Krishna Ganapathi started his undergraduate studies in engineering because he had a passion for technology and how it works. “But throughout my college career, I also found myself gravitating toward business, trying to understand how customers think and how businesses meet and anticipate the need of customers.”
Today, Ganapathi’s work requires exactly those skills: He’s consulting as a technical program manager for Hulu in Santa Monica. Recently, the video-on-demand service launched Hulu Ad Manager, and Ganapathi was brought aboard to manage go-to-market workstreams for the product. A self-service product, Hulu Ad Manager makes targeted advertising on the entertainment platform financially possible for small- and medium-sized businesses.
“Hulu Ad Manager was a huge cross-team effort, and I was in charge of managing the moving pieces,” he says. “This ranged from ensuring the product was ready for launch to making sure we had our internal processes and tactics smoothed out along with new processes in place, like customer service.”
All while making sure the several shareholders were on the same page and moving in the same direction, he adds. “My role was a mix of ensuring readiness across teams, while being a subject-matter expert and championing the product internally.”
Ganapathi earned both a B.S. in business informatics in 2014 from UC Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering and an MBA in 2016 from UC Riverside’s School of Business. His job experience began with an internship at Electronic Arts, a video game company. Armed with both degrees, he worked at Internet Brands media company as a technical project manager and then as an executive producer with a digital media agency. “This combination of digital media and technology bore fruit when I interviewed with Hulu,” he says, and he enjoys his work. “My role allows me to be technical when interfacing with engineering teams and also allows me to be a good collaborator and partner when working with non-engineering teams.”
Like so many stories about the reasons alumni studied business, Ganapathi’s decision involved a professor. “For me, it was [UC Riverside Professor of Practice] Sean Jasso. He was so passionate about teaching the class, and he and his fellow business professors cared about what I was learning. I knew that was an environment I wanted to be a part of,” he says. During his time at UCR, Ganapathi served as web technician chair for Circle K International service club and vice president of the A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management Student Association. Since graduating, he’s also visited campus to share his professional journey with current students.
“At UCR, I learned how to learn, and I use this skill almost daily when presented with new information,” he says. “My business school experience is the foundation for everything I am doing now and everything I’ll do in the future.”