Qualifications, achievements and experience of women are ignored

Jagrati Shringi, Co-founder and CMO at Voylla.com

The challenges of being a woman executive in a top role

Being into a domain such as hardcore technology, which is primarily considered as male dominated, women have to endure much challenges. The society we live is still paradoxical and adamant to subtle aspects such as that of shift of power from masculine to feminine orders. Although there are many provisions for bring around gender equality in workplaces, still lot more will have to be done. Even though, government as well as the private sector has rolled out a number of initiatives to bring gender equality and women empowerment, the ratio of male to female workers and executive is largely inclined towards number of males in any workspace. One of the challenges for women in top role is to tackle the professional attitude of junior employees.

Educational Background

I am a graduate in Technology from MANIT,Bhopal. My area of education was IT and electronics. Post my degree I worked with Center for Development of Telemetric, C-DoT, New Delhi for a couple of years before I took off for University of Pittsburg, in the US to pursue MS.

Family Background

I am from a conservative family. Based on a small town near Indorer, the North Indian culture to sideline women was visible in our locality as well. However, I took my dad as the role model of life. As he was an Engineer himself, aspirations to follow his footsteps grew right from my early days.

Working in Male-dominated field of IT

In the previous organization, I was the only women to work in hardcore technology related field. To withstand the general dominance of men in my professional career, I always doubled my effort to bring out the best result in every task. Eventually, I was successful to emerge as a dependable one among others. I always say that most phone meeting started with awkward silence as people expected a Mr Shirngi to answer the call. These experiences shaped me mentally to take the road less travelled , entrepreneurship.

Does a Glass ceiling exist?

Yes, it certainly does exist. A change of attitude is perceived even in professional workspace while dealing with women. Many a times, qualifications, achievements and experience of women are ignored because of her gender. However, a gradual change is emerging.

Hobbies

I am a bibliophile. Reading books is my hobby. I like Biographies of self-made people, business and technology related literatures. I also like to play sports, Tennis, Golf, Swimming, Badminton , in this order.

Future plan

My plan for Voylla is to transform the company to a top brand of India within next 5 years. We will bring innovative technology utilities in the website and work are on progress.