07-01-2022
Mahalakshmi Vasudevan’s journey to Purdue’s Krannert School of Management began in an Indian village where most women were expected to lead families, not companies. Her upbringing in an orthodox family added to the challenge.
“I was the first woman in my family to attend college, so there was a lot of resistance at first,” she says. “I eventually convinced my parents to let me get a bachelor’s degree in computer science even though they viewed it as a field for men.”
While earning her undergraduate degree from Anna University Chennai, Vasudevan completed a logistics internship at Airlift Cargo System (Madras) Pvt. Ltd., where she learned how to apply technical and managerial concepts in real-time scenarios by analyzing how freight forwarding works. She joined the company full-time upon graduation in an operations support role.
Her next career step was a job as an associate software engineer, followed by a consulting position as an application development analyst at Accenture with Pfizer as her client. “I dealt with a lot of enterprise resource planning challenges,” she says. “That’s also where I got experience addressing supply chain issues and decided to pursue a master’s degree in the field.”
Once again, Vasudevan faced an uphill battle. “There weren’t a lot of women working in supply chain, so I initially had concerns about the job prospects,” she says. “That changed when I learned about Krannert’s master’s program in Global Supply Chain Management (MSGSCM).”
Buoyed by the school’s diverse student population, transparent program requirements and emphasis on experiential learning, she selected Krannert over eight other universities. “I like to make an informed decision, but I didn’t think twice about choosing Purdue,” Vasudevan says. “It was the best place to metamorphosize my career from computer science to supply chain.”
Once on the West Lafayette campus, Vasudevan embraced Krannert’s project-based learning approach. “I enjoyed being on cross-cultural teams that worked toward a common goal,” she says. “That dynamic is important for all students, but particularly international students.”
Vasudevan also found a mentor in Ananth Iyer, Krannert’s Susan Bulkeley Butler Chair in Operations Management. Iyer also serves as the director of the Global Supply Chain Management Initiative (GSCMI) and the Dauch Center for the Management of Manufacturing Enterprises (DCMME), where Vasudevan is a research assistant. “We are currently trying to understand the supply demand and cost analysis of rare earth elements, and how those can be used in electrical vehicles and batteries,” she says.
Other faculty influencers include Brian Dineen, the Frederick and Alice Leeds Professor of Management, who taught a course on negotiations, and visiting finance professor Craig Brown, who led a course on financial management. “I would recommend that everyone take those courses,” Vasudevan says. “They aren’t focused on supply chain, but still provide you with important managerial skills that can help you contribute to any field.”
Another impactful experience was the Exploring Business in Peru program, a two-credit management class hosted by Krannert’s Global Supply Chain Management Initiative (GSCMI) and transportation, logistics, and storage company Tlogistica of Lima, Peru. The program targets undergraduate and master’s students to provide them with the occasion to work on real-life business problems and provide solutions to businesses in Peru.
“This was truly an amazing trip where we got to learn as well as explore more about Peru’s culture and how business differentiates from place to place,” Vasudevan says. “I was grateful for the opportunity to work in a cross-functional setup where I was able to bridge the current gap between the tightly closed doors of supply chain and technology.”
Vasudevan is also completing an internship with the Krannert Marketing and Communications area as an operational specialist. “We’re trying to understand the existing business process and improve them,” she says. “It adds another layer of skills that I can take into my career.”
Upon her graduation this summer, Vasudevan will join Amazon as a senior program manager intern as she begins her search for a full-time position. “I want to plug myself into an ecosystem where there is complex supply strain structure,” she says. “That will be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it.”
