Shantha Mohan

Shantha Mohan is an Indian-American businessperson and a writer. She is known for cofounding Retail Solutions Inc. and authoring books on leadership and pioneering Indian Women Engineers. Following retirement, she has been serving as an instructor at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley, where she teachers career strategies and leadership and mentors students and staff.

Early life and education

Shantha Mohan was born in India. She graduated from College of Engineering, Guindy in 1971 with B.E (Hons) in Electronics and Communication Engineering. She received her PhD in Operations Management in 1985 from Tepper Business School, Carnegie Mellon University. which was later acquired by Applied Materials. She worked as VP of Software Engineering with responsibility for the development of manufacturing execution systems such as FAB300.

In 2003, she cofounded T3Ci (The Tag Tracking Company) along with Jonathan Golovin, Richard Swan and Peter Rieman. It specialized in analyzing RFID data. But soon after Walmart stopped its mandate of using RFID tags, the company pivoted towards providing software for business intelligence and point-of-sale applications. They established themselves as Retail Solutions Inc. Shantha worked as chief development officer of the company whose customers included over 500 consumer products companies. She retired in 2016. RSI was acquired by Information Resources, Inc. in 2020.

Following her retirement, she has been serving as an instructor at Integrated Innovation Institute, CMU Silicon Valley. She contributes to curricula and mentors students' projects.

Writing

After her retirement, she has focused on writing books on the role of women in engineering and leadership. Roots and Wings tells the inspiring stories of the first female engineers of India including Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha who graduated from College of Engineering, Guindy, between 1943 and 1971. In Leadership Lessons with Beatles, she shared the lessons of leadership from her own experience, relating each lesson to a Beatles song.

Publications

Books

Patents

Selected papers