'Confidence can take you to great heights' : Swati Deodhar

 

Swati Deodhar, co-founder, sapience analytics likes to grow constantly personally as well as professionally

 

What are the challenges of being a woman entrepreneur/executive member?

"Lack of sufficient time has been my major challenge! Also, when my children were very young, I could not travel as often as required for work, " says Swati.

The Educational Background

Swati holds a great academic record. She has completed her masters in software engineering from Boston University.

Your Family Background

Swati is a complete Mumbaikar having grown up in Mumba. Her husband and she along with two others are co-founders of a software product company (Sapience Analytics). She has two daughters, who have done their MS (Computer Science) from US universities and are currently working there. Her mother-in-law is a doctor who continues to practice.

Working in Male-dominated field of IT

Swati finds her fortunate to have not really faced any bias against women when it came to work. In fact, she believes that IT is a field where it's easy for women to excel due to its flexible timings, work from home policies and meritocracy. The only area where she felt there was a bias was when travel was required. At times, men colleagues were given preference to travel to other office locations, customer meetings, etc over women. But, when her daughters were young, she was only too happy with this preference!

Does a Glass ceiling exist?

"There is no fixed yes/no answer here. It mostly depends on the culture of company. We have examples of large Indian banks and companies, who have women at the helm or in very senior positions. It may be that at times, you will find a bias against women when it comes to fast track promotions or rising to C-level in some companies. But these things should not bother you. If you are confident of yourself, you will rise to the top" beams Swati.

Advice to working women:

"I would advise them to follow 'smart and efficient time management'. Working women always fall short of time, and not on capability. We are trying to juggle two full time jobs - work and home. And when we fall short on either, we start feeling guilty. So, listing out tasks and prioritizing them helps. You may still not finish all the tasks, but you will definitely feel much more in control. One needs to realize that no one person can handle both home and work perfectly. So, if you have a supportive spouse/children, be sure to let them help you around the house, " says Swati.

Hobbies

Swati likes reading, cooking, gardening and travel. I also like doing household chores, and find them very relaxing and therapeutic.

Future plans

Swati would like sapience, to be among the top 10 enterprise class applications built. So, her current plans revolve around how the product can be taken to that level.

Ekta Saxena

(ektasa@cybermedia.co.in)

Your fitness mantra: Walking/exercise and eating right

Your de-stressing mantra: cooking and reading

Where you like to shop? I am shopaholic, I like shopping anywhere

Your favourite holiday destination: Goa

5 things you cannot live without: Internet, work, shopping, short vacations and cooking

.

@Workday

Wake up at: 6.00 am

Morning activities: Walk, exercise, breakfast, work, calls

Leaving office at: 10.00 am

Ist half in office: work, more work/meetings

Lunch: normally have a working lunch

Post Lunch: work, more work ...

Leaving office at: 7.00 pm

How you spend your evenings: Reading, watching TV, cooking, calls, some work at times

sleep time: 10.30 pm