Creating Southern Africa’s leading provider of tech education takes more than just having the most talented team out there. It also requires a mindset of growth, development, and leadership, so that the talent you have can continue growing to become widely-skilled and highly-experienced leaders. In this HyperionDev Leadership story, we look at Amiya Sharma, our Head of Wellness, whose years of experience and hard work have allowed her to rocket from one leadership role to next. Today, she oversees more than just the financial health of the company – she also also heads up the Talent and PeopleOps departments that make sure the company is able to attract, hire, engage and retain the best of talent.
Amiya has a Master’s in Economics from Delhi University and nearly a decade of experience in business process consultancy and project management. However, her interest in helping people – particularly the youth – through education pushed her to work in a range of positions in the social sector. Amiya joined us as a manager of sales and operations, before taking on the position of Head of Mentorship for HyperionDev bootcamps. She moved on to leading the delivery and management of our globally pioneering work in providing code-review-as-a-service, before taking up her current position as Head of Wellness.
How does your current role at HyperionDev fit with what you wanted to do before joining our team?
While I was consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), I made a conscious shift from management consulting to social impact consulting to align better with my broader sense of purpose. I moved into education, which has this real power to transform the lives of and opportunities for thousands of people and communities. I worked with bilateral and multilateral organisations to design and implement programs focused on skills-based education. Soon after this, I moved to Cape Town – and this was the starting point of my work with HyperionDev, as Riaz Moola and his HyperionDev team were then planning the launch of a similar program.
Why did you switch career streams to this new one?
Though I enjoyed my consulting days, as a consultant you’re usually ‘on the outside’. Even though you may be working on complex solutions or detailed plans for a client, your involvement stops at a certain stage or point in time, which can be immensely frustrating. Being ‘on the inside team’ of an ambitious, audacious, fast-growing business has been amazing: ever since I joined HyperionDev, I’ve headed up and moved through three different functions at the company, and currently I lead the Wellness division which consists of our finance, strategy, talent, and people operations functions.
What drew you to joining HyperionDev?
The purpose-driven mission, and the very ambitious and clearly talented team led by Riaz. I met with him a few times before I came onboard. He had a very compelling vision and I wanted to be a part of making it a reality.
What are your biggest achievements since you joined HyperionDev?
I’ve held different roles within the company since 2017, and whenever I headed up a new function, a big part of my job would be to bring more process and structure to it and set the team up for success. In the time that I’ve joined, our team has grown five-fold and the business has seen 12-15x growth, and to have been a core part of the team strategizing, planning and achieving this has been very exciting and personally fulfilling. We’ve navigated through many curveballs including COVID-19 quite well, and I believe that’s testament to our resilience, planning, and agility in decision-making, which makes me very proud!
How do you keep yourself up skilled and knowledgeable in your field of expertise?
I usually follow a couple of wide-umbrella podcasts, such as Conversations with Tyler, to get recommendations on more things to read, learn, or check out!
How would you describe the culture of HyperionDev?
I would describe HyperionDev and its culture with three words. The first is “innovative”: we believe in solving problems in new, better ways. The second is “progressive”, because we are always moving ahead, learning, and evolving to stay ahead of the curves of life and the tech industry. And finally, “challenging”, in a positive sense that we push ourselves and team members to do the best we can
In your own words, why should talented people come and work in your team?
There are so many reasons, but the main one I give is always from my own experiences: education and tech are rapidly growing sectors. There’s real opportunity in them for people who want to buckle down to do some good; and there’s some great rewards to be enjoyed from working hard.
Of our core values do most strongly identify with?
‘Progress Always’ is the one that resonates most with me. I value the idea of growth for individuals, communities, organisations. To be able to challenge yourself, objectively learn from it, reflect, grow, evolve… feels like the essence of ‘being’ for me.
Are you an A-player and a talented professional who cares about accessible tech education? Do you want to make a difference in the lives of people looking to uplift their lives through a tech education? If so, we’re looking for people like you to join the team leading Southern Africa’s largest provider of tech education. Our diverse, international team enjoys medical aid packages, remote working allowances, a generous leave policy, and real avenues for career growth and promotion.
Visit our career page to see all our available positions and apply to join our team today!
