Tell us about yourself and your background
I am an experienced learning strategist and facilitator with over 23 years of corporate experience in business management and learning strategy – design, facilitation, large scale learning deployment.
I have held Senior Management positions with brands such as Genpact, WNS, Sutherland Global Services, NIS (NIIT) Sparta Ltd. With a consistent track record in delivering customized learning solutions to meet business needs.
Tell us about the company you have set up – when did you set it up, what products or services do you provide, what is your target market?
Confluence Learning is a young training and consulting organisation promoted by an experienced management team with over 50 years of industry experience and a team of learning specialists with proven capabilities in outcome linked learning/ training strategy formulation, deployment and performance support for practise. We partner organizations in translating business strategies into actions at an individual role holder level through structured and customized learning interventions.
Why did you set up the company? / What drove you to become an Entrepreneur?
Challenge, learning, freedom …
What has been your biggest challenge in achieving your success?
Hearing a ‘NO’ and handling a ‘NO’ – rejection – however I strongly believe that “Every no gets you closer to a yes. It’s a numbers game” and this has kept me going and becoming successful.
What has been your greatest achievement so far?
Achievements are many and to term any one of them the biggest would be unfair. The reason being every small achievement contributed into that baby step of a bigger achievement.
Who has been your biggest inspiration?
My life is my inspiration, I have gone through many difficult stages in my life and from each and every stage I have learned many lessons from my childhood till now. All along while going through these difficult stages, I was destined to meet with the right set of people who gave me the right advice, guided me through the whole journey. Today when I look back, these lessons that I learnt have made me stronger and matured individual and built my personality to face any challenges in life and come out strongly.
How do you balance your work life and home life?
Balance is a very abstract concept. The way I interpret it is, sometimes I’m focused on one or two areas in my life more than others, whether that’s for a day, a few months, even a year. But things change; seasons change.
A very recent example is execution of a consulting order for a reputed pharmaceutical company within 20 days from the receipt of the order. So instead of focusing on getting that family time, me time and office time on a daily basis (which you of course do with the daily routine) – I communicated to my son and family about the project in hand, significance of them same for me and my company and thus stopped thinking of the balance. Right after this project, we have school vacation coming up – I have communicated to the client on my non availability during that week and thus have been able to bring in the balance on my work – life.
This instead of work life balance being a pie chart where I have to give a little bit of my time and energy to everything, every day, I’m learning to better communicate my current focus to people around me. I find that once I stop thinking about the balance, it just happens.”
What advice do you have for women starting out on their own?
It is important to find your calling, where your passion is, your heart is. This should surely sync up with your personal goals. It is important to form genuine connections and define your brand – ensure that you communicate a consistent message to all your stakeholders.
Can you recommend any organisations or networking groups that have particularly helped you on your journey?
Can’t think of any organisation or networking groups… There have been people – mostly friends or acquaintances who have turned friends now who have helped me on my journey.
If you could ask for one thing to help propel your business what would it be?
None that comes to my mind. I would say we are taking the right baby steps in the right direction and see ourselves successful in the coming years. It is very important at this stage to believe in yourself, in your start-up venture vision and philosophy, have the right follow through actions to succeed.
What does the future hold for you?
Future is extremely bright and definitely see success in what we have set to do. As mentioned in my earlier statement, it is important to have that reassuring belief that one is on the right path to success. Our company’s philosophy is to never compromise on integrity, be fair to all to our stakeholders while realizing value and revenues.
