Are you thinking of transitioning from corporate to a startup or scale-up but unsure how to pull it off?
Join me as I interview Manisha Athukorala to reveal her playbook to move from 9-to-5 corporate comfort to scale-up hustle.
In this episode, we’ll discover:
- How her move to Uber Eats was the start of a career spanning multiple roles, industries and continents.
- How Manisha prepares for her new scale-up jobs and where intuition fits in that process.
- Her roadmap for navigating a fast-changing leadership environment.
Plus, you’ll learn why Manisha believes that intersectionality is the key to more inclusion in tech.
Click the play below to listen or use one of the links to the podcast throughout this blog post.
How to Move from 9-to-5 Corporate to Startup Impact with Manisha Athukorala | Ep. 72 – Women Disrupting Tech
Timestamps
6:53 Transitioning from Corporate Job to Startups
9:52 De-risking the change
15:50 Cultural Adaptation and Team Dynamics
19:52 Building relationships in a changing environment
26:45 Kindness and empathy in leadership
31:45 The importance of intersectionality and allyship
40:29 Shifting problem ownership of diversity
44:15 The recipe for successfully changing industries
46:45 Preparing for a new job
52:40 Honing in on intuition when selecting a new employer
55:00 Her connections to the guides on her journey
59:00 diversity as a business problem
- Timestamps
- The magic you can expect in this episode 🪄
- Free ways to support the Women Disrupting Tech
- What makes this episode magical🌟?
- About Manisha Athukorala
- Let me know what you think!
- What’s coming up?
- More episodes like this?
The magic you can expect in this episode 🪄
If you love innovation, the startup world is where you can make a bigger impact than in a traditional nine-to-five corporate job.
But making the leap from a structured corporate role to the fast-moving world of startups can feel daunting. Navigating uncertainty, adjusting to new cultures, and finding your footing in a “white space” environment can be challenging.
If you’re contemplating making this change, then episode 72 of Women Disrupting Tech is your playbook for shifting careers. ️
Manisha Athukorala shares her journey from consulting large companies to scaling teams at Uber Eats, Sword Health, and Mews. We cover:
📈 Moving from a step-by-step corporate environment to a startup with the freedom to build.
🔍 Doing due diligence and preparing for new opportunities.
🤝 Focusing on fundamentals to navigate a fast-changing leadership environment.
Plus, you’ll learn why Manisha believes that intersectionality holds the key to bringing more people into the diversity debate.
Are you ready to dive in? Click the button below to listen to the episode on Spotify.
Free ways to support the Women Disrupting Tech
When you’re ready to support my guests in making this podcast obsolete by the end of 2032, help out by doing these two things:
- Use the share buttons below to share the podcast with friends, family, and co-workers. This way, you give the women disrupting tech the platform they need to make it happen. Use the buttons below to share.
- Rate the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Better yet, leave a review. You can use a rating of one to five stars. This will help other people discover the podcast. And if you leave a review, it will help me improve.
What makes this episode magical🌟?
Manisha saw, much earlier than I did, that people who work in consultancy and banking are wearing golden handcuffs. They have 20-, 30-, or 40-year careers, and because of the money, they cannot see themselves doing anything else. She decided to stay true to herself and discover her own path.
She explored, very diligently, how her knowledge and experience could provide value at Uber and how it empowered her to take on a new adventure. That is a process that she refined throughout her career and it’s a theme that surfaces at different stages of the episode.
Another theme that comes up is having a plan and then taking opportunities as they come. Even if you’re not prepared. Like when she went to lead the partnerships team in New York. It’s a magical story about seemingly taking a step back to discover that she skipped what would be 10 years in a corporate career.
“A pair of fresh eyes is a powerful thing to have.”
Manisha Athukorala, VP of Global Deployment and Customer Engagement at Mews
About Manisha Athukorala
Manisha Athukorala is VP of Global Deployment and Customer Engagement at Mews, an Amsterdam-based hospitality scale-up.
Her career spans various roles, industries and continents. She has worked for companies like KPMG, ANZ, Uber Eats, and Sword Health. On the way, she led teams of different sizes and scopes and concluded landmark deals with brands like Unilever, Starbucks and Subway.
She started at Mews on 1 October 2024 and you can connect with her on LinkedIn.
Let me know what you think!
Please let me know if this episode of Women Disrupting Tech was helpful in planning a move into the startup ecosystem. You can leave your thoughts and observations in the comments below this post.
Also, if you have any questions about building a career in the startup ecosystem or want to share experiences, put them in the comments.
And if you would like to suggest a guest that I absolutely must have on the podcast, send me an email or a DM on LinkedIn.
What’s coming up?
Next week on Women Disrupting Tech, we have an exciting episode about how female founders can call out investor biases. Fleur van Leijsen is my guest to discuss how the questions that she developed as part of her graduation can be of help.
Speaking of biases, in the episode that follows, we’ll discover that playing with dolls does not bar women from choosing a career in tech. Sara Legesse is our guide and role model on that journey.
So stay tuned for more inspiring women disrupting tech and their male allies in season three of Women Disrupting Tech!
More episodes like this?
It’s always difficult to compare, but if there are two episodes that I’d like you to listen to it’s these:
– In episode 49, Arosha Brouwer highlights that you cannot build great products if you don’t care for the people building it.
– In Episode 45, Alexa Lane teaches us how to create a recruiting playbook for your startup from scratch.
Women Disrupting Tech | The Podcast 
Hi,
Thank you for sharing the insights from Manisha Athukorala’s episode! Her journey from a 9-to-5 corporate job to making a bigger impact in the tech world is truly inspiring. I love how the episode emphasizes the importance of scaling up your influence. Do you have any advice for someone looking to make a similar transition, especially in terms of overcoming the fear of stepping away from a traditional career path? Looking forward to more episodes like this!
LikeLike
Great episode! Manisha’s story of moving from a 9-to-5 job to making a bigger impact is really inspiring. Any advice for someone who wants to make that change too? Thanks for sharing
LikeLike
Thank you. To me the most tip from the episode was to ask around in your own network about doing this. If your network supports the move, you might as well try. Another tip: if your parents have a couch, there is always some place to move back to.
LikeLike