She Trembled for 60 Minutes Straight in Front of 60 Students. She Went Back the Next Day. Thomson Reuters CTO Anuradha on Facing Fear and Disrupting Yourself First

Disrupt Yourself Before Someone Else Does: How Thomson Reuters CTO Anuradha Turned Fear, Bias, and Discomfort Into Career Fuel

She grew up in a small town in India, first daughter in a middle-class family, educated in her mother tongue through 10th grade. She was culturally trained to listen more and speak less. Then she accepted a role as an assistant professor straight out of university, in front of 60 students, because she needed a job and couldn't say no to an opportunity. She showed up for her first class and trembled for the entire 60 minutes.

She didn't quit. She went back. She sat in her colleagues' classes to watch how they taught. She asked hard questions. She sought feedback from the students whose faces told her everything. Eventually, students started telling her: "No one ever taught this subject the way you do."

Anuradha is Head of Engineering and CTO of the Corporate Tax and Trade Technology Group at Thomson Reuters. She has since moved internationally alone, changed industries multiple times, and built a leadership philosophy around one core principle: disrupt yourself before someone else does it for you.

In this episode, she breaks down how.

You'll learn:

• She asked for a Senior Director role and was told not only no, but "even if you applied, they wouldn't hire you." What she said next, why she didn't confront him, and how she used that conversation to get clarity about whether the problem was her or the environment around her.
• The mental model she uses every time she gets a no: is this about me not having the skills, or is this about the climate in this organization not being ready for someone like me? Both are valid answers, but you have to know which one before you decide what to do next.
• Why she deliberately paced herself after that conversation, asked for names of other people to speak to, and processed it over days rather than trying to resolve it all in one go.
• Why running away from fear doesn't make fear disappear. It just means you'll face it later, under higher stakes, with fewer second chances.
• How she built confidence and humility simultaneously by changing industries repeatedly: retail, financial services, banking, payments, tax and trade. The more she learned, the more she understood how much more there was to learn, and why she sees that as a leadership asset, not a liability.
• What she means by "disrupt yourself before someone else does" and why it applies equally to personal growth, career management, and technology leadership at scale.
• Her model for leading through failure: look forward first, understand what went wrong second. And why leaders who impose their own stress on a team under pressure take everyone down with them.

About Anuradha: Head of Engineering and CTO of the Corporate Tax and Trade Technology Group at Thomson Reuters, Anu is a recognized tech executive and speaker at women's leadership and technology conferences. She has built her career across multiple industries and continents.