When women become leaders, they form a united voice that speaks for entire generations of like-minded female professionals. Women who operate in management roles have the ability to create a supportive business environment, empower through mentorship and positively influence the professional performance of fellow women.
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In our quest to support women empowerment, we’ve challenged some of our colleagues in Oracle India to share the stories of their business path: the drive for career success, the challenges they faced in the IT male-dominated industry and their mentoring vision to other women technologists.
For our last GHCI interview series, we’ve brought into focus two other inspirational Women leaders: Rohini Ramdath - Director of Clusterware and Nandini Narayana Rao - Director of Fusion Quality Assurance, both within Oracle India.
Commitment in Everything You Do
Rohini Ramdath is the Director of Clusterware within Oracle India and she has been part of the company starting with 2007, with a 19-year prior experience within the tech industry.
Bold, ambitious and tenacious, Rohini has never felt subdued in her efforts to excel as a female technologist. On the contrary, she believes that the IT industry has become more open-minded, liberal and “woman-friendly”, offering support to women professionals who dare to step up.
“We cannot call it a male-dominated industry in total. From my point of view if there are such challenges we need to think what those gaps are and overcome them with courage, rather than categorize it as male-dominated industry and sit helpless. We have to think right and hit the bottom of the issues as early as possible and communicate appropriately. There is no need to keep stressing about the gender aspect and we step out as early as possible in our career. You just have to think gender neutral and continue to contribute to your best efforts and stay committed.”
From her leadership role, Rohini drives a work culture of motivation and collaboration where the “people” play an extremely important role in organizational success.
“There has been a lot of trust and support towards myself and I am lucky to say I always have a very positive feeling each time I succeed in overcoming tougher challenges. Having a very large team in India there are a lot of challenges and winning over each challenge is a good success measure.”
“Use your freedom appropriately, voice your opinion and thoughts accurately, work hard and always be sincere.”
She also believes that other people – peers and managers - can help open new horizons of knowledge, passion and power.
“Identify a set of people who are your supporting threads and make best use of these resources! For me, it is my Oracle team and my reporting manager who make my world on a day-to-day inspiration aspect. There are a lot of women in top leadership positions and they are doing great! Choose your role-models and if you choose to be successful and have the right skills and ideas, you have it all!”
When it comes to striking the right balance between career development and the time dedicated to personal life, Rohini stresses upon the virtue of commitment. The passion for her job empowers her with more energy to enjoy after-work hobbies: cooking, music and travelling.
“There are times when a woman has to undergo a phase of maternity and child care and these are challenges as she has to balance her work and home. My advice: come back stronger and get back to work with more power. Use your multi-tasking genes efficiently! Work hard and use your flexibility and people will respect the need for your work-life balance when you stay committed and compensate to fill in your work.”
In order to stay on top of work priorities and career success, Rohini provides a strong advice to all fellow women who wish to pursue a career in tech:
“Use your freedom appropriately, voice your opinion and thoughts accurately, work hard and always be sincere.”
Building Strong Confidence
With a strong 20-year experience in the tech field, Nandini Narayana Rao is the Director of Fusion Quality Assurance department, Oracle India. Her career path within Oracle began in 2009 along with Oracle’s acquisition of the Siebel company.
Nandini’s career choice was never “really planned” as she recalls it, but rather a moment when opportunity met good mentorship.
“I was with Aspect Development India when the software boom happened and I thank my friend who then motivated me to take this path. I enjoy working on new assignments and build teams from scratch. These challenges keep me motivated and give me that kick. I have also had very good managers who have always mentored and helped me grow to what I am today.”
Like any other dynamic industry, the tech field brings on constant challenges that can be overcome only with a strong belief in oneself strength and power to succeed, Nandini points out.
“I have always been focused and positive in my approach and disregard comments that can put me down. I believe in myself. We need to change our outlook, accept them and learn to deal with them.”
“I strongly believe that if you want something, you can do it.”
As a female technologist and high-performing leader, Nandini believes that flexibility and the know-how to prioritize activities should be essential skills when trying to ‘juggle’ with personal life and work responsibilities.
Making the most out of both instances is possible and Nandini serves as the perfect example. Nandini is also an accomplished wife and mother who enjoys hiking and travelling together with family and friends, every time there is an opportunity to explore the unknown. Her thirst for novelty and excitement has determined her to even take on professional courses for guitar playing.
“It is definitely not easy for women to manage work, kids and home. But when you have a supporting team and manager, it’s not too difficult. I have a great team and my manager is very supportive of my decisions. My VP is a lady too and I get a lot of encouragement from them. Apart from this, you need to plan well and prioritize. Whatever time I get, I spend it with my kids, teaching or dropping them for their extra classes or being out with them.”
In Nandini’s vision, building positive awareness for women advancement in IT will help the industry ensure further support and collaboration for the development of women leadership.
“I have spoken to many great women leaders and the common thing I have learnt is, all women across the globe face similar challenges. It is impossible to satisfy everyone around you. You can prioritize and attend to what you think is important for you and not feel guilty about the rest. It is never easy, but you have to make this decision every day.”
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Oracle is Proud Silver Sponsor of the Grace Hopper Celebration India (GHCI) 2015 Conference.
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is the world's largest gathering of women technologists.
About the Author:
Passionate about turning simple ideas into creative stories. Truly in love with storytelling, Ramona Costea has been active in the media writing and publishing business for over 8 years. She is now a Copywriter for Oracle’s Global Recruiting department, where she continues to experiment with social media and improve content strategy. Her specialties include content writing, online marketing, employer branding and social media.
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