Dr. Tessy Thomas

#78/100 in #100extraordinarywomen 

Known as the ‘missile woman’ of India, Dr. Tessy Thomas is a scientist at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). She served as the Project Director for the Agni IV and V missiles, making her the first woman to lead missile teams in India. These are intercontinental ballistic missiles that have very high ranges and are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Dr. Thomas’ expertise on the solid propellent systems were critical in the development of the re-entry system of the missile, which helped it withstand great velocities and temperatures of 3000° Celsius on re-entering the atmosphere. 

Dr. Thomas was born in April 1963 in Alappuzha, Kerala, to a Syrian Christian family. She was named after Mother Teresa (Tessy being a derivative of Teresa or Tressia). There is conflicting information on whether her father was an IFS officer or a small-time businessman or an accountant. When Dr. Thomas was 13, her father suffered from a stroke which left his right side paralyzed. Her mother who was a teacher remained a home maker to look after the family in such dire condition. She grew up near Thumba Rocket Launching Station and says her fascination with rockets and missiles began then. She was stimulated even by the wonderment of aircraft flying. Dr. Thomas has four other sisters and one brother. She has mentioned in interviews about her parents ensuring their children received proper education and encouraging the six siblings to pursue careers of their own interest so that they can excel. Two of her siblings are engineers while another pursued a MBA. Dr. Thomas credited her home town and mother for her personal development. “I grew up with the pretty backwaters of Kerala as my backyard. I guess nature gives you strength and good thoughts. The power of nature cannot be undermined in one’s development.” Of her mother she has said, “It must have been tough for my mother — who was not allowed to work — to look after us on her own. Yet she made sure each of her five daughters and one son had a good education.... I’ve inherited her strong will for sure. I am equally persevering and determined like my mother.” 

Tessy Thomas studied in St. Michael's Higher Secondary School and St. Joseph's Girl's Higher Secondary School in Alleppey (Alappzuha). She had a natural flair for mathematics and physics. She scored one hundred percent in mathematics during her 11th and 12th years in school. In the same years she had also scored more than ninety five percent in science. She was among the top 10 rank-holders in engineering entrance examinations in Kerala. She took an education loan of Rs. 100 per month from State Bank of India to study engineering from Government Engineering College, Thrissur. She also received a scholarship that covered her tuition fees having been entered into the first ten students of the merit list during her admissions. The loan gave her the courage to live in a hostel while pursuing her B. Tech. In both school and college, Dr. Thomas was involved in extracurricular activities including political issues. She excelled in sports especially badminton bringing much recognition to her alma maters. She obtained her B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from Calicut University in 1985 and M.E. in Guided Missiles from Institute of Armament Technology (now Defence Institute of Advanced Technology), Pune in 1986 and PhD in Missile Guidance from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Hyderabad in 2014. She obtained MBA in Operations Management from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi, in 2007. 

The twist in her tale began when she secured an admission for her M.Tech in guidance missile at the Institute of Armament Technology, Pune, (under DRDO), which offered Rs.1200 as a monthly stipend. Abdul Kalam, who was chief at the time, spotter her for her work on gyro-less navigation, and suggested that she teach 50 odd scientists at DRDO. Dr. Thomas had joined IAT, Pune as a faculty member in Guided Missiles in the year 1986. She joined Inertial Navigation group as Scientist ‘B’ in 1988 at Hyderabad. She has been associated with Agni Programme right from its developmental flights. She has designed the guidance scheme for long range missile systems which is used in all Agni missiles. An energy management guidance scheme was designed and developed for the first time in the country for an all – solid propelled long range systems for which she was conferred with Agni Self Reliance Award in the year 2001. In her work spanning over three decades, Dr. Thomas has contributed much in guidance, trajectory simulation, and mission design. 

In her work spanning more than 32 years, she has contributed in various fields such as Guidance, Control, Inertial Navigation, Trajectory Simulation and Mission Design. She was leading a major project AGNI-4 as Project Director, for a state-of-art system with many new technologies for the first time and successfully flight tested and proven and was also Project Director (Mission) for the long range AGNI-5 system and successfully flight tested and proven. As Director, Advanced Systems Laboratory, DRDO, she held multi-dimensional roles and responsibilities and lead the development of strategic system. Presently, she is leading the Aeronautical Systems Cluster Laboratories as Director General. 

