Challenge the Traditional Barriers Date:   Friday , July 31, 2009 She claims to be a bit of a workaholic, juggling multiple business accounts at a given time and wearing several feathers in her hat as a mentor and leader. And yet she is known to shift client calls around her TV timings. "After all, balance is the key to a peaceful life," says Shireen Alam, Director of Program Management at Sapient. With a bachelor's degree in arts and a major in physics from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, Shireen first started working with Sapient in the U.S. ten years ago and moved to the company's India office six years back. "The entire journey has been exciting, challenging and very rich in terms of learning," Shireen reflects. Her roles have included managing multiple projects - from the requirements gathering phase to final delivery of the solutions, ensuring that the projects remain on-time and on-budget. She also gathered extensive project experience providing leadership to project teams, comprising of 10 to 45 members including onshore and offshore internal developers, contractors, client experts, and third party vendors. Currently, Shireen manages projects in the financial services line of business and leads one of the famous accounts at Sapient, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare’s Web based content management solution as well as the Web design project for the MIT OpenCourseWare and other clients. Apart from the above projects, her everyday role includes mentoring the middle management on delivery processes and people management. Recently, she has also involved herself in business development, which she finds extremely challenging. Though having lived and worked in the U.S. for a substantial period of time, her decision to return to India had been a turning point in her career. "Back then, the sole thought of moving back to India was to experience living in India again, as an adult, but today I realize that this decision also helped me greatly in my career by changing my outlook towards many things," Shireen explains. While shifting her base to New Delhi Shireen had assumed that since she was just moving into another branch of the company, most things would remain the same. However, she soon realized that the two countries were culturally different. "It took me a while to adjust to the slightly different culture, but a conversation with my Senior Manager at that time really helped set me up for success when dealing with new situations. I also learnt that it was important to broaden one's perspective and not move on a one-way track," she says. Apart from her day-to-day roles and responsibilities, Shireen has largely contributed to the organization by providing leadership to the 'Managers & Above' forum consisting of 60 members and as a hiring point of contact for her business unit. In this role she created processes to manage the interviewer pool and interview scheduling. These efforts grew the pool by 50 percent and increased participation accordingly, thereby contributing towards significant growth of the business unit. Apart from growth of business, her mentoring and able leadership has simultaneously helped her team members in their career as well as personal growth. "Everyone is a leader and everyone can be a leader. One just needs the help of right guidance to search for those skills in ourselves," she says. Shireen believes that building secondary leadership not only gives others a chance to grow but it also allows oneself to take up newer challenges. "For me it's a reward to see people whom I mentor, grow." Having been instilled with values of good education since her young days, Shireen still believes in learning constantly. Hence, it saddens her when young members of her team sometimes choose not to focus on things beyond their domain of work – for example, understanding the value of the business they work for, or their client’s industry or domain. "After gaining thorough expertise in one's own work domain, it is important to open one's mind, learn new things, and expand one’s skill set. Even the most mundane jobs can teach something new," she explains. Shireen herself devotes a substantial amount of her work time to learning new technology, business processes, skills, and more. An excellent track record in team building and project delivery with strong problem solving skills are what Shireen is well known for in the organization. Being a person who believes in the big picture, she constantly lays emphasis on developing and maintaining long term relationships with people and motivates her team to work towards it. Prior to joining Sapient, Shireen worked with a software company called Wolfram Research. She spent a year there, initially doing some technical support work and then moving into their research arm. "I owe all my success to the strong mentors I have had in my life, starting with my parents and now my mentors at work. It was their guidance and faith in me that helped me reach where I am today," Shireen says. Though hailing from a conservative family in Kolkata, her mother always pushed Shireen to be independent and sent her abroad for higher education at the age of 16. Her father, a workaholic himself, has been instrumental in instilling the values of commitment and passion towards one's work. While she believes in working hard, she also feels it's important to spend time in doing what one likes. "Attaining the right balance between work and personal life is quite important or else one will just burn out easily," says Shireen. Her idea of unwinding is either catching up with her favorite sitcom or exploring new places, especially new restaurants in the city. Also an avid reader, she loves reading the works of Indian authors, more specifically those who write on Indians settled abroad. Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies happens to be one of her all time favorites. Dynamic and spirited, Shireen believes in challenging the conditions around oneself and not limiting oneself to traditional opportunities that are reserved for a woman by the society. "There may or may not be a glass ceiling but it's up to we, the women, to shatter the obstacles and emerge successful in our endeavors," believes Shireen.