more because she did not come from a world with people to give her a roadmap. Now, young women in colleges and at work tell her they want to be like her. She traces it all back to one moment when somebody had faith in her. So she returns the favour: “Now I make it a point that when I am in the rooms, I am championing girls.

That is sisterhood in practice, she and the host agreed. If you have the power to give someone a chance, go ahead and do it.

How a magazine page led her to shipping

Tejaswini did not plan on a career in maritime. After a bachelor’s in business management, she faced the usual question of what to specialise in: marketing, HR, finance. She wanted something really different.

One random day, she found a Port and Shipping Management course in a magazine and enrolled. She knew nothing about the industry. She assumed it was fancy, and that there was good money in it.

The reality was different. Shipping turned out to be very manual and very male dominated. During an internship at a small shipping office in Chennai, the manager supporting her told her that her education was not required. You do not need to be educated, he said, to talk to a truck driver or negotiate at the port.

She was upset. She had come from a different state to learn, and here was someone saying her education was worth nothing. Then she made a decision. This was not the level she wanted to work at. What she was studying would equip her for senior management, and she kept her focus on that.

She is generous about it. She would not expect a manager caught up in everyday operations to think about macroeconomics, tariffs and the relations between countries. The host added that people in that world had simply never seen a woman in this space, and that getting used to the idea takes time.

Fifty-five years of experience, and Gen Z

Tejaswini leads professionals with over 55 years of experience alongside Gen Z talent. She admits she sometimes feels outdated herself, and her sister is glad to remind her.

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She describes the gap in perspective. Younger colleagues may want leave for a first-day show, a concert, a heartbreak or a sick pet, because you only live once. Senior colleagues are committed and willing to sacrifice personal time, and they want more information about what is going on.

Her approach is to tell younger team members that the person they are working with has experience that cannot be bought. Before collaborating, she asks them to build a bond. Once you know each other, she says, figuring out problems becomes easy. When a disagreement does come up, she shares each side’s perspective from a neutral stance. “That takes a lot of work,” she admits.

Why she chooses the slower path

It is always faster to do the work yourself. Tejaswini learned that lesson in college while heading a management committee, and again as a manager. It is easier to draft the email than to explain why it needs a greeting and a thank you.

She has often thought, “Oh my God, I should have just done this.” But she holds back on purpose, because she does not want to be a hurdle. She wants everyone around her to have the same or better skills than she does, so she directs, points people to research, and accepts some slow delivery and mistakes, as long as it is not costing money.

The payoff arrived over the years. She now has a dependable team and can take a week off without worrying. They can still reach out whenever they need her, but the work moves on without her as a blocker.

The fever, and the manager who said take care of yourself

Tejaswini takes ownership of everything, and she feels guilty taking time off. At Caterpillar, one day made that plain.

She had a fever and went to the office anyway. The workday ran from 7.30 to 4.30, and the office was 25 kilometres away, reached by company buses. Calling a cab back just for herself felt wrong, so she decided to wait it out and finish her work.

Her manager, Mark, saw it differently. All of us are here to do the work, he told her. It is not on your shoulders alone. Only you can take care of yourself, so please do, and trust that the work will be handled.

She says it needed him to say that specifically, because she had been running around thinking everything was her responsibility. Today she passes it on. When someone on her team asks for leave or is unwell, she makes sure they have confidence in the team and can take time off without guilt.

Some of us need to be told that specifically, otherwise we place that responsibility on ourselves.

Lead up with clarity, lead down with empathy

Tejaswini learned this principle from another manager. Bosses and CEOs care about results, she says: the business, the revenue. They need to know she has the vision and is clear about the actions required. Without that clarity, they will not trust her with more.

Downward, it is a different job. When you become a leader, she says, you can make or break people’s careers. A bad manager can leave someone dreading Monday. A good one makes a team feel comfortable and supported enough to turn up every day.

Her real-life example is festivals. India has many holidays, and her US colleagues sometimes ask why. She tells them to expect people to take time off come August, because families and communities matter. Her job is to convince management to let the team take that time, then own the deliverables. If she were rigid about it, she says, “then it’s a very sad story.” Being a bridge between the two cultures means carrying both together.

Smarts and hearts

The idea of hiring for smarts and hearts is one she picked up from the author Robin Sharma. Smarts matter, she says, because you want a team of brilliant people.

But she has seen the other side recently. A hire arrives with excellent credentials and degrees, then shows little team spirit or interest in learning why the company works the way it does. New hires often want to bring brilliant ideas and change everything, and that does not sit well with a team working hard to keep things in line. The result, she says, is chaos.

If the hearts are missing, then I don’t think we’ll have a good team.

Key quotes

“No matter what comes, anybody can figure it out and you can really aim high.”

“Now I make it a point that when I am in the rooms, I am championing girls.”

“I need to have everybody around me, at least with the same or better skillset than what I have.”

“I now have a team that’s dependable that I can take a week off without worrying.”

“A lot of the times you can make or break people’s career.”

Listen to the full conversation

Hear Tejaswini Manjunath’s full story on The AboutHer Show, ranked in the Top 3 on Feedspot’s list of Indian Women’s Leadership Podcasts 2026.

Not just about her. It takes all of us.