Pragati Siddhanti Founder My Swiss Story

Hi, I’m Pragati.

Educator. Community builder. Writer.
Former technology leader.
Founder of My Swiss Story.

I’ve spent more than two decades building a career in technology, moved countries, reinvented my professional life in my forties, built a community almost by accident, and learned that very few of life’s most interesting journeys happen in a straight line.

Today, I teach, write, build communities and create spaces where people can learn, connect and figure out what comes next.

THE JOURNEY

It definitely wasn’t a straight line.

I grew up in India, studied Computer Science and did what many of us are taught to do – built a career, worked hard and kept moving forward.

Technology became my professional world for more than two decades. It took me across organisations, roles, countries and eventually to Switzerland, where I moved with my family in 2016.

Moving countries changed more than my address.

Suddenly, I was figuring out a new language, a new culture, a new professional environment and all the tiny things nobody prepares you for when you start building a life somewhere new.

I had always written, but somewhere in the middle of all that figuring out, my writing found a purpose.

I started sharing what I was learning about life in Switzerland – the confusing bits, the beautiful bits, the places we discovered and the experience of finding your feet somewhere unfamiliar.

People started reading. Then they started writing back.

And somewhere along the way, my Swiss story stopped being only mine.

expat Basel — Pragati Siddhanti, Founder, My Swiss Story

REINVENTION

After 20+ years in tech, I changed direction.

For most of my professional life, technology was home.

I built my career across enterprise technology, consulting and leadership – working with global organisations, leading large teams and complex programmes, and eventually reaching a place that, on paper, looked like success.

But careers are strange things. Sometimes you can be good at something, successful at it even, and still realise that it no longer fits the life you want to build.

In my forties, I made one of the biggest professional decisions of my life: I stepped away from the corporate career I had spent more than two decades building and moved fully into academia.

Today, I’m a lecturer teaching at various Swiss Universities, where I teach at the intersection of business and technology and help shape the next generation of professionals.

And I love it.

Not because I’ve left my previous career behind. Quite the opposite. I get to bring everything it taught me – technology, leadership, people, failure, pressure, change – into a completely different kind of room.

These days, my professional life is a mix of teaching, research, community building, writing, speaking and mentoring. It probably looks less linear than it once did.

It also feels much more like mine.

WHAT MATTERS TO ME

I think a lot about belonging.

What makes someone feel at home in a new country?
What makes us feel like we belong in a workplace, a classroom or a community?
What gives someone the confidence to change direction when the path they’re on no longer feels right?

These questions show up everywhere in my life.

They show up in the classroom when I watch a student discover that they’re capable of more than they thought.

They show up in the conversations I have with people navigating careers, change and life in Switzerland.

And they show up constantly through My Swiss Story – in the women who share their stories, the friendships that begin around a coffee table, and the people who simply need to hear that there is more than one way to build a life here.

I believe people grow when they feel seen, supported and given the space to figure things out for themselves.

That’s probably the thread running through everything I do – teaching, writing, community building, mentoring and My Swiss Story.

I don’t have all the answers. I’m not particularly interested in pretending that I do.

But I love creating spaces where people can ask better questions, learn from one another, try something new and perhaps leave with a little more clarity than they arrived with.

BEYOND THE BIO

When I’m not doing all of the above…

I’m usually somewhere in Basel – a city that has slowly, and quite unexpectedly, become home.

I’m Indian at heart, Swiss-ish by circumstance, and after ten years here I’ve developed a slightly confusing relationship with both cultures. I miss the chaos when it’s gone and complain about it approximately five minutes after I’m back in it.

I’m a mother, wife, chronic over-thinker, enthusiastic traveller and someone who can lose an unreasonable number of hours to a good series.

Bollywood will always have my heart. Netflix regularly has my evenings. I love good food, beautiful places, long conversations and people who make me laugh.

I also genuinely enjoy starting things before I’ve completely figured out where they’re going – which probably explains My Swiss Story rather well.

Life is serious enough. I try not to be, all the time.