We continue our chat with special guest Mangalam Srinivasan touching upon the irony of the Silicon Valley business pioneer household names today that were born out of the California counter culture.

Our conversation winds through memorable moments in Dr Srinivasan’s career and life as an advisor to Indian PM Indira Gandhi, the non-aligned summit lunch where Fidel Castro insisted on sitting next to her, and where she was the only civilian and only other woman besides Mme Gandhi, advising the Taiwanese government in the 1980s (where my brother and I were, incidentally, the first American children to visit), journeying to the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan as the guest of HRH the King of Bhutan in the 1980s and more.

An academic by vocation, Dr. Srinivasan has held international faculty & research appointments including at Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Northeastern, University of Madras, American University & UC Berkeley, served on global corporate & advisory boards, as an S&T advisor to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi & was one of the first distinguished female fellows invited to Harvard (CFIA) in the 1970s.

In addition to academia, she has either worked (often as the first woman) or served on the Boards of organizations as diverse as the World Bank, Wells Fargo, Arthur D. Little, United Nations, the Forsythe Institue, National Academy Of Sciences, NSF, State Bank of India (first woman there) and several notable technology companies from the 1960s on.

She has listed companies on the NYSE, Nasdaq, Euronext & the BSE, and hAs also served as an advisor to heads of states, governments and apex scientific, corporate and academic institutions in various capacities. She seems to be everywhere something happened much like Forrest Gump.

Finally, Dr. Srinivasan also happens to be my Mother. (Pause for laughter), in the second part or our conversation we’re going to chat about some of her experiences.

This is part 2 of a two part episode.

This episode originally aired August 21, 2022

With Dr. Mangalam Srinivasan, Academic/Scholar, Corporate Board Member, Advisor to Indian PM Indira Gandhi

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