At BrilliantRead Media, we always strive to bring meaningful and powerful stories from India and around the world to empower and motivate our growing community. As part of this endeavour, we invited Adv. Shreya Kalekar for an exclusive interview with us. Shreya is a Legal Advisor, POSH Consultant, Trainer and Managing Partner of OBlawgic Consulting LLP. Let’s learn more about her background, journey and her advice for our community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Adv. Shreya:
Could you please talk us through your background and your journey?
My hometown is Solapur, Maharashtra and I hail from a family of Advocates. I have done my LLB from the prestigious I.L.S. Law College, Pune, Maharashtra, I have also completed my CS Curriculum from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, New Delhi.
I have also earned my diploma in Labour Law and Labour welfare from the Savitraibai Phule Pune University. I am a practising advocate and have enrolled myself with the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa since last 8 years.
I am currently a Managing Partner in the firm called as OBlawgic Consulting LLP (Where OB stands for Organisational Behaviour and logic equals lawgic). It is 3-year-old HR Legal firm where we give HR Transformations to organisations struggling with basic to advanced HR Systems strictly supporting Employment and Labour Laws.
To pursue and enhance my Core HR knowledge, I am pursuing an Executive Management Programme in People Leadership & Strategic HR Management from the prestigious IIM Lucknow.
How did you discover your passion?
I have always been an academician by heart and keen on learning new things and gaining knowledge on the same. After completion of my studies, I thought that instead of going into traditional advocate practice and run cases, I would likely be in the practice of prevention of those cases.
I started my consultation practice in Employment and Labour Laws and mainly into the prevention of sexual harassment of women in the workplace. I started training of employees and the Internal Committees of private and public organizations. I am very proud to say that today I am a training consultant to the Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, for the West Zone Region.
Since I am into the field of communication, I thought of giving myself a chance into Organisational Behaviour, Development, Organisational Change Development, wherein I could communicate with employees or employers of the Organisation, diagnose the problems and take out a solution via organization restructuring, Training and development, drafting documentations for the Employees and giving a smooth entry & exit procedure.
Communication is the key for every solution, and when I say it’s my main strength, I wanted to make sure that its used in the right way at the right time.
Despite the challenges, what keeps you going when things get tough?
My mentor and my mind coach once mentioned to me that, your mind is the most powerful tool to overcome any challenges. To be very frank, I am living a good life with a good business and life partner.
Hence, I won’t say there are no challenges, but I have trained my mind in such a way now that the challenges never seem to be challenges but a new opportunity to help and make you grow.
I feel this thought always makes me to keep on going and now life is very amazing.
What are the most important lessons you have learned in your life?
> Your mind is the most powerful weapon and there should be only a place for positivity in your mind.
> No knowledge obtained is useless knowledge, it is going to help you in some or the other way
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
1) Powerful Mind and Positive Mind
2) Physical Activity
3) Accepting & Loving myself.
4) Training, Knowledge and implementation
5) Communication
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
Patience is the right word for everyone. I am just 31 right now, but patience in one way has helped a lot.
There is no age to stop learning or gaining any knowledge. You can change your career even at the age of 35 or 50 if you know that is the right choice for you.
Enjoy the present moment. Yes, it is important to plan your future and but it is equally important to enjoy your normal student life. This is the time you make friends and these friends ultimately are going to be in your business network and give you work in the near future. Hence, do not hesitate to build good and trustful relations.
At the end, I would say, be disciplined in terms of your physical activity. Make sure you are doing any activity atleast for an hour everyday. This always helps in keeping your mind, soul and health peaceful.
Last but not least, what about your journey makes it satisfying/exciting?
I have been training around 6000+ employees of a Local Municipal Corporation in the field of Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at the workplace.
The level of sexual harassment these women face while at their workplace is unimaginable. While I was in the 10th session, a woman post my session came to me and said, Madam the day I started trainings on this topic, the men automatically even before getting trained have started behaving in the right way.
A male employee the day before came to her and said, “Madam, I know there is a training which is happening where all employees have to behave in a correct manner with each other and that two days ago whatever he commented on you, I have to apologise for that day.”
When I get such feedback for my work and that my training starts making an impact and has benefited even 1 percent of the women, it means I have won in my life. These appreciations/feedbacks motivates and is too much satisfying.
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.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
