SP Jain’s EMBA Women Leaders Break Through their Careers, Inspiring Many
Today’s dynamic business arena demands leaders who are versatile and resilient. How are women leaders bringing diverse skills and perspectives to meet this demand? Building a 360-degree understanding of business, companies with women leaders have often shown a higher growth rate than others, creating more job satisfaction, organisational work, and meaningful work among employees.
So, how does SP Jain help create women leaders who guide global businesses to a better future? We caught up with a few women leaders who pursued their leadership goals with the SP Jain Executive MBA.
Shraddha Kulkarni (Senior Product Owner – Salesforce)
Shraddha Kulkarni is a certified Project Manager and Agile practitioner with more than 14 years of experience in the field. Predominantly, she works as a Salesforce Consultant in various geographies and is now based in Berlin, Germany. Besides being an experienced Consultant, she is a mother of two children.
Shraddha shares:
“Pursuing my EMBA from S P Jain transformed my career goals giving me a new direction. Previously I was a software developer immersed in the technological world. My EMBA taught me to become a T-shaped professional, where the vertical line reflects my deep specialisation and the horizontal line indicates the universal skills strengthening the specialist skills. When I joined the program, I was working in a mid-senior role. After completing my EMBA, I got a job offer for an Assistant Vice President role from a bank. Within a year, I received another offer for a Senior Product Manager role, thus climbing the leadership ladder.
The most challenging aspect of my career was establishing myself with confidence in the corporate world. During my pre-sales meetings, there would be nine men in the meeting room most of the time. The first question thrown at me would be, “Where is your Tech guy?” I would always answer, “I am the Tech guy.”
Having women in leadership means having more diverse views on problem-solving and collaboration. In my perspective, women also possess the ability to improve the financial performance of organisations by managing the cash flows more effectively.”
Avni Garg (Project Coordinator – Red Hat)
Avni Garg is working as a Project Coordinator with Red Hat. She is driven by the words, “Be good and do good,” both personally and professionally. Based out of Dubai, Avni has previously worked with companies like KPMG and has more than seven years of industry experience.
Avni shares:
“I started my career as a Business Analyst with Tech Mahindra and gradually moved to IoT pre-sales. Although I progressed, back then, I did not have a goal. So I reflected on myself and realised a gap between my academic knowledge and professional skills. Hence, I decided that my first goal was to pursue an MBA.
Climbing the leadership ladder is an ongoing process, as I still believe I have miles to go to achieve my dream leadership position. “Whatever you do, you are setting an example for somebody, you can see them, or you cannot see them, but there is always somebody looking up to you, and you inspire them.” This is my leadership learning over the years and the key characteristic of any leader.
A study conducted by McKinsey said that for every 10% increase in gender diversity, there was a 3.5% increase in earnings before interest and taxes. I resonate with this study as women come with unique structural and cultural awareness, which aids significantly in problem-solving as they tend to identify key skills that might go unnoticed in organisations. Further, women bring in a lot of balance, which also benefits performance upliftment because they are empathetic in building the organisation’s culture. Hence, I think women’s representation in senior executive roles is crucial.
Amrit Shandil (Senior Product Specialist – Intermodal Services)
Amrit Shandil is currently based in Doha, and works as Senior Product Specialist in Intermodal Services. Carrying a holistic experience of 7 years in the industry, Amrit is a new mom who strives to maintain a balance between her personal and professional lives.
Amrit shares:
My parents are my inspiration. Today, I have found a strong role in my father-in-law’s company, helping me bring out the best of my pharma knowledge.
In my opinion, women carry the power to make things happen. Already juggling many things in our life, we dare to go ahead and get something done when someone else hesitates to do the same. I derived this from my first job, as my immediate boss and the company’s President were women. Both handle meetings with absolute grace, creating an environment where anything is possible.
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Our EMBA women leaders advise the next generation of female leaders to take the plunge to achieve their dream goals. After all, achieving your goals will not be easy if you dream high. So, how are you taking the first step to achieving your goals?
Click here to read more stories from SP Jain’s EMBA students and alumni.
