Digital Durgas: IT's 10 Super Women

With International Women s Day (8th March) around the corner, The DQ Channels salute all those who contribute to the development of girls’ and women’s involvement in IT industry.

There was a time when we all used to talk about women empowerment.‘Women empowerment’ is a burning issue all over the world and ‘women equality with men’ is a universal issue. Women empowerment refers to the creation of an environment for women where they can make decisions of their own for their personal benefits as well as for the society.

In simple terms, empowering women means letting them freely live their life with a sense of self-worth, respect and dignity; it’s when they have complete control of their life, both within and outside of their home and workplace. When they are able to make their own choices and decisions, it can be said that they are empowered, which our ladies are already doing.

Now when we see women out there doing extremely well in their fields, the term ‘gender equality’ doesn’t actually exist.

In this modern and evolving world, women take their decisions by their own and run big businesses directing a number of people under them.

Now there's no shortage of inspirational females at the top of their fields—and there's plenty they can teach us. Whether they’ve spent years climbing the corporate ladder, running their own businesses, or building a brand, these successful women learned the ropes of their chosen profession, raised families, and mastered the art of balance.

It’s a great opportunity to have conversations and understand the mind of the woman entrepreneur on the special occasion of Women’s Day. Some inspirational women in IT industry shared the insights with The DQ Channels.

Here's the best advice one can take from them while being in a space largely driven by men, what drives the women to success, let’s hear it out from them only.

1. Mamta Gupta:Director (Support), ETSC Computers Pvt. Ltd.

Mamta is a Post graduate in Dietician from Nagpur University. She has business experience of more than 15 years heading the support department of ETSC Computers Pvt. Ltd.

She has handled WIPRO Franchisee Operations for more than 15 years with a team of more than 25 people. Currently she is managing the IT solutions, Software and Services department of ETSC.

Mamta has moved from being dependent on Franchise Wipro to independent self reliant services mode for Infrastructure Availability and FM Services which has been the greatest achievement of past three years according to her.

Always wanted to be a Pro

“As a kid, one is not very sure what he or she wants to be. I just wanted to be a professional, an independent and confident individual as it enhances your personality.”

Have no regrets of the bad decisions

“It was my best decision to have moved from a Franchisee model to independent and self reliant model which has been the best decision so far. I have no regrets of the bad decisions made as it helped us to learn from mistakes and grow.”

Running own business

“Running own business gives a feeling of sense of achievement and to plan ahead as per our ambitions, at the same time fulfilling of dreams of people working for you.”

Advice to the budding professionals

“For the budding ladies I would say do what you are passionate about, never give up and be positive. When you do something what you like, success will definitely knock your door. Life is a continuous learning process, learn from your mistakes and move ahead.”

God helps those who help themselves

“Just sitting and thinking or brooding about problems does not help; one has to work on solutions. There is a saying that God helps those who help themselves, holds true.”

Celebrating success is my motivation

“Celebrating success/achievements and staying optimistic keeps me motivated to grow and overcome from difficult times.”

2. Nandini Sharma, Director, Comnet Resources Pvt. Ltd.

According to Nandini, the last two three years have been good for Comnet Resources, and the efforts and sacrifices of the entire Comnet family have been rewarded.

Sharing her feelings on this she said, “Today when I look back; it seems to be the greatest achievement for my team. Comnet has received the Best Distributor Award continuously for the last three years from Commscope and Sophos.”

On the personal front too, Nandini has received the ‘Most Promising Woman Entrepreneur’ Award from a leading IT magazine.

Her joining at Comnet Resources started off as a ‘make shift’ arrangement, wherein she wanted to assist her father with day to day business activities, yet have flexible working hours so that she could spend time raising her two kids. At the beginning she was apprehensive, since she had never received any formal education in technology – but with time, training and the support of the wonderful team Nandini has built her name at Comnet.

Comnet became her lifeline. Hence what started as a ‘part-time job’, now demands 100% of her working day and she has no complaints about it now.

Always wanted to be a Doctor

“As a child I was most fascinated by the white overalls and stethoscopes used by Doctors and had wanted to be one. I was in fact studying to be one too, but an unfortunate accident in grade 12 forced me to discontinue further studies in medical sciences ….”

There is something to learn from every women

“I believe that there is something to learn from women from all walks of life – so be it the award winning, successful ladies in the corporate world like Chanda Kochar, Naina Lal Kidwai, Arundhati Bhattacharya or Indira Nooyi; be it first generation entrepreneurs like Vandana Luthra, Kiran Mazumdar or Suchi Mukerjee; be in your neighbor next door who efficiently manages work, kids and husband; or even your house helper who struggles to ensure a better life for her children but never gives up!”

Advice to the budding professionals

“My advice to budding women professionals: always keep the three Ps - perseverance, passion and people, at the epicentre of all your efforts!”

