Rajesh Mandal jokes that he never really stopped being a student. That line captures how he has moved through more than two decades at Siemens Energy India, and how he continues to work today.

Rajesh joined the House of Siemens in 1999 as a Mechanical Engineer, drawn to German engineering and the way it shaped society. What began as an engineering role soon broadened into something much wider.

Over the years, he has worked across various functions, including global engineering, EPC project execution, people leadership, business strategy, sales, sustainability, innovation, digitalization, and business development. Today, he leads bids and proposals for complex energy projects.

"Every move took me outside my comfort zone," he says. "Working with global teams taught me how much culture and people matter in this business." He has kept learning outside work too, completing an MBA and later studying Environmental Law and Policy to understand the future of business, the economy, and society more closely.

The biggest of those moves came in October 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. Rajesh was comfortably leading four teams and around 80 people as a department head, when he chose to step into an unfamiliar role as Head of Strategy and Business.

Development, trading a people manager's certainty for a strategist's blank page. "The risk of staying the same was greater than the risk of change," he says of the decision.

The organization backed that move. The new role put him at the center of business and customer strategy, market, policy advocacy, sustainability, and digitalization, including organizing Siemens Energy participation in Intersolar 2022 Green Hydrogen Expo and a business growth initiative run with BCG.

What a day leading bids and proposals looks like

"Why are we still doing anything manually?" is a question Rajesh keeps coming back to. Early in his career, he helped optimize engineering designs that delivered significant savings. Later, he taught himself tools such as Power Apps and Power Bl after noticing how many repetitive tasks could be simplified. One idea led to another, and he has since built severalapps which are now used to improve business efficiency across the organization, alongside hands-on work in business data analytics. That instinct had earlier earned him the Siemens CEO Award for innovation, though for Rajesh the recognition matters less than what it represents: Solutions that made work easier for the people around him.

The same instinct shapes his current role, which supports Siemens Energy's purpose of Energizing Society by helping customers identify reliable, efficient, and sustainable energy solutions. In India, this work carries weight, since the existing power generating fleet must stay available and running smoothly.

A steady flow of tenders and RFQs comes in from utility, IPP, and oil and gas customers. Rajesh's team prioritizes and calendarizes these for execution, and he works across technical and commercial requirements to shape a response that fits each customer's needs.

“Growth begins where comfort ends”

Rajesh's career has also been shaped by personal challenges. He survived polio at the age of three and has been living with permanent mobility disability. Two major accidents later left him dependent on a walker; each recovery demanding months of rehabilitation. He still relies on a walker, yet he travels frequently for work. "Growth begins where comfort ends," he says of the mindset that carried him through both his professional transitions and his physical recoveries.

Those experiences shaped how closely he pays attention to potential in others rather than limitations. He has built high-performing teams over the years and has had a fulfilling career guiding and mentoring young future leaders. "My disability has never been an issue," says Rajesh.

In his spare time, he reads widely on history and emerging technology, and takes interest in the universe, metaphysics, and philosophy. For Rajesh, learning is a way of life.

For anyone standing where he once stood, deciding whether to make a similar move, his advice is simple. "Don't wait until you're completely ready," he says. Every significant opportunity in his career arrived before he felt fully prepared for it. “Stay curious, ask questions, and don't be embarrassed to be the least experienced person in the room. It usually means you're in exactly the right room," he adds.

"Never let your circumstances decide your life," he says philosophically. "Let your purpose define your life."