Ascend employees are the heart and soul of our company, and every employee changes lives with their hard work. We hope you enjoy getting to know one of our employees in this profile.

Shivani Munjal, a new member to the Ascend family, is a product manager at Public Safety Group and works in Burlington, Massachusetts. Product managers are often described as “CEOs of their products” which essentially means that Shivani collaborates with sales, marketing and technology to ensure that her team is selling the products they have built and continuing to build products that will sell. 

While Shivani has been with Ascend for less than a year, she looks forward to coming into work each day because of the collaborative culture of the various cross-functional teams that her role touches, fostering a sense of family and belonging. Shivani stands by the Ascend value of “courageous” as she emphasizes the importance of making decisions without the fear of failing and the valuable learning that comes along with it. 

 

What is one career lesson you’ve learned?

Always make the right decision for the business without worrying about who gets the credit.

 

Before working at Ascend, what was the most unusual or interesting job you’ve ever had?

I started my career working at IBM as a Java and DB2 developer. After being in the role for a few years I realized I needed more people interaction rather than interacting with code all day. I also wanted to learn how one of the most successful IT companies goes to market and makes money. With a great leap of faith, I took on a completely opposite role and went into sales. The sales role necessitated me to go out of my comfort zone and worked a completely different part of my brain to figure out how I was going to make my revenue quota each quarter. In hindsight, I am glad that I took a complete 360 with my career in the early days as it helped me gain business, marketing and presentation skills that I use each day in my current role as a product manager.

 

What’s something you’ve done that most people haven’t done?

While growing up I lived in the part of India where I could see the Himalayas from the rooftop of my house. This was remarkable because my house was about 300 miles away from the Himalayan base.