With extensive expertise in numerous sectors of business, Arungalai Anbarasu, Chief Technology & Strategy Officer of Waygate Technologies, is an authentic, purpose-driven, results-oriented, disruptive, and experienced global business leader. She also spent more than a decade at GE, where she held key positions in the Global Research Centre, Oil & Gas, Power Conversion, Healthcare, and Renewables. She is included in the Top 100 Women in Technology and the 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology lists. She is committed to promoting women in STEM professions and continues to look for ways to help this cause.
Below are highlights of the interview:
Describe who you are as a person, inside and outside of the workplace.
Let me start by saying, it’s exhausting to be a different person in different scenarios. Being your own authentic self is always easier and more fulfilling. Therefore, I would describe myself as a mother first, and that holds priority in and out of the workplace, and then a dedicated, resilient, empathetic, and outcome driven leader.
Tell us the inception story of Waygate Technologies.
Waygate Technologies is an industrial inspection solutions company and world leader in so called nondestructive testing or NDT. In general you could say that we provide peace of mind to all kinds of manufacturers in automotive, aerospace, electronics and energy globally by ensuring quality and safety in production through our technologies.
We used to be a part of GE in the past, but today belong to the Baker Hughes corporation, both players were once connected within a major merger in the energy sector. Our rebranding, timed in coordination with the Baker Hughes separation from GE two years ago, made the time ripe for rebranding ourselves. Waygate Technologies’ name comes from the term “Waygate”, which on the one hand denotes a gate or checkpoint, which is what we represent. We are a checkpoint for all our customers’ products and processes, and on the other hand we also provide them with a path to innovation accompanying them on their ‘way’ so-to-speak.
There is a strong push within our business to drive innovations and deliver data and insights that provide exponential improvements in productivity and safety to our customers. This push springboards from our truly pioneering legacy – we are proud to count Seifert, Krautkrämer, Phoenix, and Everest among our historical brands – but also heralds a new age of innovation, cross-modality data access, management, and fusion, as well as advanced analytics and analysis.
In your own words, what makes Waygate Technologies different from its competitors?
Waygate Technologies has the broadest breadth of portfolios and enjoys a leadership position in a large majority of them. Among others, we are global leaders in industrial X-ray and Computed Tomography (CT) inspection equipment and consider our industrial borescopes for visual inspection the best in the market. While we have a truly global DNA, most of our solutions are ”made in Germany” – a label that still stands for an advanced quality customers trust in.
Our combination of breadth – visual, ultrasound, X-ray, CT, eddy current, portables, handhelds, testing machines, cloud services, etc. – has us placed in a very unique position to deliver market and award winning cross-modality insights to our customers. The world is moving away from data at single units of time, space, modality.
Think of your cell phone – phones have since the time of the Blackberry been able to both browse the net and make reservations at restaurants. Today, however, you can ask Siri for restaurant recommendations and “she” can understand from your browsing history that it is your spouse’s birthday, remember his/her favorite restaurant, know which table you prefer, and can create a reservation and remember to add a note to your reservation that you are allergic to shellfish. In other words, we are moving away from delivering individual pieces of data and recognizing the exponential value of connecting disparate pieces of information. The inspection and quality industry are going there, and Waygate Technologies is uniquely positioned to get the industry to that point – where we can look at the powder metallurgy via a CT powder scan, look at the engine blade cast from this powder via an X-ray, assess the assembly quality of the blade into an engine using ultrasound, and inspect the engine on the wing of an aircraft using visual inspection – AND then connect all this data via our cloud services and analytics and deliver it back to the OEM with information that they can use to make a much better generation of blades next time around. Waygate Technologies will take our customers from detecting defects to avoiding them altogether.
How do you motivate people to go the extra mile?
The key is empathy and authenticity. This builds a trustful relationship, which then breeds into a fruitful partnership when we undertake challenges and fulfill transformational activities successfully.
Create a vision that others can follow and assist in driving it to completion.
Lastly, giving the freedom for the team to create and develop creatively within the boundaries of compliance, ethics, and safety.
People make a business; a business does not make people. So, a business will be successful only if we focus on the people. And if we all align on common values that employees can trust in.
What sort of characteristics in employees contribute to success?
Every role is different, and every skill needed to succeed is different. That said, employees with authenticity, passion, flexibility, and adaptability would be key.
Is it true that solid gender diverse leaders have better chances of attracting gender diverse talent?
Absolutely, it is natural to be inspired by role models, and anything we can identify directly with helps. Secondly, it signals that the workplace provides opportunities for gender diverse talents.
Kindly describe how you will specifically know what success looks like for you.
Wholesome success looks like health, happiness, safety, love, and the ability to give back to society.
What gets you up in the morning? What inspires you?
My daughter ‘Ada’. She is up bright and early, full of hope for the most wonderful day to come! Her optimism and excitement about making every day the best it can be is contagious. She inspires me.
Following in her footsteps, these days, I wake up excited about the innovations we are creating at Waygate Technologies to drive peace of mind for our customers through safety, quality, and productivity. Every day, our technology helps our customers avoid battery explosions, aircraft engine malfunctions, and many more.
Website: www.bakerhughes.com
