Customer Commercialization & Career Coaching: Career Insights with Tamanna Ramesh | That’s a Food Job! #136
About Tamanna Ramesh
Tamanna Ramesh works in customer commercialization for the food service and on-premise team at The Coca-Cola Company in North America, supporting channels that range from quick service and full service restaurants to cruises and theaters. Tamanna grew up in India and moved to the United States for a fully funded master’s in food science at the University of Maine, where her research focused on UV technology for food safety. After seeing how quickly industry work comes to life, she began experimenting with her career, making six pivots so far. Along the way she also completed a business administration degree and launched Spark Academy, a career coaching business for food industry students and professionals.
What We Cover in This Episode
Tamanna explains what customer commercialization actually involves, from running communication routines for a 400-person sales and marketing team to building playbooks that turn new innovations and programs into clear action. She breaks down agentic AI in plain language and shares how she is helping train an internal AI search tool for her teams. She also offers practical advice for students on showing AI experience by focusing on outcomes, shares how Spark Academy grew from a side hustle into a digital library of career resources, and tells the story of a client who stopped underselling herself and landed a senior scientist role.
Key Take-aways
- Think career garden, not career path.
- Show the outcome of your AI use, not just the tool.
- Agentic AI works like a delegated assistant.
- Treat setbacks as experiments.
- Do not undersell yourself early in your career.
- Reflect on and share the details of your work.
Watch the Episode Below
Links
- Tamanna Ramesh LinkedIn
- Spark Academy Website
- The Coca-Cola Company Website
- The Coca-Cola Company LinkedIn
Timestamps
- 00:00 – Intro
- 01:55 – Her Role at Coca-Cola
- 05:15 – Connecting the Dots
- 07:53 – The Career Garden
- 10:31 – What Is Agentic AI?
- 16:39 – Building AI Experience
- 20:15 – Six Career Pivots
- 24:50 – Starting Spark Academy
- 31:23 – A Client Success Story
- 37:32 – Closing Thoughts
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