It's all about dreaming 'BIG'

"My biggest strength in life is my family. Had it not been the constant support of my family, I would have never achieved the path of glory and success"

Vijaya Verma, Founder and CEO, Yos Technologies

Job Profile: Being the founder of Yos Technologies and with a total work experience of 25 years in the IT industry, Vijaya Verma is one of the successful women players in the industry today. The lady is responsible for technical design, market and business development, capital raising and technology evangelization. However, her forte is building products, teams and companies from scratch.

Yos Technologies is a Healthcare-IT company, formed with a vision to improve quality of healthcare and operational efficiencies of its providers, and enhance the healthcare experience for consumers through an innovative interconnect of the healthcare ecosystem.

Background: Born in London and brought up in Baroda, Verma has completed her M-Tech from IIT Mumbai and has been living in Bengaluru for the past 28 years now. Prior to founding Yos Technologies, she was the founder and the chief force behind Alopa Networks, one of the earliest company providing end-to-end OSS product solutions in the broadband space. Alopa was founded in 1999 and Verma was responsible for capital raising, business planning and providing technology vision and strategic directions to the company.

Alopa became one of the top three broadband OSS vendors within three years of its inception, and its flagship product had over 50 customers across the globe.

Earlier, as a General Manager in Wipro, Verma was in-charge of the Product Division, handling technical, marketing and financial planning for Cyber Manage, a unique Java-based web-based network management product, which was successfully marketed and sold worldwide. She also handled many projects for the US and AsiaPac customers, including Intel, UB Networks, Acer, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, etc.

Currently, the employee-base of Verma's Yos Technologies is 40 and they have shifted their business model by selling their products to hospitals directly. Recently, they have tied-up with 40 hospitals of which 30 are in Bengaluru and the rest in Karnataka, Chennai, Mysore, Pellari and many more cities. She has plans to further extend her collaboration in Hyderabad and Kerala and aims to reach out to 150 hospitals in this FY.

Inspiration: Verma proudly admits that her father is her biggest inspiration in her life. She says, “He is a self-made man and has gone through a lot of hardships in his life. In his younger days he used to work and earn at the same time. He was a Finance Director at IPCL (Investment and Precision Castings Ltd).” According to Verma, her father never held any grudges against anybody and always believed in working religiously. She is happy to have inherited this quality of his at a very young age. “My husband relates to a large extent like my father and that is one of the core reason I liked him and we got hooked,” shared Verma.

Strengths: Verma describes her family and team-support to be the biggest strength in her life. “Had it not been the constant support of my family, I would have never achieved the path of glory and success,” said Verma.

Recalling one of the most memorable episodes when she was admitted in a hospital in 2005, and was diagnosed with Arthritis, Verma said, “I remember holding a board meeting in the hospital and the CEO of C-COR had

stepped down to Bengaluru. I had no options but to give my presentation and I requested the hospital authorities to share a vacant room with us for the presentation.” But also at the same time Verma accepts that she is a little impatient for some matters and does need to overcome this quality in future.

Hobbies: Reading and music are the favorite past times of Verma. She claims that she is an avid reader of fiction novels. She prefers reading books by Shashi Deshpande amongst the Indian authors and Agatha Christie amongst the English authors. Interestingly she was involved in a group by the name 'Eleventh Hour' during her college days, which is still very much in action. Verma was the lead singer of the group, that performed mainly for charity concerts, based on the subject 'Light for education'. She always dreamt of learning at least one musical instrument and has chosen to learn the piano. She also loves catching up on movies once in every two weeks with her husband.

Dislikes: Verma hates the flaunting nature in people in every manner and also hates people who like to show off their wealth. Instead she would prefer the company of humble people who think in similar ways, as she does.

Success Mantra: The success mantra in Verma's life is 'Think big and Do big'.

Minakshi sheTty

(minakshis@cybermedia.co.in)