Sumana Harihareswara

Current

Lead Project Manager at Collabora Ltd

Past

Product Manager (volunteer) at AltLaw.org
Project Manager at Behavior
Feature Columnist at ANG Newspaper Group

Member of Technical Staff, Software Management Trainee at Fog Creek Software
Customer Service, Marketing, & QA at Salon Media Group (Salon.com)
Stage Manager at Subvert (Sole Proprietorship)
Documentation assistant, QA tester, and technical writing intern at Exodus Communications

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Education

Columbia University in the City of New York
University of California, Berkeley

Recommended

4 people have recommended Sumana

Connections

268 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Websites

Sumana Harihareswara’s Summary

I'm a geek-suit interface, best as a producer, software development manager, product manager, or customer relationship manager. I like to work on products, services, or sites that delight people. Currently I'm lead project manager with an open source software consulting firm specializing in mobile, multimedia, and real-time communications.

I've worked in nonprofits, schools, the arts, periodicals, product companies, consulting firms, and service companies. That breadth led me to see a need for managers who can identify users' needs, translate them into business tasks and technical requirements, and shepherd development to completion. That's who I am.

Sumana Harihareswara’s Specialties:

Free/open source software, writing so humans can understand, public speaking, event and project coordination.

Sumana Harihareswara’s Experience

Lead Project Manager

Collabora Ltd

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

April 2009 — Present (8 months)

Track and facilitate multiple open source software projects
Liaise with clients globally
Product Manager (volunteer)

AltLaw.org

(Legal Services industry)

January 2009 — April 2009 (4 months)

Conceived, and headed development of, new product to publicize nonprofit's services and better serve audience.
Coordinated volunteers.
Started publicity campaign and publicized organization's work via email and social media.
Advised developer in developing priorities and new features in open source software.
Project Manager

Behavior

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Design industry)

January 2008 — November 2008 (11 months)

Led projects from kickoff through scoping, information architecture, visual design, functional specification, technical build, QA, and deploy phases
Managed several web, animation, print, and interaction design projects of varying sizes simultaneously
Held projects within budgets and recruited, allocated funds for, and fired contractors
Led company personnel allocation processes and new internal communications on resourcing
Led technology knowledge-sharing initiative and project postmortem initiative
Produced and maintained project plans, status reports, extranets, and other necessary documentation
Tested web sites and standalone software, managed other testers, and filed and managed defect reports
Projected costs and wrote copy for pitches and proposals
Worked with Basecamp, Mantis, Bugzilla, Microsoft Project, WordPress, and XML
Feature Columnist

ANG Newspaper Group

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Newspapers industry)

March 2005 — August 2007 (2 years 6 months)

I wrote a weekly column about culture, the Bay Area, personal stories, and so on. You can find them under my name at findarticles.com.
Member of Technical Staff, Software Management Trainee

Fog Creek Software

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)

January 2006 — June 2007 (1 year 6 months)

Sold software and services and answered sales questions via email and phone
Provided technical support to customers via email, online discussion groups, and phone
Tested software and wrote bug reports
Wrote technical white paper about new product and designed and implemented marketing efforts for existing products
Posted regularly on corporate blog, blog.fogcreek.com
Worked with FogBugz, SQL, SQL Server, MySQL, ASP, VBScript, IIS, Trac, and shell scripts
Customer Service, Marketing, & QA

Salon Media Group (Salon.com)

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; SLNM.OB; Online Media industry)

July 2003 — January 2006 (2 years 7 months)

Provided customer support to 90,000 Salon Premium members via phone and
email
Performed QA for high-volume e-commerce site
Tested and fixed bugs in membership management system
Proofread marketing copy
Wrote and revised internal documentation
Developed and documented special member benefits and promotional offers
Wrote articles for Salon Magazine; links to articles are on my website
Stage Manager
Subvert (Sole Proprietorship)

(Sole Proprietorship; 1-10 employees; Performing Arts industry)

2004 — 2005 (1 year )

Stage-managed, advised, publicized, and ran sound and lights for Heather Gold's weekly one-woman show: "I Look Like An Egg, But I Identify As A Cookie."
Documentation assistant, QA tester, and technical writing intern

Exodus Communications

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; EXDS; Information Technology and Services industry)

June 1998 — August 1999 (1 year 3 months)

Edited and wrote documentation for web-based and desktop programs and software systems
Tested websites and filed defect reports

Sumana Harihareswara’s Education

Columbia University in the City of New York

MS , Technology Management [EITM] , 2006 — 2008

My Executive Master of Science degree in Technology Management includes courses in corporate finance, law, behavior, emerging technology, operations management, cost-benefit analysis, and public budgeting.
University of California, Berkeley

BA , Political Science , 1998 — 2002

Researched organizational patterns in open source software. Created and taught two credit courses as sole instructor. Studied abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia at Herzen University via American Council of Teachers of Russian.

Activities and Societies:

Daily Californian, Open Computing Facility, National Merit Scholar, UC Berkeley Alumni Leadership Scholar