The joys and challenges of entrepreneurship are all rolled into one
Published on : Thursday 04-03-2021
Amrita Chowdhury, Co-Founder & Director, Gaia.
What prompted you to pursue a career in engineering?
Today, as a business leader in the technology space, I can see a few key drivers that led me on my path from engineering to innovation to business. Growing up, I was interested in the sciences. While I come from a family of doctors, I was not comfortable with blood and tissue – so the next best thing was to consider engineering. With that goal in mind, I joined IIT Kanpur as an undergrad.
After getting my engineering degrees from IIT Kanpur and UC Berkeley, I got the opportunity to work with Applied Materials in California. The Semiconductor industry was going through a massive inflection at the global scale at that time. I worked in innovation for the first few years, and indeed it was an enriching experience.
However, I wanted to further broaden my impact and that led me to pursue an MBA from Carnegie Mellon, work in management consulting in the US and Australia, and eventually shift to business.
Having obtained the qualification, what was the experience in getting a job?
My first job was in California working on product development and innovation at Applied Materials. AS mentioned earlier, the Semiconductor industry was going through massive change, innovation, and growth at that time. While I had wanted to work in tech marketing, I was assigned a product development project. It was incredibly tough and open-ended. There are no established rules in breakthrough innovation. I recall a year of experimentation – trying many new ideas and collaborating with various colleagues. I worked with a few teams for a while. Then the teams were moved to other projects and I worked alone. Nothing worked. There was immense pressure. Eventually, the product ‘worked’ – it led to 7 US patents. The first-ever Intel Pentium II and Pentium IV in the world used this technology, and it eventually was used in fabs around the world for a decade, generating perhaps tens of billions of dollars in associated business.
I learned some critical lessons in this phase which have stayed with me for life:
i. First, it takes a lot of perseverance and positivity to keep trying and trying and I don’t expect things to be easy.
ii. Second, one of my mentors of the time told me that real impact happens from chasing new ideas not doing improvement projects from 99.9% to 99.99% and that has been my mantra.
iii. Third, there is no substitute for hard work. I worked typically sixteen plus hour days, and when the product moved from the lab to ‘burn in’ for repeatability testing for production, I was the youngest person but the team leader.
iv. Fourth, we need to be able to effectively communicate about our work and protect it – something I learned from the numerous conference talks, journal papers, and legal patent paperwork that I had to do.
v. Fifth, we need to enjoy what we do. Much like Silicon Valley companies of today, Applied Materials was a ‘work hard, play hard’ atmosphere. I rose to the challenge, but also enjoyed making friends, learning about their cultures, and more.
What inspired your transition from a working woman to an entrepreneur?
After working in strategy consulting in US and Australia and leading businesses in India for several years, I moved into entrepreneurship. At the time, I had been working on the governance and marketing aspects of government missions. My co-founders were looking at the technology aspect. It was a meeting of minds and I joined hands with them. Gaia provides technology and e-governance solutions for complex, multi-location, and multi-stakeholder operations.
How was the journey from working for a company to managing one of your own?
The joys and challenges of entrepreneurship are all rolled into one. It needs immense commitment, perseverance, and positivity to continue day in and day out in the face of challenges. In some ways, my journey of leading businesses had prepared me for the functional part of running a business. But the attitude that’s needed is something that I have developed over time and continue to develop each and every day.
Do women as entrepreneurs have to face different or additional challenges?
The common challenge of entrepreneurship – for both men and women – is survival and agility. We need to continuously adapt and evolve – our products, our markets, and our approach – to grow and to succeed. That said, as a woman entrepreneur, we try to prove ourselves constantly. Hence, we end up working harder and take the effort to be totally thorough in everything we do.
A woman is also a home maker. How do you maintain the balance between the two?
Life is about balancing the imbalance. I believe that progression happens through imbalance, and consequently, there have been phases in my life when one thing or another has taken precedence. It’s important to keep the momentum but also to forgive oneself. We can achieve a lot by serially multi-tasking and focusing on different goals – both professional and personal.
That said, my children have always taken top priority. While I have juggled and balanced like every working mother, and I may not have been there for every interaction or homework, I have been there for helping them navigate every important milestone and curve and decision. Today, I am filled with pride to see them developing as mature, thoughtful, and achievement oriented youngsters.
Are workplaces today more sensitive to gender issues than a generation earlier? What is your approach to gender issues in the company?
There is a lot more awareness about gender issues today. However, the numbers still do not reflect adequate change at the systemic level. While more women graduate and join the workforce, there is still a lot of churn and dropout. The fraction of women in senior leadership is still low. Despite several marquee women leaders in technology companies, the overall rates are low.
Gaia has two women in the co-founding team. So we are very aware and sensitive towards gender and family issues for both female and male team members. But we work as a meritocracy and focus on work and deliverables, equal opportunity and equal encouragement. We offer significant flexibility to people to achieve their home, personal, and professional goals.
How did the Covid pandemic affect your working routine and what are the learnings?
We have been largely working from home since the pandemic started. Though some parts of our business requires on-ground instrumentation and client interface and these teams have been working from office or client sites throughout – even during peak lockdown.
The pandemic has required new forms of communication and collaboration, project management and delivery of work.
What would be your message to those seeking career guidance?
There is a lot of opportunity today – both working in a company or as an entrepreneur. We need to ensure that we ‘check in’ with the right skills and right attitude. Constantly learning and growing is critical. At the same time, we need to be fully engaged with our work, our team, and our clients. In the end, it is about being thorough and solving problems to create delight for our clients.
Would you like to share any other information or thoughts?
I am always thinking of new ideas, new solutions, new ways of solving complex problems, new ways of communicating.
I like to take charge and act on my ideas. I prefer to act fast, fail quickly, iterate, and restart till I get things to work.
I am not fazed by challenges – and increasingly so as an entrepreneur. I persevere. I remain smiling and composed. I keep trying to motivate my teams.
We need mentors and role models in life. But we may not find a ‘formal mentor’ if we seek one. I believe in learning from people by observing them. If we are diligent and excited about what we do, many people will come ahead to help us and be informal mentors. It is a circle of positive influence.
What are the three words that best capture the essential you?
Dreamer. Doer. Dauntless.
Amrita Chowdhury is Co-Founder of Gaia, where she leads the Business & Marketing functions. Gaia provides solutions for Smart Sites and Smart Cities, blending IOT, ICT, AI/ML, and analytics to provide insights. Gaia has worked with cities and enterprises on digital transformation via new age technologies and digital workflow automation to impact business processes and operations. Amrita is a business strategist, engineer and innovator. She brings a unique understanding of business growth, technology, digital spaces and brands. Previously, Amrita served as President & CEO of DY Works (Future Group); Country Head South Asia for Harlequin; and Associate Director, Education for Harvard Business School for South Asia. Amrita provided Board assessments and strategy consulting with AT Kearney is USA and Oppeus in Australia for clients in the mining, tech, automotive, professional services, and government sectors. She started her journey in innovation and product development with Applied Materials in California.
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