CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Riju Vashisht, Chief Growth Officer and global business leader for Transformation Services and Enterprise Sales, Genpact
How has been your journey as a women leader in the tech industry?
I began my career with Unilever where I was the first woman to lead HR and the only woman working at the chemical plant. However, my initial foray into the workforce was not the first instance of me being the only woman in a professional setting. While pursuing my engineering degree in college, I found myself among a mere seven women in a program of 220 students. This transition from an all-girls school to a heavily male-dominated field left me feeling disempowered. Our representation in the program was so scarce that our ability to influence and make decisions was severely limited.
Though this experience was challenging, it presented an invaluable opportunity to develop crucial skills for both my personal and professional life. I had to learn how to assert myself, make my voice heard, and become more comfortable in my skin. These lessons have since become valuable assets in my career journey as a woman in the tech industry, where the gender gap persists.
In fact, throughout my time at Genpact, I have been fortunate enough to lead and collaborate with individuals and teams across various functions and geographies. These experiences have allowed me to cultivate a profound appreciation for the complexities of people and business drivers and develop strategies that effectively align them to build successful client outcomes.
As a woman in a leadership position, I believe it is crucial to assert yourself and make your voice heard, regardless of your industry. This means being comfortable in your skin, unapologetically expressing your unique perspective, and advocating for yourself and your team. The challenges we face as women in leadership roles can be daunting, but by embracing our power and seizing every opportunity to make a positive impact, we can inspire change and pave the way for future generations of women to thrive.
How is Genpact building a diverse and inclusive environment within the organization?
At Genpact, we are in the relentless pursuit of a world that works better for people, and diversity is core to that pursuit. We firmly believe that having a diverse and inclusive workforce where talent from all backgrounds can bring their full selves to work, drives creativity, innovation, and outsized impact to our clients, shareholders, and, communities at large. Here are some of the initiatives and actions that we’ve taken to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion:
Genpact’s commitment to fostering a diverse and equitable environment for women includes a broad range of ongoing programs designed to attract, develop, and train them at every stage of their careers. This includes:
- Women’s Leadership Program: An accelerator program to build a pipeline of future-ready leaders, designed in partnership with Korn Ferry and based on Genome, our internal learning framework. The program provides accelerated development opportunities to women at mid-career stages. In a survey conducted at the end of the program, 91% of participants said the program increased their confidence in their leadership abilities.
- Pay it forward: Is our mentorship-sponsorship program designed as a solution to grow and retain our high-potential women. It allows women to nurture their careers through long-term sponsor-protégé relationships and encourages proteges to pay it forward by becoming sponsors themselves.
- Cross-industry mentorship program: 30 Percent Club is a global group of business leaders across industries, working together to achieve better gender balance at all levels of the organization – our collaboration with this group offers a cross-mentorship program for high-potential employees. This program pairs experienced and dynamic mentors with high-potential mentees from different organizations.
- Tie up with Chief: We are leveraging one of the most powerful networks of women in leadership. Chief is a private membership network for senior executive women from diverse backgrounds, industries, and organizations.
In addition to the above, Genpact is building an inclusive environment through various networking forums, allyship programs, and training initiatives like Managing Unconscious Bias (MUB) and our policy of zero tolerance for harassment or inappropriate behavior towards anyone in the workplace.
What is the count for women leaders within Genpact and how have you achieved that so far?
For us, fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment where our women employees can thrive, is foundational to how we drive continuous innovation for businesses around the world. We are passionate about providing our women leaders access to learning, mentorship, networks, and training to help them grow in a rapidly evolving environment. We believe that to materially move the needle on diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is critical to ensure that it is inextricably linked to a company’s purpose and business strategies. At Genpact, we have a 42% gender-diverse global workforce and we’re committed to ensuring that we get to our vision of 50% women’s representation at all levels of the company. Furthermore, we know this is a continuous journey and we’re continuously leveraging data to check our progress systematically.
What message would you like to give to the women workforce today?
My advice to women in the workforce is this: create clear boundaries between your personal and professional life. For many women, particularly those with young children, achieving a healthy work-life balance can be a daunting challenge. It’s essential to prioritize your time and energy, protect your personal space, and set realistic expectations for what you can achieve. Taking care of yourself is an investment in your overall well-being, and it will help you show up as the best version of yourself, both at home and in the workplace.
Today’s rapidly changing environment emphasizes even more that there is no substitute for the power of being curious. See each day as an opportunity to learn. Inherent curiosity and the ability to continuously learn, develop new skills, and harness new perspectives will allow you to evolve with the world around you.
Lastly, you must take risks and be unafraid to fail fast – the lessons that come out of these failures will be a stepping stone to future successes. Throughout my career, I have always believed that going into a new opportunity knowing only 50% of what needs to be done, will be far more valuable than taking up a new role knowing everything. Be bold and take the leap.
