'Women, will determine the course of the world'

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 07 March 2011, 14:59 IST   |    24 Comments
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'Women, will determine the course of the world'
Bangalore: The history of women in leadership roles always speaks of struggle and hard work. Challenges surrounded her from her early childhood, but she is intelligent and cunning, her wit, charm, ambition and manipulative ways led her to be a leader. SiliconIndia organized the Women Leadership Summit for all 'hers' and 'her' Achievements on 25th Feb across 5 cities in India at Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai. The event saw 400 corporate delegates-mid and senior level women executives in each city come together to celebrate the great strides women are making in their companies and in the business world. All resources on this planet from copper to petroleum to education have been utilized -- except the critical resource of women talent. There are 500 million women in India, and only 5% of Board directors are women, and only 10 percent women in top-management in corporate India. Addressing this and many more such issues this platform for Women provided a interesting forum to enable women and empower them to achieve their goals, "Women, Weather, and Web"-- will determine the course of the world in the coming years says Poonam Barua, Founder Chairman, WILL Forum India, at our Keynote address at the Delhi Conference. Women Innovators Sridevi Sundararajan , Group Quality Manager, HCL Technologies said "Motivation , Self-efficacy, Women empowerment and Leadership style are the driving force to excel for an innovator or an entrepreneur to bring value in any enterprise" at our edition at Chennai. "The advantage and disadvantage of being a lady is that you 'get noticed'.It is essential to know which ball to drop at any point in time when things get out of hand" quotes Dhanya Rajagopalan, Senior Business Analyst, ThoughtWorks. "One's fabric of being a good human being who is synonymous with high morals and values, integrity, faith, toleration and virtue amongst others is the fundamental truth of 'good leadership' says Kuiljeit Uppaal, National Head - Program & Content Dev, Avalon Academy, Aptech at our Pune event. Women's Work: The Great Juggling Act Sharing her views on this Padmini Sundaram, Vice President, HSBC Private Bank says "Participation in social initiatives which reach grass root, help me become a better manager and a better human being". "Having the desire and passion to do something in life irrespective of the obstacles or circumstances makes the difference. If you desperately want to achieve something and work towards it no one in this world can stop you from achieving it" says Poonam Jaypuriya,GM-Products,Harbinger Group. Veenu Jaichand, COO, Centum WorkSkills(A Bharti Associate & NSDC) said "The challenge of balancing should be treated as only transactional". Breaking the Glass Ceiling "Women are competent, qualified and are able to excel in several fields and have broken the myths of glass ceilings and walls. Women still give family high weightings while making career decisions but always come back with renewed energy to take on more responsibilities. Much has to be done to support women in the mid parts of their career to ensure that they reach higher echelons of management" says Sujitha Karnad, Chief Transformation Officer, Tech Mahindra. "It is critical that we recognize that we are different and celebrate our differences without being diffident or defensive" said Sujata Puranik Rakhra, Leader, Global Branding and Advertising, Dell. Sharing Thoughts The summit had a good mix of Women professionals from various walks of life including Healthcare, Education, IT, NGOs to name a few, which led to rich and engaging discussions with the audience. "It is heartening to see 100s of women leaders come together to learn and share in events such as this" says Nandini Sabanayagam, General Manager, Global Accounts UST Global. "Overall the summit was a great forum for women to network and share viewpoints; topics that are usually considered sensitive or close to heart, and would otherwise not be discussed in all forums, were brought to the fore and this helped open up new channels of thinking; On some level - there are universal challenges that all of us work through" said Ramya Sampath Sharma, Sr Manager, Greater Asia Staffing Mkting & Channel, Intel. Jaya Senior Manager, Texas Instruments said "Self belief in our capabilities and willingness to challenge the myths associated with women leadership and to see that most of them face similar challenges and forums like this always enrich our experiences and equip us better to face them in our work life."