Dr. Tessy Thomas is the recipient of many prestigious awards including DRDO Agni Award for Excellence in Self-Reliance in 2001; DRDO Award for Path breaking Research/Outstanding Technology Development-2007; DRDO Scientist of the Year Award in 2008; DRDO Performance Excellence Award for Agni 4 in 2011; DRDO Performance Excellence Award for Agni 5 in 2012; Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration Academics and Management in 2012; Suman Sharma Award by The Institution of Engineers (India), National Design and Research Forum for Engineering Design in 2009; Smt. Chandaben Mohanbhai Patel Industrial Research Award for Women Scientists in 2009 by VASVIK; Maharana Udai Singh Award by Maharana Mewar Foundation Annual Awards for Contribution in the field of S&T in 2013; Madam Marie Curie Mahila Vijnana Puraskar in 2012; India Today Woman of the Year Award in 2009; CNN-IBN Indian of the Year Award in 2012; Shree Ratna Award by Kerala Kalakendram on International Women’s Day 2014, Outstanding Woman Award by National Commission for Women on International Women’s Day 2013; Vanita Ratnam Puraskaram – 2014 by Government of Kerala, Department of Social Justice, Dr. Y. Nayudamma Memorial Award for the Year 2014 for Outstanding Contributions in the field Missile Technology, “Bharat Ratna Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya Award-2016” towards outstanding contributions in the field of Engineering towards design, development and realization of indigenous missile systems by The Institution of Engineers (India), Telangana State Centre, Hyderabad, “Distinguished Woman Scientist Award” in 2016 for her contributions in the field of Missile Technology by Andhra Pradesh Science Congress, Andhra Pradesh Academy of Sciences. “Outstanding Woman Achiever” award in the field of Science and Technology by Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), India. 

She is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering (FNAE), Fellow of Telangana Academy of Sciences (FTAS), Fellow of Institution of Engineers India (FIE), Senior Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), Life Member of Astronautical Society of India (ASI), Life Member of Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI), Life Member of Indian National Society for Aerospace & Related Mechanisms (INSARM), Life Member of Indian Society for Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (ISAMPE), and Life Member of Society for Aerospace Quality and Reliability (SAQR). 

But Dr. Tessy Thomas is so much more than all these accolades. As Mahindra Group Chairman, Anand Mahindra, has said that a poster of Tessy in every Indian school will wreck stereotypes and create enormous career aspirations for girls. In her own words, science has no gender. When one woman makes a path, it inspires many more women to come that way. 

Source: Google search and wikipedia.

Lt. Garima Yadav

#77/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

While the most common stereotype is that beauty pageant winners end up in Bollywood, Lieutenant Garima Yadav, a former beauty pageant winner, had other plans when it came to her career. From being the winner of a beauty pageant to becoming an Army officer, this young lady’s journey is one to reckon with. 

In the year 2017, Lt. Yadav won a beauty pageant called ‘India’s Miss Charming Face’. After winning this pageant, she was invited to participate in the next beauty pageant at an international level in Italy. But she chose to serve the country. She has completed her studies from Army Public School and pursued her graduations with a Bachelor’s degree in economics from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi. But neither modelling nor army was her first career choice. She was a bright student and wanted to join the IAS but she wasn’t able to clear her IAS mains. Without losing hope she attempted the Combine Defence Services (CDS) exam. Not only she passed the written exam in her first attempt, but also cleared the Services Selection Board (SSB) interview and got into Officer's Training Academy (OTA), Chennai. The lady officer was commissioned into the Indian Army on March 9, 2019, after undergoing 11 months of rigorous training at the OTA. 

