Lean In to Level UP — My LeanInWiTI Journey
As you all know from my earlier post that I started looking for opportunities to implement my networking lessons and got into my first Lean In WiTI session earlier this year. One thing led to another and soon I started blogging actively on LinkedIn with my fellow Saptarishis (Preethi Guruswamy Sobhitha Neelanath Deeksha Jaiswal Devi Anantharaman Surabhi Kumari Shilpi Mitra).
When the announcement for the next LeanIn event came, I was in two minds, as I was planning to celebrate my son’s birthday and also since it was post Diwali weekend, I wanted to have a relaxing one. Since, I’ve already been to a LeanIn event earlier, I was quite excited to hear and learn from the network and also meet other members. I decided to go for it and submitted the registration. Soon, I got a message from our network leader Preethi asking if I could take up and plan the fire side chat with Aarti Kelshikar and without a second thought I said yes. I am ever so grateful for this opportunity and quite elated to take this up.
LeanIn event was held at CMRIT with our graceful host Gomathi.
The event was off to a spiritual start with Divya chanting a beautiful shloka and sharing about her own LeanIn story and the importance of ‘Lean back’ at times.
From here, we moved on to the fire side chat.
Aarti Kelshikar is an intercultural coach, author and founder of 3A Consulting. I was more than excited to talk to Aarti and understand her career journey from securities market compliance to an author and coach. During the fire side chat with her, I had the opportunity to delve into her insights and grasp the concept of Cultural Quotient and its significance. From her experience working across multiple countries in Asia like Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Mumbai etc., it made perfect sense and some of the learnings from that fire side chat will come in handy during our day to day interactions in our professional lives with stakeholders, customers etc.
She also spoke about her writing journey, from her first book ‘How India works’ which is an ultimate guide to the cultural nuances and complexities of working with Indians to her latest book ‘How women work’, where she delves deep into how women leaders operate, other insights on leadership and success in Asia and how some of the Asian countries are more matriarchal in their approach to working women.
Preethi took the stage over from here and moderated a panel discussion with three amazing leaders
Shylaja Sabbani, Vice President of Engineering, SAP SuccessFactors
Aruna C. , Sr Partner Solutions Architect, Microsoft India
Shweta Kaushik Sinha, Director of Products, Zeta Suite.
The panel discussion was quite enlightening, with practical takeaways such as the importance of meticulous planning in managing personal and professional commitments, the value of having a sponsor, and the significance of building credibility through your work. I could draw a lot of inspiration from their career journey and experiences.
We wrapped up the event with a networking session at the end where I got to meet a lot of new members from the LeanIn WiTI community. It was a Saturday spent well.
Please follow the LeanIn WiTI page on LinkedIn to get the latest updates and information about the Level Up events.
