Faces of Unity – Archana Rao

What are your personal values, and what Unity values do you gravitate towards the most?

My personal values are anchored in encouraging diverse views while operating with a high degree of ethics and accountability.

I love all the Unity values, but I especially connect with Go Bold, as it relates to staying curious and hungry. I’m never satisfied! There is always room to go faster, do bigger things, and make more impact.

Can you share any fun facts about yourself?

I love to learn and need constant challenges, so my career has been an unusual zigzag path through roles in engineering, business development, and IT.

I grew up in a small town in India and always wanted to be an engineer, although I would never have dreamed that I’d be a CIO one day. Despite my small-town origins, I was lucky to receive tremendous encouragement from my parents, teachers, friends, and mentors. I would not be here without them. I hope to pay this forward, and love to invest in building, mentoring, and growing diverse teams.

When I was little, I was really, really scared of dogs. I got chased by a large dog as a kid and that scarred me quite a bit. But, thanks to the insistence of my kids and husband (who had a lovely Labrador growing up!), we now have two amazing dogs: Cleo, our happy-go-lucky 10-month-old Labradoodle, and Rusty, our effervescent Golden Retriever. They are the loves of my life, and I now really enjoy meeting dogs and basking in their loyalty and joie de vivre.