Kirthi is a strong believer of the principle “be the leader you wish you had” and that has consistently guided her leadership journey. To her, leadership is all about empathy, a growth mindset, and the ability to bring transformation together as a team and deliver results that matter.
Her passion for leadership began early during her childhood. As a young cadet leader of NCC (a youth organization in India), she led school teams through challenging camp environments, stepping up to organize activities, collaborate with locals, and safely guide her team during unfamiliar situations. Those formative experiences shaped her confidence in leading through uncertainty and reinforced the importance of resilience and adaptability.
Growing up, Kirthi also witnessed the strength and sacrifice it took for her mom to prioritize family while sustaining a career. This set an influential example on the importance of independence and hard work, however on the other hand, it also meant putting personal career growth on hold. While being deeply grateful for those sacrifices, Kirthi developed her own perspective that women should never have to choose between growth and responsibility. In today’s world, where technology and evolving workplaces enable greater flexibility, she strongly believes that women can and should aspire to achieve both.
Today, Kirthi leads the Global Automation and Integration team across multiple regions and time-zones, driving efficiency and transformation in procurement and supply chain operations. With a strong foundation in technology and business, she brings a systems-thinking approach to enable digital transformation, leveraging advanced automation to modernize processes and deliver measurable impact.
As a seasoned leader and a mother, herself, she shares a few guiding principles that can help first-time leaders set their teams up for success:
1. A Leader is someone’s first and most approachable mentor: Reassuring support for creative and innovative solutions opens the space for the team to build a long-term success.
2. Know your team's strengths and weaknesses: Every team member brings a unique background and set of challenges. Understand what works well for each of them also trying to bridge the gap on what they should improve.
3. Learning becomes a necessity to grow: While the employees should be offered an empowered environment to open up about their strengths and weaknesses, a leader should enable them to pursue necessary learning as a catalyst.
4. Embrace versatile skill sets: Allow room for employees to display diverse skill sets. Sometimes, a simple soft skill could also become an unexpected game changer in a business scenario.
Learn more: https://careers.caterpillar.com
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