Chandramouli (Chandra) Vijjhala is the former head of John Deere’s global IT organization in Pune and Bangalore, India, driving Agile operating model transformation at the centers in India. He served on the country leadership team guiding John Deere IT strategy. He also had the additional responsibility of leading the IT infrastructure and operations for John Deere in Asia-Pacific, as well as global digital operations.

Vijjhala has a 27-year track record of successfully leading, growing, and transforming organizations, centers of excellence for global operations, delivery, and innovation.

He recently transitioned to a new role as president of the American Airlines India Technology Capability Center based in Hyderabad. His responsibilities will include building and growing a team in Hyderabad, driving resiliency in delivery, maintaining excellence in engineering, and modernizing technology.

While at John Deere, he established a new center at Bangalore and built new Agile spaces within 18 months. As a member of the company’s leadership team in India, he drove the digital strategy for the India business, ensuring 100% digital literacy.

Vijjhala is a strong advocate for women in engineering and technology. He intentionally includes diverse members on every initiative team with the intent of influencing organizational cultural change. He focuses on growing diversity at all leadership levels and staying personally involved in interviewing and hiring, resulting in an increase of women in leadership roles from 10% to 24%.

To cultivate leadership and technical skills in women, Vijjhala also helped start programs such as Women in Technology and Women in Leadership. He continues to sensitize leadership, direct staff, and employees to the importance of diversity and inclusion. For example, trainings such as “Be a Bias Detective” are executed in small groups, eventually covering all employees, helping them understand bias and how to identify it in themselves. Vijjhala participated in a yearlong Men as Diversity Partners program to better understand his own biases and afterward created an action plan for both personal and organizational levels.

Prior to John Deere, Vijjhala worked for General Electric for 21 years as chief information officer, chief technology officer, team leader, and software engineer.

Vijjhala has led John Deere India to many honors, including “Best Place to Work for Women” and the India Workplace Equity Index Gold Employer Award. As part of John Deere’s corporate social responsibility efforts, he and his team adopted a village in India, focusing on building digital skills for children and adults and ensuring girls are motivated to learn STEM.

Vijjhala earned a B.E. in electronics and communication at Bangalore University and holds a Six Sigma black belt. He and his family are the founding members of Annapoorna Charitable Trust, which provides housing and a school for orphaned children. He enjoys running, trekking, traveling, and playing badminton.