Oracle SSI

Here is what the guests had to share:

Vidya Nagaraj – Vidya has been with Oracle for 14 years now. She is currently with Oracle University where she has taken up the responsibility of teaching. Vidya recalled her early days with Oracle when the software giant was yet to establish a foothold for itself in India. She and her colleagues used to work in a makeshift premise with a ‘startup kind of culture’. Her 3 key suggestions to the women audience –

• Plan well, execute excellently and strive to be a subject matter expert with global bent of mind
• Volunteer for special projects to explore something extra within each one of you and increase your visibility
• Be resilient and equipped to handle issues

Speaking about her work, Vidya openly endorsed the work culture of Oracle that gives its workers a lot of freedom and places a lot of trust in every employee. In return, she says that we are expected to be flexible in our approach towards work. Vidya also said that since working-women need to balance both family and work, it is necessary that we identify our priorities and make peace with the small compromises that we may have to make in both personal and professional lives.

Seema Ambastha – A charming lady with an eye-catching personality that exudes an air of self-confidence and assurance, Seema is a Sales Consulting Director for Database Technologies. She had three simple points as her formula for success –

• Be passionate about your work.
• Possess the drive to achieve.
• Possess the adaptability to continuous change.

Seema caused uproar in the audience when she revealed that from day one of her career, she had made the decision to ‘manage her manager’. On a serious note, she emphasized the importance of taking things happening around us into control and being more proactive. She feels that the biggest challenge that women face at their workplace is conflict resolution. ‘Saying right things at the right time’ is also another common roadblock for women. Hard-pressed for time to catch her flight back to Mumbai, Seema signed off saying that the two key traits that make a good professional are ‘to never stop learning’ and ‘to never give up’.

Shalini Chandrashekar – Shalini works as the Business Development Director with the Sales team in Oracle. She recalled the difficult decision she had to make when she was recruited in Oracle at IC1 level instead of manager by mistake. However, she made the conscious decision of sticking on since she knew that this position was not where she would stay for long. And she proved herself right in course of time, given that since then she has been promoted almost every fourteen months during her career with Oracle till date. For Shalini, doing things that she loves is more important than doing something for the sake of prospects. She feels that every worker has the capability to further her career, provided she is ready for it. Shalini observed that in a workplace, women get promoted on their past experiences while men get promoted on the basis of their potential. She urged all the women never to compromise or hesitate to speak for themselves. She also emphasized that while a workingwoman definitely can’t spend enough time with her family, it is finally the quality of time that makes the difference. As a woman who has taken up the daunting task of working during the nights in order to be with her family, Shalini drew a ready applause from the audience for her determination and passion.

Tapasi Sengupta – Our last guest for the day was Tapasi, who worked as a Consulting Practice Director with Oracle GSD. Tapasi graduated from IIT Kharagpur in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering and has worked in various organizations like IOCL, Satyam, Accenture etc before joining Oracle. She quickly impressed the audience with her strong traits of boldness and passion. According to Tapasi, a woman’s biggest advantage is her capability of multi-tasking and she feels that women should use their special attributes to their advantage in professional life. She accepted that as a perfectionist, she has often worked for more than 20 hours a day. Tapasi also shared that job satisfaction has played a very key role in her career onslaught. Like her fellow guest Vidya, Tapasi also advised her audience to work on special projects and also work with different teams in an effort to diversify, rather than just concentrating on one work. Another very crucial issue that Tapasi discussed was the relationship between women co-workers. She urged everybody to get motivated by the success of women colleagues. Speaking about Oracle, Tapasi echoed everybody’s sentiments when she said that she belongs to an organization that has no hierarchy and stresses on open culture.

As the day drew to a close, everybody present in the meeting had acquired something. While the audience was highly inspired by the four absolutely magnificent guests, the four ladies themselves were awed to meet such a huge gathering of charged women, ambitious and willing to do something different than just work. The upbeat atmosphere echoed Seema’s closing words – ‘Emancipation is a wrong word used in the context of women. We are all emancipated.’ Indeed, all women need to realize this today.