As part of our quest to get you meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world, we invited yet another passionate IT industry leader Sharmili Tripathy for an exclusive interview with BrilliantRead Media. She is an award-winning IT industry leader having 15 years of experience, who drives quality in the products with the guiding principles of ownership. Let’s learn more about her inspiring journey, her background and her advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Sharmili:
Talk us through your background and your journey, please;
I was born and brought up in a very small city in Odisha called Dhenkanal and belongs to a middle-class family. I am the 4th child in the family and everybody was expecting a son after getting 1 son and 2 other daughters.
When I was a baby girl my aunt would have killed me that time if I had not been beautiful, that was the story I heard many times till my adulthood.”
My father is a lawyer by profession, but he was involved in politics from his college time and my mother was a retired school headmistress. Throughout his life, my father did social activities. He built a school in my native during my childhood and almost every day there would be 15 to 20 members come to meet him and we had to adjust everything. So from childhood, we learn how to adjust with our surroundings and also how to help other people in society.
My mother is a goddess of patience and my role model too. Along with her job she has taken care of both the family. She suffered a lot, but she never expresses that in front of us and we all 3 sisters and my brother learnt patience from my mother.”
With all these challenges we all grew up and when I got engineering rank in a government reputed college my family couldn’t afford me to study there and keep in a hostel, as we didn’t have much earning at that time and my other siblings were studying engineering and MBA.
Then again, I had to adjust and studied in a private engineering college in my native place. After my B tech, there was no campus interview for me. So after completing my final year I came to Bangalore to pursue my career journey.
To migrate to Bangalore, arranging money was a difficult task, my mom had taken 10,000 from my grandfather and gave me to come here. With that amount, I stayed here for 3 months and I got my first job in Satyam computers. I was there for a year and didn’t see much growth and then I changed to Wipro.”
I had a great learning experience in Wipro and at that time I was working for mobile testing for Motorola and Nokia mobiles. When I changed my project to a Nokia account from Motorola, I still remember there was an onshore opportunity for Nokia, Finland.
One of my managers came and asked another senior female colleague for that opportunity, but the manager told me that there will be no girls in Finland from that project with whom she can accommodate. So she has to travel alone and search for a house of her own.
She spoke with her family and they said not to go. Then that opportunity came to me and without even asking my family I said “YES” Because I believe opportunity does not come that often. So I travelled to Finland in 2007 and stayed there for almost 9 to 10 months. During my stay, I learnt what networking is.”
I still remember there was a day when Mr Ajim Premji came to the Wipro Finland office and there was a heavy snowfall. So nobody agreed to come along with me to visit there. But I didn’t want to miss that opportunity to meet a legend like Mr Ajim Premji. So I went and met him and that was an unforgettable corporate memory forever.
Sharmili Tripathy with Azim Premji (Left)
The learning I got from him is that whichever position you have does not matter. Being a strong leader you always should have empathy, gratitude, a strong vision and positivity for your employee and for society. I always tried to lead by example throughout my life.
Currently, I am working for Accenture for almost the last 12yrs in a technical manager role. But I strongly believe that when you think of other people and how your team can grow with you, that means you are a leader. It does matter which position you are in.”
Many times by telling truth and asking for justice I too got backfire, but I am never worried about that because I felt I did something right not only for me but for the benefit of other people
How did you discover your Passion and Purpose?
I have been a studious girl from my childhood and even after doing a job, I upskilled myself on all trending technology to keep going. But along with my job, I feel I am completely a people person and I fight for justice which is not very common for women in the IT industry.
I probably would not say I am the most confident person, but there are people surrounding me who believe that I am extraordinary and unstoppable. I have the ability to achieve things and I can also convince people.”
So last year I joined a leadership program called Iron lady where the mission is to empower women to be in the top leadership role. Because in India even though the women are strong, we don’t see many women in C suits.
The Iron lady program also created a 100 board member team, where they are preparing women to be board members of different companies and I am also a part of that program.”
In India, most of the parents are staying alone in their old age, as their children are going to different places for doing jobs.
So my purpose in life is to make a few old age homes all over India and make the older feel like they are staying at home. Apart from that, my friend and I are thinking of creating a mobile app for older people so that they can get every facility in their homes.
With so much going on, how do you start the day to keep your passion alive?
I feel as a woman I am already strong. But to keep me energized every morning I do mirror exercise and tell myself “Sharmili you are whole, complete and perfect. You can achieve anything that you want. You are your own superwoman. After that, I do puja (prayer) for a minimum of 30 minutes.
In the night I do meditation and visualize every day about my dream where I wanted to see myself. I also speak to my family members in a video call every day to make them feel I am always there for them in spite of anything which also gives energy to me to keep going.