Discipline and business ethics is a must have

“Two habits which I learnt very early, and which I believe have contributed to my success are discipline and business ethics.”

Failure is never final

“For me failure is never final. I take failure to just be plain feedback – feedback which helps me understand on where I went wrong, or what I could have done differently, which may have helped me succeed!”

Entrepreneurs make a difference to people’s lives

“Entrepreneurs make a difference to people’s lives – be it their employees or their customers. It’s this sense of responsibility, sustainability and ownership that drives entrepreneurs like me, and this is what I love about running my own business.”

Tough times never last

“Tough times never last; they just come by to teach you a lesson and then move on to the next willing student! This belief is what helps me keep myself motivated through tough times.”

3. Ratna Singh, COO, Jainam Technologies

Ratna is a BA English Honors Graduate from Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi and a Management graduate from SP Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai.

Ratna has an interesting and varied profile. She brings with her many years of work experience in the top Hotel/Airlines/Telecom industries.

Always wanted to lead an MNC

“I always wanted to lead an MNC towards the dizzy heights of success making it No. 1 and travel extensively internationally. My dream has always been to aspire to be No. 1 in any field.”

Women worth chasing in this life

“Benazir Bhutto, my grand mom, my mom, my sister.”

Never let failure get to you

“Take risks, take on any challenge, be ready to work late hours, be ready to make sacrifices, do not allow your personal life to come in the way of your professional life, think of yourself equal to a man and fight to get what you aspire in life. Never let failure get to you as after a series of failures, comes success.”

Passion brings success

“The inner passion to achieve, working through long hours. All roads have to lead towards a goal/an outcome even when everything falls; one has to believe that you can make it happen again and again even if you have a series of failures. Success comes from a deep inner desire to achieve in any area of life.

I have always believed that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I never gave up on any battle as losing is not in my dictionary. And winners do not give up, no matter how hard the fall. The challenges and the battles along with the wins especially after the failures are the biggest high one gets.”

Music helps in relaxing brain

“Listening to music helps greatly as it relaxes the brain and helps one to regain lost perspective which happens when tension mounts and things fall apart.”

4. Manasi Saha, CEO, Macaws Infotech

According to Manasi, over these last two to three years Macaws have signed couple of big orders from manufacturing and educational sectors, which she believes were the greatest achievements over the last two to three years at work.

It was definitely her hate-to-lose attitude that motivated her to take her business to new heights.

Employee management was an issue

“Being an entrepreneur I have made many wrong decisions in past. I did a mistake that is about employee management. I trusted wrong people as I was misguided.

But on the other hand, I also trusted a group of people who have been working with me since 18 years and I have been relying on them since then, so I think that was my best decision so far.”

Opening a gym was a dream

“Opening a gym, spending my whole day there, training people, earning good money was a dream as a kid.”

Sushmita Sen is a lady of her own

“Sushmita Sen: fantastic personality, she is a lady of her own way, she doesn’t follow any personality, she is by her own, I love these qualities of her.”

Advice to the budding professionals

“Attitude is the main thing you have to have. You have to be knowledgeable about what you are doing, give your 100%, be positive, take the ownership; normally being a lady we don’t do that.

Being an entrepreneur you have to check on later things. People will be following you: the society, your family. Hold your emotions when you are coming to the office. There will be hurdles in the way. Being a woman you have to love these challenges. Remember more hurdles mean more success.”

Adjectives to successful women

“Dedicated, a woman with determination and with fighting spirit.”

Giving a platform to freshers

“If you are doing a job and you are in business; you are not only feeding yourself or your family but also feeding other people and their families. You are giving careers to people. I am doing the same. Giving something to the society, I am giving a platform to freshers as well, this is satisfying and I love this thing about my job.”

I am self motivated person

“I am self motivated person, other than this I play squash: hitting the ball towards the wall takes out your frustration and relaxes you. I read Vivekananda books, I do swimming when I am demotivated. All these activities keep me going.”

5. Prarthana Gupta, Managing Director, Cache Technologies

Prarthana is the woman entrepreneur who led Cache Technologies to become a global enterprise from a domestic one. Most of the mid size IT companies focus on product and services.

Prarthana has taken the initiative to create her enterprise for end to end automation for her clients and these are the greatest achievements over the last two to three years for her.

Always wanted to be the innovative leader

“I had always dreamt of becoming the innovative leader to build future technology and to do extraordinary work for the development of the country.”

Women leader inspires me

“I am inspired by Mother Teresa and Dr. Sudha Murthy (chairperson, Infosys Foundation) a lot. They taught me to stay grounded and true to where you have come from.”

Advice to the budding professionals

“Action speaks, not money. The magic of contentment is great. Try that.”

Always believe in yourself

“I always believed in myself and the integrity. Dream big, work hard, stay focussed and be with good people.”

