Team Sampada: Can you please give an overview about your career and journey so far for the benefit of our readers?
Akhila: I graduated in Oct 2000 (Electrical & Electronics) and was placed in a ERP software company at the time. Unfortunately within 6 months of joining the company, it went bankrupt and all of us freshers were left jobless, bang in the middle of the 2001 crisis when jobs were few. So I decided to do my MBA. I appeared for the CAT exam and got admitted into SP Jain Institute of Management & Research in 2002. I graduated from my MBA program in 2004 and was placed in i2 Technologies at the time. From 2004 until 2020, I was in the same company, growing my career through many different roles while the company also grew through mergers & acquisitions. Most of my career was in Solution Consulting. I started off by implementing our supply chain product software to make clients successful. Over a period of time, I grew through the ranks to become a Consulting Practice Leader who developed other people from Consultants to Architects to Project Managers. I also drove many strategies to make our Services departments to work together as we changed the company to become a Product SaaS company.
I am currently employed at Epsilon where I am the Chief of Staff to the Global Services Leader. I drive programs that investigate and fix issues around cost and revenue leakage, I lead cross-functional programs that make Epsilon effective as a company and also work on programs for employee career growth.
TS: How about sharing some memories of UVCE from your college days?
AP: I feel a lot of pride being part of UVCE. I always tell people that I studied in 2 colleges that are among the Top 10 in Karnataka & Top 10 in India.
UVCE was known for its top ranked students & good job placements at the time. I have fond memories of being around smart people, the relaxed atmosphere under the trees in front of the library (only from the 2nd year onwards after ragging was over) and learning so much in a span of 4 years! Of course there was the anxiety of figuring out how to learn all the new subjects every semester and the feeling of awe for a subject only during exam prep when I would actually study & start understanding! I loved Engineering Drawing a lot and the Microprocessor subjects!
TS: What are the current challenges in the industry for women engineers? We often hear about very small numbers of women leaders across domains in the industry. Your thoughts and views about it.
AP: The challenges in the industry for women are nothing new and will not go away anytime soon. As per the latest World Economic Forum report, it will take the world at least 131 years to close the global gender gap entirely!
Each one of us becoming aware of the insidious ways in which inequality thrives and standing up against it, is the only way we can reduce this timeline of 131 years. Examples of how inequality happens in the work place:
1. The boss decides that the woman employee cannot take up a ‘challenging’ project because she has kids and hence awards the project to someone else (essentially the woman does not even know she lost an opportunity)
2. The boss decides that the woman employee need not be given the pay hike she deserves because … (fill in the blank with any of these – she may quit when she gets married, her husband earns well, let her ask for the raise while we use the budget to retain employees etc.)
3. Employees have never questioned all-male meetings at work places for centuries, but an all-woman meeting must be a kitty party!
4. Employees & bosses alike thought that women who worked from home (WFH) were not productive until the whole world had to work from home and it was proven that WFH can be productive! (just to be sure, WFH is productive, but it is very difficult to be collaborative, creative & innovative)
In all these situations, let us realize that gender bias knows no gender. These employees/bosses could have been women too.
These situations show the deep bias that people have about women in general, in social life. Hence it shows up in the work place too. If people believe in their family life that women are secondary/inferior to men, the same people in the work place will question why the woman is getting opportunities, why she deserves the same pay hike etc. If people believe in their family life, that women can only take up certain jobs like teaching, the same people in the work place will question when a woman advances in her career and wonder what she did to get to the top.
So it is imperative to change society, to change the work place. The work place also can change society to a small extent, by creating awareness & training about diversity & inclusion because aware employees will function in society with awareness.
TS: What are your suggestions/advice to the current generation of students from UVCE? If you can shed some light about current trends, it would benefit students & recent alumni.
AP: Well, taking the prior discussion a little further, I will tell the women students that the most important CAREER decision of their lives is choosing their partner! So choose wisely, a person that will help & support your career decisions, a person that is not insecure but proud of your achievements!
For both men & women students:
Work is not all there is to life! Even though some leaders make you believe that 70 hour week is the road to success. Figure out your interests & hobbies and spend time on those, because only when you are relaxed and rejuvenated in your mind can you be the most effective at work! (You can also see how gender biased such a statement is because you can only work like that if all your life needs are taken care of by someone else, who most likely is a woman!)
Tech trends will come & go! When I was graduating, everyone thought the world will come to a standstill because of Y2K. The world never stood still then and will never in the future too. Tech trends may change the world too, as we are witnessing with Social Media over the past decade and AI in the past few years. We need to keep adapting by learning. So keep learning about new technologies and their implications. Develop your own point of view. Even if it turns out to be wrong, you learnt something!
Always take care of yourself – physically, mentally and emotionally! Life will throw challenges at you, they are meant for you to grow into the next version of yourself. You will be able to ride through these challenges if you have taken care of yourself through your hobbies/interests, connections with friends & family, good health etc.
Wishing you all great success at life!
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