“I am a single mother-child, and she has been there for me in all my ups and downs, motivating me, she’s a strong woman and my true inspiration I just wanted to make her proud… I was preparing for civil services but I guess army was my true calling, I got recommended in my 1st attempt. Before that I was working as an MC for events as a part-time job, while preparing for exams, from there I was selected for a pageant called India’s Miss Charming Face’s auditions, I won the pageant in November 2017 and was selected for next pageant at international level which was to be held in Italy, but I chose to join OTA Chennai instead,” Garima said. 

Regarding her training, she adds, “I had a wonderful experience at the OTA. At first it was difficult for me to cope up with the tough training, the weather was also unfavorable. I did not have very good physical standards but somehow I managed for first few months, I didn’t give up and improved drastically. I actively participated in all curriculum activities. People have a wrong conception that you have to be good at all sports, physically strong to get selected in the SSB. That’s not true, you just should be willing to accept your weaknesses and work on them, should always endeavor to get better and better every day. One should be honest, positive, creative and solution orientated. That’s all you need, rest everything will follow.” 

On March 9, 2019, a total on 172 Gentlemen and Lady Cadets, including those belong to Bhutan and Afghanistan passed out from the OTA. Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, General Officer, Commander-in-Chief, reviewed the parade. Lt. Garima Yadav was one of the proud officers to be commissioned that day. 

Lt. Garima Yadav has broken all stereotypes, and chose to serve the country over a beauty pageant and a life of glamour and fame. We need more inspiring women like her to set a positive example for the young girls of this nation.

Source: Google search.

Ramona Hood

#76/100 in #100extraordinary 

FedEx recently made history by appointing Ramona Hood, the first ever African-American woman CEO in the company’s history on January 1, 2020. 

Ramona Hood started working with the company in 1991 when she was just 19-years-old as a receptionist. Back then the company was still called Roberts Express. She has operated in various capacities since then, leading the company’s FedEx Truckload Brokerage subsidiary, working as an officer at FedEx Supply Chain and serving as VP of operations, strategy, and planning. 28 years later, Ramona is now a CEO in the organization. She said she never thought she could go this far when she started working at FedEx as a teenager. “I was a young mother. I wanted a job that had a stable shift that would allow me to do [college] courses as appropriate. I wasn’t thinking this was going to be my career and I’d be here for 28 years,” she said. Talent, grit and hard work have all played a role in her rise. 

Now she will be leading the charge as head of the company’s Custom Critical division. As a new CEO, Ramona hopes to focus on gaining insight from employees, customers and independent contractors about ways to better operations. She even holds roundtable discussions with smaller groups of employees to really connect with all of the staff, learn from them, and find innovative ways to address customer needs. 

Ramona highlights that mentors also were crucial in her rare career path from receptionist to CEO of the 600-employee subsidiary. She explained how she consistently sought the advice and guidance of mentors. In an industry dominated by white men, Hood frequently was a trailblazer in terms of race or gender, and sometimes both. She recounted how seeking the support of Virginia Addicott, who retired as President and CEO in December, was crucial to her ascent. Ramona recalled how she was the only African American on the executive leadership team several years ago. 

“For whatever reason, I started to have issues with being the only African American,” she said. “I got the whole head trash, ‘Am I worthy? Did I deserve the seat I’m seating in?’” Ramona said she shared such thoughts with then CEO Virginia, who told her, “I’m a woman, but I don’t know what it means to be an African American person.” Still, she was confident she could help her mentee. About a month later, she scheduled a meeting between Ramona and some African American female executives, including one who owns her own marketing company. “I had nothing to do with marketing, but it was a way for her [Addicott] to connect me with someone at a high level, who looked like me,” Ramona said, adding that she gained a new mentor and friend from the introduction. "It is that level of intentionality that you have to have,” she said. Ramona seeks to head the subsidiary in the same spirit of being deliberate about diversity. “I know what I need to do to move the organization further ahead is be even more intentional,” she said. “I now have a team that has no women on it. I have one African American man. As I add positions to the team, I need to focus on the diversity I’m talking about.” 

