Welcome to The People Behind the Programs, a blog series celebrating the voices, stories, and impact of the community professionals powering connection and belonging across the globe.

Today, we meet Vidya Sargur Madabhushi, a Senior Community Manager at Cloudera in Bangalore, India, where she shapes comprehensive community programs with meticulous care.

Community work wasn’t something Vidya had on her career map, but it became a fulfilling journey of growth and impact. Transitioning from a background in knowledge management, she discovered the vibrant world of community building through organic and gradual opportunities. Let’s hear her story in her own words.

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How It Started

I entered the community space quite organically. I began my career as a Knowledge Editor and spent my early years deeply involved in knowledge management. In my first company, the community function sat within the same org unit as Knowledge, so I initially supported moderation alongside my core KM responsibilities. Over time, I started helping with content management, process improvements, and engagement initiatives. That gradual exposure helped me transition fully into a Community Manager role.

Interestingly, the same pattern repeated in my current company. I joined as a Knowledge Manager, began contributing to community operations, and eventually moved into a full-time Community role. Today, I work as a Senior Community Manager—more like a Community Program Manager—overseeing the community end-to-end. My work spans moderation, engagement, platform strategy, program management, and vendor coordination.

Community wasn’t a planned career path for me, but it became the most rewarding one. Each step I took—whether in moderation, content curation, or platform operations—naturally shaped my journey to where I am now.

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A Day in the Life

A typical day starts with reviewing new activity on the community—moderating posts, removing spam, checking for sensitive/internal information, and ensuring customer questions get immediate attention. Customer engagement is a core priority, and we work closely with internal teams through dedicated channels to ensure timely, accurate responses. I'm proud that we consistently achieve a 100% response rate to customer questions.

Beyond engagement, a significant part of my role involves platform management. I work closely with our platform vendor team as the primary point of contact. My responsibilities include managing access controls, overseeing administration tasks, reviewing release notes, planning platform upgrades, and ensuring all fixes and enhancements go through proper testing and regression cycles. Essentially, I manage the entire lifecycle of the community platform while aligning internal teams and vendors.

As a senior manager, I also handle program-level initiatives, vendor relationships, cross-functional alignment, and long-term community strategy.

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The Tools that Power My Work

My go-to tool is the community platform itself, supported by GenAI. For me, sustainable community building begins with a strong platform foundation—one that enables meaningful discussions, effective moderation, content discoverability, and clear analytics.

GenAI has become a valuable companion in my workflow. I use it to summarize long threads, identify recurring themes and content gaps, improve response quality, and streamline operational tasks. This helps me focus more on strategy, relationship-building, and improving member experience rather than getting stuck in repetitive manual work.

Together, the platform and GenAI enable me to balance operational efficiency with human connection—ensuring the community remains responsive, relevant, and valuable for members while scaling sustainably.

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Advice for Newcomers

Community is a profession where you grow by doing—so don’t wait to be an expert before you begin. Start small: volunteer to moderate, join discussions, shadow community leaders, or take on small operational tasks. These experiences teach you the real dynamics of community far better than theory.

Build relationships across your company, especially with support, product, and marketing teams. Community thrives when internal teams feel connected to it.

Also, get comfortable with experimentation. Not every engagement idea will land, and that’s okay. What matters is learning what works for your audience.

Community work can be emotionally heavy, especially when dealing with escalations or sensitive posts. Set boundaries, celebrate wins, and keep reminding yourself of the impact your work creates.

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Resources I Suggest

Here are a few recommendations:

• Follow the Industry Leaders: Max Pete, Rich Millington, Brian Oblinger, Nikki Thibodeau
• Join the Communities: CMX Connect, The Community Community, Led by Community, The Community Roundtable
• Listen to Podcasts: In Before the Lock, Podcasts by Max Pete
• Read some Book on Community such as by Rich Millington
• Take the Trainings - offered by CMX, Brian Oblinger

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💬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn — I’d love to hear from fellow community builders.

💡 The People Behind the Programs is a blog series that shines a light on the community professionals powering impactful programs around the world. Want to share your story or nominate someone doing incredible community work? Submit your spotlight here.

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Are you passionate about building communities?

‍Join the movement, start a CMX Connect chapter in your city or virtually and become a local leader in the global community industry. 👉 Apply to become a chapter director

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