Showing up and persistence matters – Vibha Deshpande is the winner of the Mimmit koodaa Award 2026
· Blogi · In English · Sanna Hyvönen
Vibha Deshpande is a familiar face and has been involved in the Mimmit koodaa program’s events and content since 2019. Now she has been voted the Mimmit koodaa award winner 2026 in recognition of her significant contributions and for enhancing the community’s expertise. Let’s get to know you better, Vibha!
When Vibha Deshpande was in 6th grade, their family had some problems with the sound of the television set. The mechanic took days to come, and Vibha was frustrated with it.
“I started poking the speaker of the TV with a straw, because I was missing all my favourite shows. Suddenly, when I poked the straw, the sound started working. When the mechanic came, I saw him solder the loose wire, and he explained to me what had happened: I was amazed. Ever since then, I look at technology with the same child-like amazement.”
Inspired by this, Vibha studied Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering and completed her bachelor’s degree from Pune, India. She was always interested in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) and wanted to design the next chip for Intel. However, by the time she graduated, there were no jobs because the recession had struck. Then she needed to do something completely different.
Vibha started at an American offshore call and support centre, working night shifts, away from family. The role wasn’t really interesting because of the monotonous nature of the job, and she ended up making some mistakes. After a couple of years, Vibha discussed feeling stuck with a colleague, and she was introduced to a brother who worked at one of Microsoft’s support vendors. He said he couldn’t give a referral, but helped Vibha understand the role’s expectations.
Vibha prepped day and night, gave multiple rounds of interviews and landed a new role in the Small and Medium Business Server Support. This is where she gained a foundational understanding of the tech business. For the first time, she understood the role, started performing, worked closely with the Microsoft teams, and even began leading a team.
In 2010, she was interviewed by Microsoft and was hired. One of the most memorable moments was when Vibha started working there; they received feedback from a small clinic whose server they had repaired, and how delighted the staff was that they could now help the patients again. That story always stayed with Vibha’s journey.
“Technology is for people, and to make better technology, we need to understand people better.”
In 2012, she decided to move to Finland, and has since taken on many interesting roles over the last 16 years. When she had never been outside India, coming to Finland was the biggest leap of faith: a new country and a new language. But looking back, it was the best decision she made. It embraced and got embraced by the Finnish culture equally.
Being an authentic self for work is a superpower
Nowadays, Vibha leads the Go To Market Strategy for the Cloud and AI platforms business at Microsoft Finland. It’s an interesting role that connects the corp strategy with the local teams: landing strategy, working closely with marketing, helping solve technical and business blockers, and enabling their sales and technical teams.
The role could be described as: if a seller wants to sell a pen, Vibha helps the seller with whatever they need to sell the pen. For example, if they could offer discounts, run marketing campaigns, do events or something similar. Vibha would also relay feedback from the sales team back to the factory to help them improve the pen.
Vibha believes in the good in people and also thinks that all colleagues share the common goal. Every person might have different ways and perspectives about how to reach the goal, and that’s why there can be disagreements, but it should not be taken personally.
That’s why Vibha’s superpower at work is being able to bring her authentic self to work. There is no pretense, what you see is what you get. Speaking her aspirations and wishes aloud with trusted colleagues, mentors, and friends has always helped. It has helped gain new perspectives and open doors to new opportunities.
“I would never compromise on honesty. I believe in the power of “I don’t know, let’s find out”, because it makes life so simple.”
Also, success means different things on different days. On some days it’s winning a big deal, and on some days it is just getting through the day – they’re both successes! Sometimes, well-being takes a back seat during peak times, and life does get tough. However, Vibha does try to bounce back with dance, design musical performances and sometimes just take a walk in the rain. The most important thing is to be gentle on yourself: you will not check all the boxes, and that is absolutely fine.
Vibha learnt a very important lesson from her General Manager, that one must always start from the outcome and then work backwards. So that you always remember what outcome you had set out to achieve. It is very easy to get lost in such a vast landscape if you don’t have a defined outcome.
AI enablement, digital skills, and women’s advancements are one agenda
Vibha thinks strong digital and AI readiness across the workforce is definitely the greatest strength. AI capabilities are spread across many roles, not confined to a small expert elite. National and regional programmes explicitly focus on continuous upskilling, digital inclusion, and applied AI capabilities in public and private sectors. This gives Finland an edge in turning AI from experimentation into everyday productivity.
Vibha learnt from their General Manager, who is also their sponsor for DEI at Microsoft, that DEI has to be deeply personal. But when Vibha looks around, there’s a lot of performative allyships. She urges leaders to engage with diverse communities, understand their prejudices and concerns, and help them to integrate better with Finnish society.