Ramona Hood felt comfortable confiding in Virginia Addicott. When she met her, Ramona had little work experience and no college degree. She would later earn an undergraduate degree from Walsh University and an Executive MBA from Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management while working at FedEx. But the young woman had already shown promise, including taking the initiative to cross-train and fill-in on other jobs. Early on it was evident Ramona had a “good strategic mind,” wasn’t “afraid to tackle hard things” and took “100% accountability for the outcome of the work,” Virginia said. 

“People come into your work life and sometimes you just see things in them,” said Addicott. "It is very clear that the person has the ability, the aptitude to do these things, but they hadn’t been graced with the opportunity. Ramona was one of those people.” She credits Ramona with increasing revenue in the company’s truckload business by 30% while improving margins by 20%. 

Ramona succeeded, according to her peers, because she has a head for business, as well as logistics — and sets very high standards for herself, her team and anything put under her charge. “One of the things that makes Ramona very successful is she has a high bar — she has high expectations for herself and everyone around here and that’s very clear,” said Kevin McClellan, managing director for FedEx Custom Critical, which includes Hood’s Truckload Brokerage unit. She’s pretty direct — just ask her, she’ll tell you. “I’m pretty candid with the leadership group and with my team members,” she said. 

Ramona’s rise to the top was far from a fluke, but intentional on the part of the receptionist turned CEO. She explains her ability to climb the ladder was due to being “pretty intentional and purposeful with gaining experience” during her time at the company. She was also able to stand out among her colleagues by speaking up and offering fresh new ideas. Her FedEx bio lists her accomplishments and explains that over time, she began offering innovative and strategic ideas that distinguished her from her peers. One of her ideas was a program that would allow employees to work from home. “At that time, it was not common to have call centers where you would have individuals working from home,” she said. “I looked at our processes and the technology that we had, and I realized nothing was preventing us from that.” 

Ramona Hood has also succeeded, at least in part, because she’s been unafraid to leave her comfort zone on numerous occasions. She excelled in operations, but was still willing to take on a role in sales — and when she excelled there, she was willing to change again to go into executive leadership. 

In her initial days as CEO, Ramona plans to use her “Ramona Roundtables” method to communicate with employees and customers. “The next thing I’ll be doing is going out and spending time with customers and independent contractors,” she said. “I’m defining that as my ‘listen and learn tour.’” In the meantime, she will keep on doing what she does best — improving the sales and profitability of her business unit, mentoring her own associates. And squeezing in some volunteer work and family time in between. Ramona lives in Copley with her daughters, Mariah and Kayla. 

Source: Google search. 

Julia Stewart

#75/100 in #100extraordinarywomen 

Julia A. Stewart is an American businesswoman and was the chairman and CEO of the restaurant company formerly known as IHOP. DineEquity, America's largest casual dining company, had acquired and integrated Applebee’s International in 2008 and has since transitioned to a franchise model. 

Julia Stewart knows chain restaurants inside-out: She started as a food server (waitress) at an IHOP in San Diego. She loved the feedback every day and the family atmosphere. She worked her way through college in food service and continued there. After 18 years in marketing, she went into operations at Taco Bell and worked her way up and became head of all operations and licensing for Taco Bell. Applebee’s made her an offer she couldn’t refuse so she became president of Applebee’s. The promise was, turn it around and Applebee’s would make her the CEO. After about three and a-half years, she walked into the CEO’s office and he said, ‘No.’ So she became CEO of IHOP. Julia then proceeded to engineer a takeover of Applebee’s in 2007 (taking on $2.3 billion in debt to do so) and said goodbye to that man noting that there wasn’t a need for two CEOs. The company, later re-christened and publicly traded as DineEquity, had more than 3,600 Applebee’s and IHOP restaurants, almost all of them run by franchisees, with revenue of $669 million in 2015-16. She is often asked whether revenge tasted sweet, but she explains, “look, you don’t borrow $2.3 billion for revenge. You do it because you think you can add value.” 

