In a male dominated industry, it was a task for Lata Singh to create a bond with the channel community over the last 12 years. Having worked sincerely to build relationships with resellers throughout her career, she is now looking forward to working with system integrators to further widen her reach

Job Profile: Lata Singh has been associated with CA for the last five years and handles their partner alliance. She is responsible for building relationships with the system integrators of the company and managing the channel. Singh enjoys the level of independence that she gets at CA. She takes pride in putting her ideas into action and managing the channel in an independent manner, as well as sharing business knowledge through interactions. She is also responsible for pre-sales programs and implementation of solutions.

The key components of Singh's job profile includes understanding the partner ecosystem, selling enterprise CA solutions and recruiting new partners.

Background: For Singh, IT was an untrodden field as she had pursued post graduation in English from Delhi University. “Getting into a technology-based field was completely new for me. It was a challenge to understand how the IT market functions and to chose the right solutions, both of which are crucial for the functioning of any business,” she said. Additionally, Singh had to strive hard in order to change the rigid mindsets of people in the male-dominated IT industry. She believes that gaining a lot of knowledge about the industry allowed her to overcome challenges that came her way.

As her father had a transferable job, Singh got the opportunity to travel to many parts of the country. She was schooled in Kolkata. Her first job was with Citibank and then she worked for a marketing and advertisement company for three months. She was associated with IBM before the opportunity with CA came her way.

Challenges: Singh has been managing the channel community for the last 12 years. Prior to being associated with CA, her job in IBM, too, was a profile that required her to deal with resellers. While recalling the challenges that had come her away, Singh mentioned that the toughest hurdle was that of making channel partners comfortable dealing with a woman. “Getting them to take calls, building relationships and assuring them of the company's commitment were the toughest parts of my job.”

However, Singh maintained that she was never uncomfortable working with the channel community.

Family: Singh's biggest strength is her family who have always supported her. This has helped her to create a fine balance between work and home. “A ready-made cup of tea after returning from office after a long day at work is something I treasure the most. It reminds me that having a family sure has its advantages,” she chuckled.

Hobbies: She loves spending her weekends with her family. She sustains a balance between her home and family by spending quality time with them. In her free time, she also loves reading.

Future plans: Talking about the plans for the future, Singh says that she enjoys working with the partner community and would love to explore this community on a wider scale. She would continue to focus on building relationships with resellers.

Originally from Uttarakhand, her sincere wish is to take her colleagues' kids to her hometown and let them experience the beauty of the unexplored hills of India.

Amrita Tejasvi
amritat@cybermedia.co.in

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