I believe in earning people

“I am rich by people. I believe in earning people rather than money. It’s important that you surround yourself with people who get you and push you to work harder than you did yesterday. So it worked for me. I have my mentors and friends to fall back to and also people, who held me, helped and inspired me.”

6. Sumathy Anantharam, Executive Director, Webcom Information Technologies

Sumathy is a part of Webcom family from the day of inception. She became the Director in 2005 and manages finance and purchase in the company.

Always wanted to do something challenging

“I always wanted challenge which women generally will not do and excel in the same. When all my college mates joined bank and insurance companies after degree, I joined a Mumbai based IT company as a service engineer. When I went to the client place for repair of the PC they said to my boss that they will not allow me to touch the PC as it is very expensive and do not want to give it to small girl of 21 years. I took it as a challenge and within 3 months the same person called my boss and told that they are happy with my services. I always wanted to take care of 100 families by way of employment.”

Sudha Murthy has taught me simplicity

“My mother who taught me to be unconditional in doing service, my sister who made me so strong in making me to take my own decisions and Sudha Murthy (Chairperson, Infosys Foundation), who has taught me simplicity at any time.”

Advice to the budding professionals

“Do any work you want with passion then your work pressure will turn into pleasure and never lose hope, you will be just one step to your success.”

Identify your real ability and passion

“Identify your real ability and passion, do a proper planning and project report and dream very big than you can imagine. Write your goals in front of your desk and read it as many times possible in a day. Ensure every day you take some new action to reach your goals.”

Failure is the path and lesson to success

“Failure is the path and lesson to success. So please do not panic or worry. Take it as learning. In 25 years, we have seen negative phase 4 times and every time we have bounced back with more energy. Hence, please perceive your dreams whole heartedly.”

I love to empower women

 “I love to empower college girls and women entrepreneurs to pursue their wishes and goals and I love to take care of elders and senior citizens. Hence, we are planning for a project where we provide upscale retirement homes for senior citizen and we are starting a vocational training for the nearby village and train them for the house hold activities, thereby their families will become economically independent.”

Me + business = Satisfaction

“Every time, the challenges are new and unique. Your status in the industry gives you more confidence to do multiple things. And you have your personal freedom and also economical freedom. You get a huge sense of satisfaction.”

Problems are temporary

“I listen to lot of motivational videos and audios by great people and also have faith in myself that I will surely win over the problems as it is not permanent, it is only temporary.”

7. Seema Shetty, Director, Essen Vision Software Pvt. Ltd.

Seema joined her husband, Nityanand Shetty from Quantum Pvt. Ltd., where she was a Territory Manager.

In this capacity, Seema managed multi-channel corporate sales and systems engineering support functions.

Wanted to become a boatwoman

“As funny as it may sound, as a kid I wanted to become a boatwoman. We would visit my hometown every summer. Our home was located in one of the most picturesque places in Mangalore, a bungalow surrounded by coconut trees and the Shambhavi River flowing right across the front of the house. In those days, people were ferried across the river via boats as there were no bridges and it was my dream job to become a boatwoman. I think even as a kid I thought of taking the off-beat paths and imagined woman in careers that were never thought possible. May be symbolism and appeal was very unusual at the time.”

Multi-tasking women inspire me

“I do not have this notion of a perfect woman. Imperfect women that overcome life’s hurdles inspire me. My maid and her strength to overpower her daily struggles inspire me. The effort an old woman street vendor in my locality who makes independence a priority, inspires me, my women executives at work and their multi-tasking abilities inspire me, a happy fun-loving woman inspires me, a healthy woman with a balanced diet inspires me, a woman who cooks well inspires me, a single mother inspires me. Different traits in various women inspire me.”

Success can be attributed to reinventing

“My success can be attributed to reinventing myself at every stage of my career. My eagerness to learn, my interpersonal skills and my ability to constantly reinvent myself in this dynamic ever-changing industry helped me to achieve success. My strongest assets are patience, hard-work and attention to detail.”

Never lose infinite hope

“Martin Luther King once said, “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.” I think my trait of not imagining things to be bigger than what they are helps me deal with what life throws at me. So failure is just a phase and something to deal with. I believe every storm runs out of rain.”

It’s tough to be an entrepreneur

“Being an entrepreneur, every day is a challenge but the sense of fulfilment when you overcome those challenges is unmatched. Taking an idea and translating it to something that has form and application, something that is work in motion on a daily basis, is something I find so cool.”

‘Green’ soothes me

“I think when you have a clear thought process and a mind that is not stressed out, it serves you well in difficult times. In order to be stress-free, I always find some time for myself. My day begins with indulging in my passion for gardening. The day ends with solving killer Sudoku puzzles and reading. I love listening to music as it is the healing touch to everything. Spending time with my family and friends has always been a stress buster.

