Ethos Employee Spotlight: Ash Muralidharan
What has been your proudest professional moment this year?
It’s hard to pinpoint a single moment. I’m most proud of the consumer product and design team’s journey in 2023. We dealt with macroeconomic headwinds, team member departures, limited resources, and more, to end the year well. The team showed amazing grit, intellectual rigor, boldness, and urgency, to produce a step change in our consumer experience, and generate wins when low-hanging fruit was hard to come by. And we’ve hired some amazing new product leaders who can propel the next stage of our journey!
What is your greatest professional accomplishment?
I spent a couple of years in the nonprofit space prior to graduate school. I am most proud of the work I did with Tibetan refugees, providing scalable job training and entrepreneurship support to help them build better lives for their families.
When have you felt most fulfilled in your career?
I’ve felt most fulfilled when I’ve been placed in hard situations with my back against the wall, and overcome odds to solve really meaningful problems.
How have you shown leadership in your current role?
I try to be a voice of calm in heated debates and meetings. I’m not claiming I’m always effective, but I really do make an effort to really hear the other side, acknowledge their arguments, build trust, and move towards solutions that are best for our customers and the business.
What do you want others to know about Ethos?
This is an incredible place if you want to experience 10X personal growth. If you show high ownership and impact, you’ll be trusted to take on bigger challenges.
What makes Ethos different from other companies you’ve worked for?
We have a high level of candor and individual accountability, and are relentlessly focused on outcomes (not just activities).
Who has been your greatest motivator/ mentor, and how have they impacted you professionally?
A former manager from TripAdvisor had the greatest influence on my early career in product management. He taught me the importance of not just being the “CEO of the product” but also harnessing the collective wisdom of the team to arrive at the best answer, and building deep trust with individual team members to get things done.
Ash Muralidharan joined Ethos in March, 2022 as a Director of Product Management. When Ash isn’t building the next big thing to delight Ethos customers, he enjoys reading, powerlifting, watching and playing cricket, and traveling with his wife. Interested in joining Ash’s team? Learn more about our career opportunities here.
