I'm Venkata C Ponnam, a passionate and authentic leader with a robust technical background and a strategic mindset. My journey blends engineering prowess with business acumen, complemented by an MBA from Kellogg. My expertise lies in driving business innovation and transformation through strategic leadership and solutions architecture. My passion lies at the intersection of technology and business, where I leverage my deep technical skills and evolving business expertise to drive value beyond the product or service.

In my earlier roles, I have led cross-functional teams, managed large-scale projects, and consistently delivered results that align with organizational goals. These experiences have equipped me with a strategic vision, operational excellence, and a comprehensive understanding of both technology and business, preparing me to contribute significantly at higher organizational levels.

• 🌐 Current Role: Customer Success, GTM at Google.
• 🎓 Education: MBA @ Kellogg School of Management.
• 💼 Experience: Extensive background in software/systems engineering, Cloud solutions Architecture, Product & Customer Experiance.
• 💼 Engineering: Cloud Engineering, Scalability, Distributed Systems, Kubernetes, Containers, Data ingestion and QPS, Network performance & HPC tuning, Indetity Management, Federation & OIDC, Keyless authentication practices, Cloud Security, CI/CD & Data Pipelines, Problem first and solution later approach.
• 💡 Focus Areas: Business transformation, Customer Partnership, GMT & Product Management, Strategic leadership, Cloud services, and Trusted advisor.
• 💰 Investor: Passionate about making smarter financial decisions with a strong, measurable ROI. Time value of assets and services is critical to me!

• Philosophy: My guiding philosophy is centered on creating value beyond the immediate product or service. I strive to deliver solutions that not only meet present needs but also lay the foundation for future success. The time value of assets and services is critical to me, ensuring decisions are made with a long-term perspective.

• Innovation: I thrive on transforming complex challenges into elegant, user-centric solutions. By staying at the forefront of technology, I bring innovative ideas to life, driving continuous improvement and staying ahead of industry trends.

• Customer Success: My focus is on understanding customer needs and delivering solutions that exceed expectations. I am committed to ensuring customer success by providing value-driven, reliable, and scalable solutions that foster long-term relationships.

• Growth: I believe in the power of technology to fuel business growth. By aligning technical solutions with business objectives, I help organizations achieve sustainable growth and realize their full potential.

• Partnerships: Collaboration is at the heart of my approach. I build strong partnerships with stakeholders, fostering a culture of teamwork and shared success. Together, we work towards common goals, leveraging our collective strengths.

coreValues = map[string]string{
    "Humanity":             "Being Human",
    "User Focus":           "Respect the User",
    "Growth Mindset":       "Reflective Growth & Guidance",
    "Simplicity":           "Keep it simple, not everything is complex",
    "Action Orientation":   "[D|G]o beyond talking", // Execution inline with strategy.
}

• Passion for Technology: Enthusiastic in Software/Systems engineering, high-performance computing (HPC), AI/ML, simple/server less, and managed.
• Customer Success Journey: Driven by growth drivers, competitive differentiators, productivity improvements, and business alignment, all centered around a unified mission.
• Finance: Interested in financial modeling, accounting concepts, net present value (NPV), free cash flow (FCF), and valuation.
• Quality Time: Valuing focus, ideation, and spending meaningful moments with family and peers.
• Sports: cricket, volleyball, and table tennis.

• Books & Podcasts: I regularly immerse myself in thought-provoking books and podcasts that inspire and challenge my perspectives.
• Meaningful Conversations: I prioritize deep, meaningful conversations, valuing quality.
• Skill Mastery and Broad Knowledge: I focus on mastering a few core skills while continuously expanding my knowledge across various fields to stay versatile and well-rounded.

A quick preview of some of my public contributions, including Open Source Software community.

• Developer-friendly network design reference
• App Development in a secured environment
• Efficient execution of Infrastructure as Code
• GPU Benchmarking guidance
• Networking Cloud Architecture reviews
• Cross Functional Collaboration with Product Managment, Engineering, and GTM teams

• Collaboration on Cloud DNS Monitoring, github PR #1112
• IAM scale enhancements in TF’s Project factory module.

• sql_server_audit_config
• sql_audit_config
• add time_zone for mssql
• workspace-admin-user-management
• iam-recommender-helpers/projectnumber-converter

• 💼 LinkedIn
• 📧 Email

Feel free to reach out if/when you like to catch up for a quick chat or collaboration ideas!