womanthismonth.com | DECEMBER 2025 INTERVIEW 12 Where Vision Meets Bahrain-raised innovator Sukhmani Lamba channels global experience and sharp technical vision to build the intelligent tools transforming the way the world works. Growing up between Lagos, Bahrain and New Delhi, Sukhmani Lamba learned early that technology could overcome distance. “I have always believed that technology can bridge economic, social and geographical barriers,” she states. Today, as a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft Teams in Seattle, she builds the very tools that make that connection possible. Ms. Lamba moved to Bahrain when she was seven and credits the island for shaping her world view. “Bahrain is where I spent my formative years, so a lot of who I am today was shaped there,” she reflects. That grounding carried into her school life, where she excelled as a straight-A student and Head Girl at New Millennium School, representing the Kingdom in tennis and creative writing competitions. “I remember the feeling of living in a true melting pot of cultures, but still in a very grounded sense of community. Bahrain is the kind of place where you could be ambitious and still feel like you were in a close-knit environment.” Those contrasts stayed with her as she navigated spaces where girls were often encouraged to shrink. Determined to widen the path for others, she pursued engineering at Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh before beginning her career in digital transformation at Deloitte. There, she realised the essentiality of product design. “A well-defined product has the power to drive more efficiency and productivity than incremental process improvements,” she explains. This insight led her to the United States for a Masters in Engineering Management at Duke University. Her path accelerated at Wayfair, where she worked on AI and machine learning, and later at Microsoft Teams, where her work now reaches millions of users. Her effort has earned her two Microsoft patents, including one for improving how users interact with shared links in Teams. By leveraging schema.org metadata, she enabled users to interact with links without leaving the app, driving a 10 percent growth in impressions in the first month alone. Sukhmani now shapes the strategy for Teams’ collaborative AI agents. “My work directly impacts how people collaborate every day,” she stresses. “Most users are hesitant with AI at work. My job is to define how enterprise collaboration is going to change in the next few years as AI agents become available for hire and sit in our organisational charts like virtual teammates.” Her influence stretches beyond Microsoft. She keynotes global conferences, advises on the Products That Count Council and mentors women in technology across borders, ranking among the top mentors on ADPList. “Women tend to doubt themselves and underplay their impact. It is important to be vocal about what you have driven and why it matters,” she says. For Sukhmani, true leadership lies in widening the path for others. On Bahraini Women’s Day, her journey serves as a testament to how presence, mentorship and future-focused work can help the next generation rise with fewer barriers. “Most users are hesitant with AI at work. My job is to define how enterprise collaboration is going to change in the next few years as AI agents become available for hire and sit in our organisational charts like virtual teammates.” - Sukhmani Lamba
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