Conscious DAD leaders

Spring Season 2022

In honor of Father’s day, we are thrilled to present a segment on Conscious Dad Leaders. Inspirational male executives have paved the way for conscious parenting, which is a parent-centric parenting philosophy that is based on the idea of its focus on the parents, rather than the child’s behavior. Let’s learn how to strike this delicate work-life balance.

“If you’re building something great, if you have the foundation of the right set of people and values, everything else will be great. Profit follows.”

Varun Badhwar

Executive at Palo Alto Networks +

Former CEO & Co-Founder of Redlock & Ciphercloud

“People should embark on a pursuit of happiness. Follow your passion as far as careers are concerned. Do things which excite you, which keep you happy versus trying to pursue goals of career titles or money or going up the corporate ladder. People sometimes are not able to understand the benefit that type of thinking will have if you inculcate it early on.”

Burges Karkaria

CMO of Censia + Founder of Robocuisine +

Former CTO of Intel

Personal Branding

Embrace what makes you unique and learn how to articulate your differentiating characteristics during an interview to meet the needs of the organization’s challenges.

Carrie Weaver

CEO of Silver Branch Consulting, LLC

VARUN BADHWAR

Varun Badhwar is a serial entrepreneur and currently the SVP and GM of Prisma Cloud at Palo Alto Networks, where he brings over 14 years of experience helping organizations address their information security challenges. Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks, he was the founder and CEO of RedLock, a leader in cloud threat defense that Palo Alto Networks acquired in October 2018. Varun’s experience included founding a CASB company (CipherCloud) and spending 4 years leading the Force.com security team at Salesforce.com. Prior to salesforce.com, he was a Consultant within the Risk Advisory Services group at KPMG, where he advised Fortune 500 Clients on managing IT security and privacy, operational risks, and alignment with overall business strategy. Varun earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

BURGES KARKARIA

Burges is a transformation expert and entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience in enterprise and consumer technologies. From founding RoboCuisine (an exciting food tech robotics company that’s fully bootstrapped), to CTO for Censia (one of the most innovative AI based HR Tech startups); he has learnt to be a master juggler of work and personal priorities. He advises several startups and has been the CTO of Enterprise for Intel in the past. His greatest joys include being a dad to an adorable newborn baby girl + innovating and launching new products (from concept to market) and transforming human lives.

CARRIE WEAVER

Carrie started her career as a Geologist working for the USGS. After studying rocks for a few years, she shifted into the Human Resources profession after answering a calling to help people unlock their full potential. Carrie spent 15 years in corporate HR in a variety of industries and roles where she leveraged her strategic vision for aligning people’s top strengths to achieve organizational outcomes. Carrie is a passionate leader of teams and advocates for creating an engaging workforce. She knows that organizations thrive with quality managers and visionary leadership. 

In 2017, Carrie became a certified coach and launched Silver Branch Consulting. Her coaching and training programs emphasize growth mindset, emotional intelligence, strengths-based leadership, and resilience. Carrie helps her clients unlock their next-level skills and behaviors so they can grow and scale both personally and professionally.