“The world accommodates you for fitting in, but only rewards you for standing out”
How leadership qualities can help with career growth?
I feel confidence is an attribute, as the key to leadership success.
Throughout my professional career, I saw women struggle with what they characterize as a lack of it. They are not confident to ask what they want and even to seek a mentor. So move out of your comfort zone if you want to succeed in your life.
Receiving encouragement from role models and having a strong professional network can also help women bridge the confidence gap which I really got from my iron lady team.
I am fortunate enough to find good mentors with whom I discussed both my personal and professional things and they guided me in all my ways. I think it’s also about the people you are choosing around you.
I always feel my team is a second family for me. Building that personal bond at work is really necessary and the key is “ building that trust”. Once it’s done nobody can stop you from going up the ladder.
“Relationships are the building blocks of anyone’s life or career, and making those connections has been the single most critical thing for my career advancement.”
Leadership skills help me make critical decisions and set clear goals for me and my team. If someone asked me what exactly required to move a woman into a leadership role my answer would be leadership training, confidence building, decision-making, networking, and critical thinking most often.
What are the business mantras you have embraced as you sought to establish your success story?
Own your career. Don’t wait for someone to tap you on the shoulder and present an opportunity to you.
Establish relationships and networks with people inside and outside your organization
To get the opportunity, I created my own personal brand and I prepare to give my best shot at each and every opportunity that comes my way.
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
(1) Be confident
(2) Be nice to others
(3) Be authentic and believe in yourself
(4) Know your own worth
(5) Never give up
(6) Be a good team player
(7) Create your own personal brand so that people will know who you are
(8) Keep learning different skills
(9) Take a stand for what you believe in
We know that you are continuously engaged in helping others achieve their goals. Why do you do that?
From my childhood, my mom says if you are giving things in one hand, God will return you that double. Even if I never expect anything from anyone I believe if you help others in any way that’s the most valuable thing you can give to humanity.
Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value. Sharing your knowledge improves your personal performance, effectiveness, and skills along with that, other people also achieve their goals. I feel satisfied if because of my help, someone achieves their goals”
Adding value to someone’s life is immensely gratifying for me. For this reason, I keep collaborating and networking with different people personally and professionally.
Please share with us – what has worked well for you so far?
From my childhood, I have the leadership quality and confidence which I acquired from my father and that worked well for me till date.
Helping others, working as a team rather than thinking only about myself helped me a lot to grow in my career.
I always tried to make a difference in society and in my team by being a good leader for them. I have seen lots of failure in my life, but still, I never give up and will not give up till my death. By speaking up things upfront few times help me in my career, but even I got backfire few times,
“I’m inspired by the next generation of women leaders. When I see their potential, I want to have more of an impact and pay it forward.”
The Iron lady program is the best decision so far I have taken which boosted my confidence 10 times and I understood my worth and what I can achieve. I wanted to thank Mr Rajesh Bhat the CEO of the Iron Lady who is doing this women empowerment leadership program to see them in the top leadership role. I too have a mentor like Raina from whom I did my POSH certification and learnt a lot from her leadership quality.
I too learnt a lot from my husband being a person of calm and composed and adjusted in every situation. At last, I just wanted to thank my parents, my siblings and my super supportive husband and my loving son for helping me immensely to achieve my goal.
Also, I wanted to thank my mentor Paul, Deb and Nandha for their continuous support and advice which boosted my mental strength.
What about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
I feel happy when my family tells us a great couple. Since from the beginning of my marriage I never complain about anything to both the family (Because of my supporting husband)
Along with my professional journey, I make sure my family also gets my time. To make it exciting I do cake cutting with my husband & son every month.
I got a lot of feedback from my team that I have inspired them to achieve their goal which is really satisfying. I received Accenture excellent awards and a greater than an award from India for my performance which was really exciting and also a source of inspiration. I have been recognized in the top 250 women tech leads, among 50000 women in Accenture on a global level.
I am a frequent blood donor even though I have a rare blood group AB-ve for which I received many certificates from hospitals and blood donation camps.
I did my POSH certification to do social awareness program and build a better society for women in the workplace
Recently, one of my mentors, who is the CEO of one company, told Sharmili your story is an inspiration for me. At that time I thought if I could inspire a single person also by telling my story I would be grateful to the universe.
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
– They should be confident
– They should share their point of view
– Be supportive of others
– Be a good team player
– Get involved in something you’re passionate about
– Take a stand for what you believe in
– Collaboration and networking with other teams
– Sharing of knowledge
– Master in some skills, but flexible to learn a cross skill
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
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