Finland has strong gender equality overall, but foreign‑born women face a “double gap”: language, networks, and recognition of prior experience. The labour market mismatch is a skills utilisation problem, not a capability problem, so many highly skilled women (especially immigrants) are under‑placed. To help more women from other countries reach leadership in Finland, we all must move from equal opportunity in theory to intentional system design in practice – making leadership paths explicit, sponsorship real, language proportional, and progress measurable.
The biggest mark Vibha would like to leave is to connect technology, skills and inclusion in one story. Vibha does not treat AI enablement, digital skills, women’s advancements and workforce resilience as separate agendas. AI adoption fails without inclusive skills diffusion. Productivity stalls when leadership is homogeneous. Sovereignty and competitiveness depend on who gets to shape the future, not just what tech is deployed.
Visible presence and a behind-the-scenes force
The Mimmit koodaa community voted for the award winners, and a shortlist was created for the jury. The jury reached a solid decision. Vibha received the 2026 Mimmit koodaa Award for her significant contributions to the Finnish ICT sector. She has been both a visible presence and a behind-the-scenes force, and through her hard work has organised webinars, workshops, and learning paths for hundreds of community members. Topics included such as AI, data, cybersecurity, and the Power Platform. She has been the driving force behind these achievements, the results of which are visible to all.
When Vibha first heard about winning the award, it was humbling. It was one of those tough days, and she thought that the call was related to arrangements regarding our event together.
“But when Milja shared the news with me, my first reaction was ”Are you sure?”, I could feel my imposter syndrome kicking in. But I am really grateful that she did not brush it off; she let me sit with it and digest it. And the next thought was about all the brilliant women who have won the award before me, these are really big shoes!”
Receiving recognition like this isn’t just about a title or an award. For Vibha, it was a reminder. A reminder that the work we do matters. That showing up matters, persistence matters. And maybe more importantly, it reminds us that we need to say this out loud more often, especially to women.
Over the next five years, Vibha’s goal is to be a credible and trusted voice on the future of the Finnish workforce – one that is grounded in substance, not noise. That voice needs to reach the right decision‑making levels and be used responsibly to influence how we think about skills, leadership, and inclusion in the age of AI. Most importantly, Vibha wants that voice to translate into real outcomes: clearer pathways to leadership, better use of diverse talent, and a workforce that is both competitive and human.
Vibha reminds us that, behind role models in the traditional sense, we’re all human. We make mistakes, we get things wrong, and we learn as we go. What Vibha believes in is learning from paths people have walked, and understanding the choices they made, the trade‑offs, the failures, and the context. Not copying them, but taking what’s useful and leaving the rest.
“If people see something in my journey that helps them reflect on their own, that matters to me. But I don’t want to represent perfection. I want to represent honesty, growth, and the courage to keep going. Humans learn from humans.”
Making the path less treacherous for the next woman
Vibha remembers the first time when she delivered training for Mimmit koodaa in January 2019: she had just found out that she was pregnant, the roads were slippery, and she remembered feeling nauseous and nervous. But the women who came for the training also helped Vibha, because they supported each other, and ever since then, Mimmit koodaa has a special place in her heart.
Vibha is often asked why women need special skilling programs: is it because they are less? It’s not because women are any less. It’s because the system was not designed around their realities.
“It’s important to tell women that their contributions count, even when they’re not the loudest voice in the room. That their impact is real, even when it’s not immediately visible. That they don’t need to wait for permission to take space, lead, or be ambitious.”
We all come from different lives, with different constraints and responsibilities, and no single path applies to everyone. The one thing Vibha does feel strongly about is privilege. Those of us who have access, visibility, or influence have a responsibility to use it. Not for ourselves, but to make the path less treacherous for the next woman. The goal isn’t to tell women how to survive a broken system. It’s to change the system so fewer women have to fight their way through it.
Skilling needs to be brought closer to people’s lives – to the single mum who starts her second shift when work ends, to the immigrant woman doing odd jobs while carrying years of experience, to the woman who is capable but stuck in a role and just needs an opening. Vibha says that the Mimmit koodaa’s programmes are not about lowering the bar. They are about removing distance. Distance created by time, access, language, confidence, and opportunity. When skilling meets people where they are, talent shows up very quickly.
Congratulations Vibha – you’re truly an inspiration for all of us!
We interviewed
Vibha Deshpande
Azure Go To Market Manager
Microsoft Finland
The Mimmit koodaa Award Winner 2026
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