Toastmasters Experience and Leadership
Membership: November 1, 2009.
Offices Held:
District Roles: District 63 Logistics Manager (July 2025 – June 2026), District 63 Realignment Chair (2024), District 63 Spring Conference Chair (2023), and District 63 Area Director (two terms: July 2023 – June 2024, July 2022 – June 2023).
Club Roles: Bridgestone Babblers Club President (two terms), Vice President Education (three terms), and Sergeant at Arms; and Harris Speakez Club Vice President Public Relations.
Honors: In strategic planning, she co-created and now manage D63 Power Hour, a bimonthly educational program developed to meet objectives for member engagement and knowledge transfer, covering topics like Pathways navigation and contest strategies.
Professional Background and Skills
Education: Holds a Bachelor of Software Engineering with a Minor in Business Administration from Auburn University and a Certification in Systems Engineering from Florida Institute of Technology. She is an Advanced Certified Scrum Developer, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), and Certified Scrum Developer (CSD) from Scrum Alliance.
Professional Experience: Chiitra has served as a Software Engineering Manager for five years, leading 10–15 remote software engineers across multiple agile scrum teams and applications. Core responsibilities include performance management, career development coaching, process optimization, and strategic cross-functional collaboration. She is the department owner of the Software Security Scanning process. Leading geographically dispersed teams has developed skills in adaptive communication, remote coordination, and fostering inclusive team cultures. Chiitra architected comprehensive deployment workflows, including validation checklists and documentation templates, and maintain a disciplined biannual review cycle for all procedures, prioritizing inclusive stakeholder engagement to ensure buy-in and clarity. As a volunteer, she serves as the Vacation Bible School Director, where she implemented a data-driven approach using post-event surveys to inform strategic priorities and initiate long-range planning.
Leadership Philosophy
Chiitra embraces a servant leadership philosophy. Her philosophy is centered on the following principles:
Communication and Recognition: Effective communication and active listening are the cornerstone of successful leadership. She believes positive recognition significantly outweighs criticism in driving sustained excellence and that members are motivated when they feel genuinely recognized, understood, and respected.
Humility and Support: Proactively solicit feedback, candidly acknowledge the limits of her knowledge, and demonstrate an unwavering commitment to finding solutions and supporting the team.
Continuous Learning: Chiitra is committed to continuous learning and multidimensional personal development, which fuels her passion for supporting others’ developmental journeys.