Julia was born on August 4, 1955 in Visalia, a small city in an agricultural part of California, a very down-to-earth community. Her dad taught high school civics and U.S. history, and throughout her life she learned from his example—from how he approached his students. He wanted Julia to grow up and become a teacher too. He was convinced that teaching was the noblest profession and was livid and mortified when she decided to go into the restaurant business instead. But Julia insists that although she is known in business circles as a great mentor to her employees, she has actually inherited or rather learned that trait from her father. 

She applied her learning in all her areas, even in building up a workforce that treats both it’s customers as well as employees with respect. She followed a simple strategy and she wouldn’t hire a candidate for a senior position until she had gone out to dinner together with the person and had watched him or her interact with the food server. She believed that the ones who act friendly and seem genuinely interested in others have the capacity to become great teachers and coaches. The rude ones don’t—and they didn’t get hired. 

On the morning of Friday, February 17, 2017, Julia Stewart resigned from her position as Chief Executive Officer with DineEquity. During Julia’s 16+ years as CEO, she had a major impact on the company’s success, creating significant shareholder and franchisee value. Julia believes it is a privilege to lead and an imperative to give back. She is a founding member of the Women’s Foodservice Forum (WFF), a vital hospitality industry organization dedicated to the development and advancement of women; recipient of numerous awards including one of Forbes magazine 50 Most Powerful Women; serves on the Board of Directors for Avery Dennison since 2003 and is a Board Member for the Children’s Bureau of Southern California. 

Source: Google and Wikipedia. 

MacKenzie Bezos

#74/100 in #100extraordinarywomen 

MacKenzie Sheri Bezos (née Tuttle) is an American novelist and philanthropist. She is the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, to whom she was married from 1993 until their divorce in 2019. She has been in the news where mostly she was discussed “for landing on the Forbes list thanks to her divorce to the richest man in the world” or for basically getting her wealth from her ex-husband. That is exactly why I chose to put her on this list because in my personal opinion, she very much deserves every penny she got off her own accord and she deserves to be on that list because of her own merits. 

But first about the woman herself… MacKenzie S. Tuttle was born on April 7, 1970, in San Francisco, California, to a financial planner father and a homemaker mother, and she was a middle child with two siblings. At 6, she wrote a 142-page book called “The Book Worm”. Her parents sent her to Hotchkiss, the Connecticut boarding school, where she graduated a year early. She studied at Cambridge, then Princeton, where she majored in English; Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison was her thesis advisor. “She was generally a very poised and a quiet and brilliant presence,” says Jeff Nunokawa, one of her English professors. After graduating, she took a job at the hedge fund D.E. Shaw, where she began dating Jeff Bezos, who left to found Amazon in 1994. MacKenzie was a research associate at the firm where Bezos was a vice president. Her office was next door to his and three months after they began dating, in 1993, they were married. Twenty Five years and four children (three sons and one daughter adopted from China) later, the couple announced their divorce. 

Apparently, there was no prenup. And in Washington, where the couple lives, assets acquired after a prenup-less marriage are split 50/50. If you're married to the world's richest person (Jeff Bezos' net worth is USD 137 billion!) who is entirely self-made, do you deserve to get half? For MacKenzie Bezos, absolutely. For one simple reason: There would be no Amazon without her. 

While at D.E. Shaw, Bezos came up with the idea for Amazon. MacKenzie was supportive from the beginning, despite the high probability that his venture would fail (almost all startups at the time did and still do). Brad Stone writes in “The Everything Store”, “At the time, Bezos was newly married, with a comfortable apartment on the Upper West Side and a well-paying job. While MacKenzie said she would be supportive if he decided to strike out on his own, the decision was not an easy one.” 

In 1994, at age 30 and 24 respectively, Jeff and MacKenzie decided to blow up their cushy lives. They road tripped across the country in search of a new home and headquarters for Amazon. MacKenzie drove while Jeff Bezos punched out a business plan and revenue projections in the passenger seat. After starting in Texas and buying an old beat up car, they wound up in Seattle. The pair brainstormed the name “Amazon” together after almost choosing a different name, Relentless.com. MacKenzie became Amazon's first accountant, despite the fact that she was an aspiring novelist. 

