Accenture, Senior Manager, Cloud Innovation Center: Mentorship is Two-Way Communication

In conversation with Dr. K.L. Allen, Chancellor WGU Ohio, Anand Sekaran, Senior Manager, Cloud Innovation Center, Accenture talks about his career path and his approach to mentorships.

Sekaran started his career with varied roles in software engineering. Today, his focus is on software engineering, sales, delivery, and technology innovation.

He wishes to invest in new ideas birthed by the younger generation right from the school level. “The younger generation has a lot of great, cool ideas, and investing in those will definitely take the world to a better state.”

He recalls his personal principles of mentorship that he gleaned from two people who influenced his career decisions during his high school days. “I had two great gentlemen who were a part of my life during those times when I needed the mentorship, when I had difficulty in understanding the nuances of making decisions for my academic progression. They inspired me and I thought that at some point in my life, I can do the mentorship for others,” Sekaran says.

He believes mentorship is two-way communication.“It's being there for [someone else]. It's listening to them, understanding their interests, their passions, their goals, and providing some thoughts, [sharing] the practical experiences that I have in software engineering as a career path. So, I give them options, give them some tools, some techniques to use. It's constant learning for both sides. I never felt that a mentor is someone who had all the answers or all the experience. And I learned a lot from the people that I mentored, too,” he adds

One doesn’t go around asking to find a mentor, he adds. “It's a relationship, a bonding, trust-building. A mentor is someone who understands what those things are.”

Asked what he would change about the Columbus technology scene, Sekaran says that he would like to build more “free-flowing” connections. Connections not just in IT but with schools, colleges, academic coaches — the organizations that are helping young students in building skills, IT-related and otherwise, he says.

What advice would like to pass on to his 25-year-old self? “I grew up with a lot of limiting beliefs about myself. So, I would tell my 25-year-old self, never believe in limiting beliefs. If you are willing to work hard for the thing that you care about and that is what your passion is, you can do great things, no matter the situation.”