‘Warming up to diverse roles from treasury to marketing’

Partner and EVP Padmini Sharathkumar, who moderated a session on ‘Press for Progress’ to coincide with the 12th anniversary of eWIT (Empowering Women in Technology), tells us about diverse functions that have engineered her career. 

I have had an interesting career - from being a Treasury Manager in American Express to technology centric role, to marketing and HR. When I was expecting my first child I was called ‘an unreliable resource’. I think I didn’t know better back as to how discriminating it is for moms-to-be. The way the career took off, I am thankful for the support system within the company and outside. I was constantly listening to my heart, I’ve worked hard to unlearn and relearn. 

I have always enjoyed roles that put me around communications. Considering I did engineering in college, I realise that it’s more of the non-engineering lessons that are helping me right now. Engineering as a stream has helped me get into specific details while I’m into problem solving and it has also helped me FORM a very structural approach to thinking. 

As a leader, I believe very strongly in the power of aligning teams. As a leader I spend a lot of time creating a strong common purpose and designing mechanisms for alignment. 

I’m a big believer in creating mechanism and designs that are sustainable. Some of the things I take pride in is the brand architecture work and communication strategies that I’ve done for the company. 

My areas of concern with millennials are probably their endurance when faced with imperfection, failures and challenges. I am looking at their tenacity to endure multiple challenges one goes through. Maybe I see them focusing a lot more on instant gratification. 

Rather than just doing events around Women’s Day, I like the way how eWIT for 12 years has been keeping up momentum and the intention being to genuinely empower women. For instance, just 2 months ago they did a brilliant programme around bringing more women Board members.