I find looking back at one’s achievement is very re-assuring in difficult times. Words of advice from my husband, niece and son is something that I find gives me fresh perspective.

I always feel a sense of gratitude helps me keep my balance in difficult times.”

8. Kavita Singhal, Director, Kamtron Systems

In the past two to three years, Kamtron has moved to cloud computing business which according to Kavita is the greatest achievement so far.

Kavita is an impressively great entrepreneur, with a strong belief in women empowerment in the channel space.

According to her, there are many women in IT industry but usually they are been put at the backend of the entire process. Personally she always wants women to come in front and lead organizations.

There is nothing called worst decision

“There is nothing called worst decisions in my dictionary, a decision is a decision. It all comes at the end that what outcomes it will be giving (that the decision was good or bad). We just take risks to grow our businesses.”

Work is happiness

“When we were kids, we didn’t have any dream job thought. Today what I’m doing, I’m happy about it. When I was a kid, I only thought of becoming a successful person. Lot of things happen in life which we never thought of. But yes I have got much better of which I have thought as a kid.”

Advice to the budding professionals

“My advice would be – try to balance your family, personal and professional life. Just go ahead in what you actually want to do. This world is welcoming you with open arms. There is nothing called women and men here.”

 ‘Be’ you

“The very first thing is time management, full honesty, be a person who you actually are; we don’t have to pretend anything.”

I love meeting people

“Meeting people, learning something from them every day, from my team, from my clients, etc. these are the little things I love about running the business.”

Hard times test capabilities

“Difficult times do come in our lives to test our capabilities. I believe God makes us stronger with that, so I deal it with calm.”

9. Jeyalakshmi Venkatanarayanan, Founder, Universe Power Systems

Jeyalakshmi is the Founder and Proprietor of Universe Power Systems. Her first entrepreneurial venture was the dance school 'Nruthya Kendra' that she started in 1984.

Driven by the passion to work in the area of power, she started Universe Power Systems in 1997, as a business partner of Tata Liebert for UPS. From no prior customer base, Universe grew to serve more than 2000 reputed companies in various segments like IT, healthcare, government, education and research.

Jeya wants to manufacture power products that are affordable to all in future, and serve India by encouraging women entrepreneurs.​

 Entering biz world was best decision

“My best decision was to have become an entrepreneur and starting Universe Power Systems way back in 1997. The worst decision I made was to have entered a field without knowing much about it, which resulted in longer gestation period than I imagined in the beginning.”

Always wanted to be a Boss

“My dream job was to become an owner of a company and provide jobs to people.”

Balanced women is a muse

“A woman who is efficiently managing and balancing home and office is an inspiration for me and the upcoming young generation.”

Advice to the budding professional

“Budding women entrepreneurs should be well-organized and strike a perfect balance between work and home. They must be creative and address the problems of customers well in time and with quality.”

Success comes with commitment

“Commitment towards work, customer focus, an eye for the details and innovation are the reasons for my success.”

Failures are the learning opportunities

“I took failures as learning opportunities and I make it a point not to repeat mistakes.”

Hard work always pay

“A young girl from a rural background, coming up in life overcoming the challenges and issues faced during the early part of my entrepreneurship. This was possible mainly due to hard work, lot of good will and support from colleagues, friends and customers and of course, a bit of luck as well.”

Customer satisfaction matters

“Meeting the customer needs and receiving their appreciation when we complete our work successfully to their satisfaction.”

Always keep alternatives

“I strongly feel that whenever I face a difficult problem or time, a solution will appear if only I understand it better, look for alternatives, analyse and pick up the best options, keeping in mind the risks that do exist.”

10. Renu Chawla, Director, Adwebtech

Renu has headed the SSL & VAPT sales division at Adwebtech. She focuses on business expansion, partner alliances and overall profitability. She is also involved in overall strategy decisions within Adwebtech.

The fact that Renu has been able to rise to the level of a Director in the company has been the greatest achievement according to her in the last two to three years at work.

Happy to be in ‘IT’

“To excel in the field I would opt for when I grow up and I am happy to have opted for the IT industry.”

Women worth chasing in this life

“Ms. Kumud Srinivasan, President, Intel India. She is my idol and I have been watching her growth consistently.”

Advice to the budding professional

“I would advise budding women professionals to be focused on their goals set for the future and pursue them diligently.”

Focus helps achieving success

“Consistent focus on the preset goal is one habit I have cultivated early in my life and they have been paying dividends till date.”

 Success in a short span was unexpected

“The rise within the organization in a short span was beyond my expectations.”

Love sailing in challenges

“IT industry being so dynamic that I would love to keep myself and my team motivated to sail through all the changes across industry.”

Meditation keeps me going

“My time devoted to meditation keeps me motivated through difficult times.”