2020 Winner
Jaya Jagadish
Corporate Vice President, Silicon Design Engineering, AMD India Engineering Lead
AMD
As India Engineering Lead, Jaya Jagadish is responsible for AMD’s R&D work out of India and for fostering a culture of innovation, inclusive growth and corporate responsibility at the company’s India Development Centre.
Her first stint with AMD was in Austin 1994. She joined the company immediately after completing her master’s in electrical engineering from University of Texas at Dallas. She moved on from AMD to work with Mentor Graphics as a senior consultant from 1997-2000, followed by Analog Devices as a Senior Design Engineer till 2004. After returning to India, she joined AMD in 2005 and was one of the first team members of AMD India’s development center in Bangalore.
In early 2000, limited engineering design was done in India. She played an instrumental role in shifting this narrative. She built a strong 250+ team, that today is responsible for designing the very core of AMD CPUs. She hired fresh talent, trained and mentored them. Over the years, she led this team to successfully execute complex programs in AMD’s roadmap. It’s a testimony to her leadership that many of these employees today occupy senior positions in the company.
Jaya became part of India leadership team in 2011 as Director and in 2015 was given the responsibility to lead the engineering team in India. In 2018, she was recognized by the international publication, Diversity Journal among the “2018 Women Worth Watching For”. The award recognizes global change makers and leaders who have recorded outstanding achievements throughout their career. Ask her about her success as a woman leader, and she will urge you to not look at her growth from the prism of gender. She envisages a future where there is no such term as ‘Woman Leaders’, but just Leaders!