Why work with me?
I am an Erickson & Gallup coach and I bring with me an overall industry experience of 20 years, focused on product, technology and operations across insurance, BFSI and ecommerce domains.
- A Harvard Business School, PLD graduate, I have skillfully built teams and coached leaders with the focus on growth and collaboration. Hired and built cross-functional teams of sizes varying from 30 to 150+ people, spanning multiple geographies.
- My extensive global experience enables me to understand various cultures and strategically develop partnerships and business relations.
- I have spearheaded agile transformations for organizations, enhancing predictability, productivity and quality of products & services and enabling an agile mindset with teams. My startup experience enables me to bring order to chaos and navigate cross-functional teams through ever changing landscapes.
- I use my technology and product background, to enable teams to leverage best engineering practices, agile methodologies & design thinking for innovative product building.
- I am an enthusiastic contributor to various industry and academia events for career counselling, women in technology, diversity championing, leadership building etc.
- I have designed and conducted various programs on design thinking, product innovation, leadership and career growth.
My experience & passion lies in working with individuals, colleges and organizations, enabling career growth, process transformations and solutioning innovations for increased efficiency & improved quality.
What made me become your growth coach?
It doesn’t all boil down to only my professional achievements. There is a lot that has brought me to this stage of life. My life experiences both personal and professional, the challenges hurled at me and how I overcame them. In my earlier days, I’d just try to survive through troubles, but life taught me to rise. And since then I have learnt and emerged triumphant, after every fall. I look for the best in every situation, I own every problem I face with positivity and follow a solution oriented approach to make the best of it. I have transitioned from “survivor to thriver.”
With this transition, I got in the driver’s seat of my life and began to invest in myself. I upskilled, I travelled, I read, I met new people and began to live life more purposefully. I made conscious choices to do things I love and enjoy and those which added meaning to my life. I learnt to wear my scars as badges of honor and thought of my struggles as adventures, which opened up my mind. As a coach, I share these learnings with you.
But there is no one size success mantra, that fits all. What I do as a coach for you, is to work with you to find your mantra. I believe that whatever we need is within us, and I help you dig within, polish your own inner gem and bring the spark out.
Still Reading? Want to get to know me better?
Some great human beings have summed up my life, in quotes...
Oh! The Places you will go! - Dr Suess
“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” said Ibn Battuta, and you will see this aspect reflect, during our coaching sessions.
Being an army kid, I moved from one city to another every few years. Initially, these changes in environment, new schools, trying to settle in, making friends, learning new languages was hard and just when I got comfortable, it would be time to move again.
But, with time I used it as a means to build confidence and with every travel, learnt something new about people, cultures, food and more.
As I grew up, the travel bug stayed and I started to explore the world, all on my own. As much as I loved my trips with my friends, the solo trips opened a whole new world.
I learnt that each culture, each person and each place is different and accepted them for who they are. Travel opened up my mind like nothing else has. It made me kind, brave and curious.
“Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” - John C. Maxwell
Imagine, being a few shades darker, in a country, obsessed with ‘ Fair and Lovely’. Now, imagine, being short, with a foot deformity. That was me as a child. Far from the cultural mandates of being ‘Perfect’. My childhood was laden with sympathetic stares and murmurs when I walked by. This resulted in me having a very low sense of self confidence, and made me reserved and shy.
Every time I changed schools, I had to enter a new battle to find my fit. My lack of confidence made me rely on other people’s judgements over mine leading to wrong decision making. It was some of these decisions that set me back but then jolted all the hidden strength within me to own my life and decisions. I rose from my slumber of low self esteem, and took life by the horns.
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. - Benjamin Franklin
I truly believe that learning never stops. I learn something new every day, that sets my brain into action, and urges me to try new things, and makes me open to exploring further. I go back to school ever so often to learn new things but learning is not limited to just bookish knowledge. Education through experience. Education through travel. Education through the environment is key to development. Whether learning an art form, music, pottery or a new language it benefits us at a subconscious level. It enables growth. It also makes me humble knowing there is so much more to learn from everyone I meet, every book I read and everything I experience.
“Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.” Rumi
There are no failures, just steppingstones, sometimes we step down while moving ahead. It is the universe telling us to change course or try harder. Very often we get too comfortable in the places that we are, and a nudge is needed for us to navigate our own path. I have been lucky to have mentors guide me through my corporate journey, pushing me in directions I never thought I could go, giving me essential feedback to help me grow. It is essential to recognize the signs and build ourselves up, so we don’t fall off the next steppingstone. I work with people to create self-awareness, identify strengths and align them with their goals, whether personal or professional. The kind of happiness I feel when I see these people succeed is immense and gives me the boost, I need to keep me going.
“Yoga does not just change the way we see things, it transforms the person who sees.” - B.K.S. Iyengar
Yoga transformed me. It taught me courage, it taught me peace, and kindness! Kindness began with kindness towards me. I am a certified yoga practitioner, I teach yoga, but I also learn from it every day. Yoga enabled me to recognize the powerhouse that every human is, knowing that everything you need is within yourself, all you need to do is access it. Growth is about the self, a flower doesn’t compete with the flower next to it.
As BKS Iyengar said “Action is movement with intelligence. The world is filled with movement. What the world needs is more conscious movement, more action.” I use these learnings in the coaching space to focus on conscious movement, conscious choices leading to contentment.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T. S. Eliot
From skydiving to level 5 white water rafting, rappelling to canyoning, I’ve tried it all. All of these involved risks I took, but I made sure my parachute was fixed right, I had my harness or life jacket on. What’s life without a few calculated risks? Especially as statistics say that the most number of deaths happen because of car accidents so why not jump off that plane eh? None of us get out of life alive, so might as well live it to the fullest.
I’m not advocating adventure sports, but I don’t believe in what if’s and regrets. If we won’t try, we’ll never know. Yes, it is essential to make conscious decisions about important aspects, while balancing it with a spur of the moment kind of decision. Enjoying the journey while keeping an eye on the destination. This sometimes requires us to take risks … calculated ones! Whenever you find yourself contemplating – What if you fall? Always remember to also ask – What if you fly?