Vibha Rustagi’s career has been highlighted by many different achievements. But this year’s Women in Technology Award winner sums up her philosophy, the driving force behind itaas, the company she started, in only a few words.

Focus. Perseverance. Passion. Hard work.

“A lot of hard work,” Rustagi clarified.

To elaborate, Rustagi says focus needs to be on the customer, having vision, aligning that vision with the needs of the market, and on building a talented and versatile team.

Rustagi and everyone else at her company showed perseverance when they rolled up their sleeves and did whatever it took to meet the needs of customers. To Rustagi, perseverance also means rising to meet any challenges that come along in the market.

Passion came naturally to Rustagi and her company co-founders. They all knew they would need to take risks and share their excitement for technology, innovation and working with customers.

“We take pride in the fact that we created a culture of openness,” Rustagi said. “Exchange of ideas is encouraged throughout and access to any executive is simple.” 

Finally, Rustagi confirmed that starting a business is a lot of hard work and that it continues to be hard work no matter the size of your company – from a start-up of three to 300 and now to thousands of employees as a Cognizant company.

Rustagi said the combination of all these elements is how itaas grew to where it was last year when it was acquired by Cognizant. But her focus, perseverance, passion and work ethic began to take form in the cable industry long before the beginning of itaas.

From engineer to business management

Born in India, Rustagi’s family moved to Zambia where she completed elementary school. She returned to complete high school in India before she moved to the United States to pursue her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at University of Pittsburgh. 

Not long after, Rustagi found work with Scientific-Atlanta.

Rustagi said that while she was at Pitt, she gave her resume to a friend who was at a job fair that Scientific-Atlanta happened to be attending. She got a call from Scientific-Atlanta and decided to take that job over a different offer.

Rustagi spent about 10 years at Scientific-Atlanta, before the company was acquired by Cisco. She started out as a software engineer before moving into marketing within the development organization.

Her first engineering job was coding in assembly language for chipsets, specifically around broadband use cases for pay TV by introducing signal interference for unauthorized channels.

“While I enjoyed being an engineer, I wanted to learn more about the business side and to better understand how technologies can drive the business,” Rustagi said.

So she took an opportunity to move into marketing within business development, which she called a key turning point in her career. It was then that Rustagi realized how much she could leverage her engineering experience to understand the customers’ challenges, discuss enterprise solutions with customers, and directly contribute to the growth of the business.

Rustagi’s focus was in the subscriber business and providing solutions to the end-user and customers who are service providers, satellite broadcasters, etc.
That move led to her involvement with the advanced analog 8600X, a set-top box product, and then with the digital video product line. Leading these products meant taking on responsibility for product roadmaps, positioning, forecasting, profitability and continuing to expand the business. Rustagi said she learned how to stay in line with customers’ needs while also innovating.

Examples of that innovation for Rustagi came in the form of user interface designs and revamped remote control designs.

It was a combination of Rustagi’s experience in engineering and business management that helped drive her successful role in these digital product launches. “It was a massive undertaking by Scientific-Atlanta. It was supported by several teams across the organization that focused on one specific vision for the digital ecosystem,” Rustagi said.

As part of the business team, Rustagi’s focus both domestically and internationally was to help define the solutions that met market needs.
That meant understanding the varying technologies and regulatory requirements of different markets while still maintaining a flexible business model that allowed for growth.

Seven patents!

When Rustagi accepted her award during a ceremony at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, one incredible number stood out during last year’s winner Sherita Ceasar’s introduction, a number that drew a resounding round of applause: seven.

That’s the amount of patents to which Rustagi has her name attached. But she’s quick to point out she didn’t get to that number on her own.

“The technology patents are not typically given to any one person,” said Rustagi. “The development involves a team of people. I was on several incredible teams at Scientific-Atlanta working on pay-TV subscription-based television.”

Rustagi said the patents she was awarded fell into three categories. First, she worked on broadband signal interference, specifically for a technology called Interdiction that allowed for providing periodic subscription service based on authorization. Two of her other patents allowed for limited-time subscriptions to a designated group of pay-TV channels and short-burst viewing of pay-TV channels that would serve as a preview.

Another group of her patents are around methods for authenticating pay television and the third group was around the ergonomic design of the remote control, specifically on placement of the keys.

“As we were working with making the user interface easier to navigate, the remote had to go hand-in-hand with navigating the user interface,” said Rustagi.
That last remote control patent came after Rustagi had shifted to business management.

“I’m proud of my work on these patents. Engineering is a very creative process about finding unique ways to solve problems,” said Rustagi. “But also in marketing you can find new ways of doing things that are unique. Receiving these patents was just the icing on the cake.”

Starting small, scaling up

Before itaas came to be, Rustagi and her co-founders saw a need in the marketplace.

Rustagi said it was a time when the industry had hundreds of software development companies that were developing interactive applications for the web and that they wanted to develop applications for the digital networks.

The marketplace needed a company that had a strong digital video expertise, understood the Scientific-Atlanta and General Instrument platforms, and the end-to-end digital video delivery ecosystem; a company that could help translate and integrate ideas from the web onto digital TV systems.

“We saw a void and we knew that we could provide this expertise in the form of services and solutions to the digital TV industry,” Rustagi said.

So, along with her co-founders Jatin Desai, and Jaspal Bhasin, Rustagi came up with a business plan and launched itaas in 1999.

“Among Vibha’s many venerable traits, the two I admire most are the tenacity with which she pursues goals and her ability to find solutions under difficult circumstances. Her ability to focus in the midst of chaos goes well beyond work into personal and family life, giving her a ‘Super Woman’ like aura of invincibility,” said Desai. “Her attention to quality and detail, even on the most minor matters, has played a key role in achieving the high degree of customer satisfaction we have maintained over the years.”

Rustagi said itaas’ mantra has always been to exceed the expectations of its customers. That dedication reflects in itaas’ impressive customer list that includes service providers like Comcast, Cox, Time Warner and Charter, and technology providers  including Cisco, ARRIS and Technicolor.

“Vibha is among the most highly respected professionals in cable technology today, combining a unique mix of technical expertise and business acumen. She is an exceptional leader and role model, not for just women in the industry, but for all of us. The entire industry has benefited from her vision and development of today’s digital networks,” said ARRIS Chairman and CEO Bob Stanzione.

Rustagi said her role at itaas has changed since the beginning. When the company was first starting out, she said she was more hands-on and her focus was on strategy, growth and execution.

As time went Rustagi said her role transformed into “expanding our global presence, to building high-performance teams, driving innovation, profitability and growth to address the growing needs of our customers, both on the technology and business sides.” She said it also involved forming partnerships and alliances, and making financial decisions around driving the business.

But certain parts of Rustagi’s job and philosophy toward the business stayed the same.

“One thing that has not changed is my focus and my role with the customers,” said Rustagi. “In the beginning, a significant percentage of my time was spent with customers, and the same is true today. The more I know about our customers’ businesses and needs, the better I can lead the organization.”