Women in Tech: Astha Sharma, Head of Customer Success – India

Lovely, where did you end up heading? 

I did my MBA in operations research, and I was selected again by Idea Cellular Limited and worked in customer service taking care of retention, life cycle management. After that, I moved to marketing, taking care of campaign management. That’s where I discovered the world of analytics and machine learning. After working in the analytics function, I decided to pursue my Master’s degree as it would help me to get a better picture of how data science can be applied in business. I completed my Master’s in Management Science in the UK. After graduation, I returned to India and started working for Telenor and then switched to Peak. After moving on to pursue a different avenue in my career, I decided to take up an exciting opportunity to rejoin Peak as a Head of the Customer Success team in India. 

Seems you’ve made the full career cycle! What has attracted you to Peak?

The main point of attraction for me at Peak was that I’d already worked here and since then I have been following Peak, their growth over the past few years and evolution of their vision. I have stayed in touch with most of the people who are still working with Peak. The global expansion plans and new offices in India were an excellent addition to that. 

In your opinion, what makes Peak unique compared to other companies? 

While the market has slowly realised that the implementation of AI is inevitable, Peak has done that in the early startup phase. The second point is – a unique solution. Many companies use, rip and replace strategy , whereas Peak offers a unique integrating approach. We integrate all your systems, providing you with a single view of your data. You can then leverage your data to do things better, provide more informed decisions, and start moving towards AI one step at a time. It’s an easy and seamless digital transformation for your business (check out our Decision Intelligence platform here to find out more).

What are the key things you’ve learned at Peak, Astha? 

This is the first time I’m actually working with the core manufacturing sector. I have worked with enterprises and telecoms earlier mostly around ICT operations and digital strategy, but it’s an entirely different area. Analysing and connecting their data has given me better insights of their business as well as operations. That’s where the vision, which we used to build, meets reality! 

What’s next, what would you like to do? What would you like to learn more about? 

I’m targeting to get more insights and experience in the business domain, acquire a better understanding of how technology can supercharge businesses. Companies have been talking about Agile, DevOps and Cloud for ages. It has picked up in the last three to four years, especially during COVID. While technology has been a support system for many businesses, COVID has proved that technology is not just a support function but a key enabler and driver. Working with the industries will help me further understand how the AI and digitalization vision can become more executable. It will be helpful in evolving the AI solutions more suited to business requirements. 

Sounds awesome! What do you like the most at Peak?

It’s a relaxed, stress-free place where things are scaling up pretty fast. We’ve plenty of personal development programs and loads of resources allowing us to upskill. My favorite one is no limitations to creativity. If you think this is going to be beneficial for the team and business, go ahead, do it! Peak provides a great work-life balance. 

Wow, great! Thanks for your time and chatting to us today, Astha.

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