MacKenzie Bezos was not fussy, which was helpful, as there was no time for fussiness at Amazon headquarters in early 1996. She shared her office with a junior employee in a space that doubled as the company kitchen. For 12 hours a day, as workers squeezed by to use the microwave, she presided over the accounting. At night she headed to the warehouse to pack orders. She did a lot of other grunt work, like most early startup employees do, from driving book orders to the post office to handling the company's bank account and line of credit. She met early Amazon investor John Doerr and partied with the team in Mexico after Amazon's IPO. From the outset, MacKenzie was heavily involved. “No one really had job titles . . . so she did just about everything,” says Tod Nelson, another early employee. She “was a huge contributor,” says Mike Hanlon, Amazon’s seventh employee. “She really is a talented person in a way that I think gets lost when you’re the billionaire’s wife.” She largely slipped into anonymity after Amazon’s early years at least as far as her presence in the company is concerned. She was a founding member of Amazon, but there's another reason she deserves half of the USD 137 billion Amazon fortune. 

Beyond her early role in the company is the significant role any spouse plays in a partner's career. Both Warren Buffett and Sheryl Sandberg say that the most important career decision you can make is who you marry. Sure, there's the sacrifice one partner might make to allow the other to pursue a demanding career. But that's not what Warren Buffett was getting at. “Marry the right person,” he said at the 2009 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. “I'm serious about that. It will make more difference in your life. It will change your aspirations, all kinds of things.” Would the notion of opening an online bookstore have taken hold of Jeff Bezos as forcibly if he hadn't met MacKenzie? Would he have executed on that vision in the same way, hired the same people and taken the same kinds of risks with a different partner? Obviously these are impossible questions to answer. But it's not outrageous to suggest that a person's motivations, attitudes and goals are influenced by the most important person in their life. Regardless of whether a spouse is listed as a partner on a business masthead, many couples operate as a team focused on a grander, overarching enterprise and working in tandem to achieve common goals. That's part of the reason why many state laws recognize the concept of community property. Buffett has said that without his first wife Susi, who died in 2004, he would not have built his fortune. “What happened with me would not have happened without her,” he said in a 2017 HBO documentary. What happened to Jeff Bezos would not have happened without MacKenzie. 

MacKenzie pulled back around the time Amazon went public, in 1997, to focus on fiction writing. She kept a low profile until 2005, when HarperCollins published her first novel, “The Testing of Luther Albright”. Morrison deemed it “a rarity.” MacKen­zie followed it in 2013 with “Traps”. While Jeff Bezos was pursuing his own dream, MacKenzie had largely sacrificed her own which she eventually took up once Jeff’s dream baby was in a more comfortable position. When she needs to write, MacKenzie retreats to her own small apartment, where she writes until it's time to pick the kids up from school. Until 2013, MacKenzie still drove their four kids to school and then dropped Jeff off to work in their Honda. Moreover, In 2014, she founded the anti-bullying organization Bystander Revolution, where she serves as executive director. 

So, when the couple announced their intent to divorce in January 2019, MacKenzie Bezos deserved half of the Amazon fortune and not the trolls around becoming rich for nothing. She eventually settled for half of what she deserved both legally and morally. They divorced in mid 2019. As part of the divorce settlement, Jeff transferred 25% of his Amazon stake to MacKenzie, which was 4% of the company; making her the third richest woman in the world and the 15th richest person on the Forbes list. 

Moreover, less than two months after finalizing her divorce from the richest man in the world, MacKenzie Bezos declared her intention to give away at least half her wealth – currently USD 36.6 billion – over her lifetime or in her will. In a letter announcing that she had signed Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’s Giving Pledge, MacKenzie wrote, “I have a disproportionate amount of money to share. My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.” True to form, she hasn’t said a word about where those billions will go. It also not-so-subtly brings to mind another person who has “a disproportionate amount of money to share” but has chosen to keep it mostly to himself and/or to build spaceships. (Jeff Bezos had once said in an interview that he couldn’t think of a way to spend his vast fortune outside of funding for-profit rocket-ship company Blue Origin.) 

Source: Google and Wikipedia.