Organisations are recognising the importance of having diverse talents
Published on : Tuesday 08-03-2022
Mamta Aggarwal Rajnayak, Managing Director at Global-AI Hub, Accenture India.
What was the inspiration that prompted you to pursue this career path?
I have always been passionate about solving math problems since my school days and that was the only subject where I was counted among toppers! Numbers and data always caught my attention. Plus my higher education with Bachelors in Mathematics and Masters in Economics paved the right path for me to start my career in data and analytics. Today, I am helping businesses in their enterprise wide digital transformation initiatives and helping them put data behind each and every decision for their business.
Can you recall your early days – say the first few days at work – and anything you would like to mention about that?
I come from a very modest background, leave alone any girl but nobody in my entire immediate and extended family had ever had a corporate career. For me, it was like a fairy tale, a dream come true and I was all set to give my best to my work. I had a very supportive manager, great mentors and above all financial independence and an extremely proud family.
For a woman, it is a matter of finding the right balance between the jobs and managing the home – how do you manage this?
As a child, I always heard people talk about a 'double whammy' for working women. Conversations around how women needed to balance personal and professional responsibilities and depend on others to take care of their finances made me sit up and think. From the start of my career, I knew this was not going to be my story.
Fortunately, I had the full support of a loving family that constantly encouraged me to work hard and become independent. Post marriage, I have an equally loving husband who expresses displeasure if I ask him to make a 'decision' by himself.
Having lived in such a culture of equality, by taking up the inclusion and diversity (I&D) cause at my organisation, I wanted to send out the right message to all women. They shouldn't feel shy about asking for an equal seat at the table. It is their right, and they deserve it. And if this seat seems like an impossible or far-fetched dream, they must create this seat for themselves.
I feel finding a right balance between job and home has nothing to do with a person's gender, it is something that everyone should do. At home, we practice this by distributing the household responsibilities among all family members equally.
What challenges (or privileges) do women stereotypically face, based on their gender?
Though attitudes are slowly changing, we are still not there and there is still a long way to go. However, I am happy that we are moving in the right direction. Women have faced a lot of challenges in the work environment especially till about 5-7 years back. Women were considered second grade employees, their maternity leaves were considered as a paid chill time, there were big increment cuts, bonus cuts and promotions deferred in the mat leave years, and they were not given challenging assignments. Even if they got promotions or recognition, it was seen as gender balance lever and not what they deserved.
Have you ever missed a career opportunity or promotion due to gender?
Globally we live in a male dominated world, I think you won't find any seasoned woman professional who wouldn't have faced these challenges and I am no different. I did face the heat of maternity leave mockery, delayed promotion, and other recognitions in the past but that didn't stop me from learning and growing. In fact, I took on the challenge to contribute to the cause so that I can make this world better for other women professionals. At my current organisation, I am the I&D sponsor for my wider group. For the last 5 years, I have also been leading Global Advanced Analytics Women Forum across 6 countries at Accenture that encourages women in AI to innovate and solve for our day-to-day challenges.
Are workplaces today more sensitive to gender issues than say, a decade ago?
Yes, to a great extent. I would say any woman with more than a decade experience would have lived through a journey – from merely tolerated to being embraced. We are yet to see the days when we will be celebrated, but I am quite confident that we will see that very soon as well. Women are realising their true potential, organisations are recognising the importance of having diverse talents, businesses are realising the value added by diverse PoVs. We are developing strong women networks; women are enjoying sisterhood help and support in the organisations. We have strong examples like Julie Sweet (Accenture CEO), Indira Nooyi (Ex Pepsi CEO), Leena Nair (Chanel CEO) and many others to look up to. Families are more supportive now and above all we are understanding that for us even sky is not the limit!
Which women's 'cause' needs to be challenged and changed, first?
We are still restricting ourselves to ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ but as World Bank's India chief Junaid Ahmed said there is a strong need to add ‘Beti Kamao’ to this. Unless women become a mainstream income generator, they will never get the respect and financial independence they deserve. At the same time, there is even a stronger need to add ‘Beta Ghar Sambhalo’ to it so that our men understand their responsibilities towards household chores as well.
Are there areas at work that still restrict women when it comes to leadership roles?
Of course, there are a lot of industries and areas where women still find it difficult to become a part of the mainstream workforce, leave alone leadership positions. Industries like Construction, Manufacturing, Mining, Transportation and Warehousing, Utilities and many others. Few countries have less than 10% women in leadership roles. I feel there shouldn't be any industry/region/area where we should have gender imbalance especially in leadership roles.
What women-related myths or taboos need to be broken?
The Superwoman syndrome needs to be broken immediately, by carrying this syndrome we carry tonnes of burden on our shoulders. The world expects much more from us and there are unrealistic expectations. We are neither any less nor any more than our men counterparts. All genders have their equal importance, and they should co-exist. By calling women better at multitasking we unknowingly put unsaid expectations on them to juggle between work and home. Everyone should contribute equally at work and at home to make this world a better place.
Do you have a mentor or a role model? If yes, you may state briefly how it inspired you.
Any strong woman who stands for herself or another woman is my role model. Be it my mother who fought her own family to let her celebrate her daughters' birthday, my mother-in-law who fought her relatives to ensure that the parda-pratha (head-cover) doesn't apply to her daughter-in-law even if it is only on family occasions, or my house-help who said no to domestic violence. Julie Sweet, Indira Nooyi, Leena Nair, Kiran Bedi, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Sarah Gilbert, Sunita Williams, Kalpana Chawla, P V Sindhu, Mary Kom, Sania Mirza, Sania Nehwal, Gita Gopinath, Gunjan Saxena and the list is endless. All these women are role models and my inspiration as they not only created a seat for themselves on the table but also made their strong presence felt and voice heard. Looking at them, there is so much to learn and aspire for.
What would be your message to the youth who are just starting their career?
World is changing very fast, there are unlimited opportunities and possibilities. Keep learning and sharing. Find a purpose for yourself. Remember the only one person who can stop you from achieving great things is yourself otherwise even sky is not a limit.
Describe yourself or your aspirations, dreams in 3 words.
Better World for Women – I want to leave the world as much better for women than what I received.
With more than 15 years of experience, Mamta Aggarwal Rajnayak is Managing Director at Global-AI Hub, Accenture India, leading and managing Retail Analytics Practice for her global clients. She works with the community of enthusiastic and talented data scientists (DS) and data engineers (DE), who leverage industry-leading technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to help clients ahead of their competition. She has several patents, offerings, and research papers in her name.
Mamta has featured on 40 under 40 data scientists 2022 list by AIM, 3AI President's honour 2022, The AI Maker 150 - 3AI 2021. She figured on Top 11 Women in AI Leadership 2020 - AIM and is on Top AI & Analytics Customer Experience Leader 2020 – 3AI.
Mamta is also the I&D sponsor for the Global AI Hub at Accenture India to foster a culture of equality for all, respect for individuals and innovation to the core to create solutions for day-to-day challenges using AI and intelligent data insights. Mamta loves sharing what she learnt over years, she has been helping national and international universities in designing and enhancing their advanced analytics programs. She is an AI and ML mentor on various analytics forums to help upcoming DS & DE talent.
In her free time, Mamta likes to explore new places, solve mathematics problems with her son and rejuvenate herself by practicing Yoga. She also calls herself an amateur but extremely enthusiastic cricket fan.
.jpg)
