Mahasena Venkata Tuniguntla (Maha), Head – Enterprise Cloud Computing at Fidelity Investments India, joined the Firm a year ago. In a freewheeling chat, Maha shares his thoughts on his first work anniversary, his career journey, and experience with Fidelity so far.
Can you tell us a little about your career so far?
My career began with a simple yet powerful thought: “Nothing is written on stone, as your career is an unpredictable journey.”
I started out as a faculty member training corporate on various technologies such as C, FoxPro, Oracle, and web technologies. I’ve always loved coding and thrived on the excitement of developing web and ecommerce applications for various dot-com companies.
During the turn of the millennium, I moved to the UK and worked for various product and financial organizations. I played diverse roles, from technical and architectural to leading and managing teams. In 2014, I moved back to India to head the engineering and transformation programs at Barclays, including cloud adoption.
I joined Fidelity in August 2020 and currently head the Enterprise Cloud Computing team in India.
What are some of the key innovations and initiatives you have introduced in your role that you consider pathbreaking or influential for Fidelity’s strategy?
Cloud computing remains an important technology for businesses and is evolving continuously to meet their changing needs. It is essential that we embrace such changes and develop a mindset of innovation not only to build capabilities to support a long-term vision but also to attract talent.
Here are some of the initiatives and milestones during my tenure that I cherish and celebrate:
- Re-defining the Cloud India Charter in alignment with the enterprise strategic cloud vision, and most importantly, revitalizing our focus on building reusable enterprise solutions by engaging and upskilling our talent pool in a multi-cloud environment
- Introduction of a new dimension in cloud learning through a gamified approach and hands-on events. In the last one year, we have conducted various cloud Amazon Web Services (AWS) Game Days, AWS DeepRacer events, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning Security Jam events, thereby promoting learning on niche technologies
- Launch of the AWS Resident Program to promote deep expertise and upskill our employees on cloud technologies through focused and specialized curated courses, interactive labs, and virtual sessions by cloud experts
- Promotion of dedicated AWS and Azure support for our employees on technical and architectural aspects, as well as guidance on cloud operating infrastructure.
What are the technologies you are personally passionate about and bring to your role at Fidelity?
I am passionate about a broad range of technologies across domains and love to stay updated on the latest trends, which enables me to enhance my work efficiency, strive for mastery of technology skills, and most importantly, align to the overall business strategy.
I began my career journey using technologies such as COBOL, C, and C++. Later, I explored various web technologies, user interface and user experience development, and then moved onto cloud, robotic process automation (RPA), AI and ML technologies. In my view, while the technology landscape is always changing, the philosophy behind using technology to deliver better solutions for customers remains constant always.
My passion is all about purposefully bringing the benefits of technology into my own life and those of others. It goes without saying that a passion for technological innovation is a must when you are a technology leader. This is especially true for a customer-obsessed company like Fidelity that is focused on using the latest technologies to serve customers better.
How would you describe your leadership style?
I would describe my leadership style as humble, direct, and leading by example. I believe in empowering the next level of leaders by delegating tasks and enabling them to take the lead on projects, while at the same time staying closely involved myself in the whole process and thereby inspiring my team through hands-on leadership. I actively collaborate with my team members, either by working directly on projects or engaging in discussions to support and guide them.
What skills and traits do you look forward to in a person who would want to join your team?
I believe it’s all about striking the right balance between technical, domain, and leadership skills while adopting a mindset of innovation.
Having said that, here are a few attributes I look for in a person who would want to join my team:
- Positive attitude
- Passionate and persistent
- Goal-oriented
- Team player
- Flexible
Your advice to anyone who wants to join Fidelity.
From what I have experienced in the last one year with Fidelity, I would say that it’s all about a warm and positive culture, incredible people, and delivering the best technology solutions to our customers. I would say that the best places to work at are usually those that provide people with life satisfaction as opposed to just job satisfaction, and this is especially true of Fidelity.
As an organization, we believe in:
- Helping employees find and pursue their passion
- Bringing people together through employee resource groups to help them identify areas of mutual interest, thereby promoting career and personality development across multiple dimensions
- Empowering people to own their work by creating a space where people can be themselves
- Investing in making our employees tech-savvy by creating a work environment that promotes continuous learning, innovation, and agility
- Most importantly, continuously raising the bar and building our brand as an aspirational employer of choice
If you would like to be a part of one of the world’s top fintech companies that truly values, promotes, and invests in your career development, then do join us. Visit our website to explore potential roles.
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