Turning dreams into action: Women in tech like Swarnali dream bigger at Oracle
Swarnali Das joined Oracle as an inside sales representative, a pivotal role which helped her develop the skills and confidence to become a successful account manager. Read on to hear the special advice she’d like to share with women in tech, as she reflects on her journey as a professional, woman, and daughter.
It was a cold winter’s day when I first joined Oracle India. The weather had taken a toll on my health, but the mercury level of excitement was sky-high, and my warm and friendly, welcoming team made me feel immediately comfortable. Over the next couple of weeks, I realized I belonged to a super-talented Technology Sales team. From there, my journey began under the guidance of my manager. Interestingly, the business was driven by female leadership, which not only made me comfortable in my day-to-day job, but also inspired me to grow.
Finding my spark
With baby steps, I completed five years in this organization, and not only have I grown as a professional but also as an individual. In the last few years, I’ve gotten promotions, made great friends, and met charismatic leaders—when they address your team they help you feel a spark and motivate you to do your best. I consider myself fortunate enough to have encountered such talented, inspiring, and enthusiastic leaders, whom I’ve always found committed to excellence.
The mantra of life at Oracle is: “Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn,” which means we need to be innovative, we need to transform ourselves to become more agile and open to challenges, we need to fail wisely and network extensively. Life at Oracle is full of rewards and recognition, and lots of employee engagements. Working at Oracle is about making work fun, having a good work-life balance, as well as good synergy between work culture and productivity.
What women value in the workplace
Depictions of women’s success in the corporate world are misleading. Increasingly, women are bumping into glass ceilings, so I feel very happy and proud to be part of an organization where we see female representation—starting from entry-level management, up to the board of directors.
A career takes the highway when motivation is in the driver’s seat. Interestingly, motivational factors are remarkably different for both genders in the workplace: It has been widely observed that men have a higher preference for instrumental value, while women go for softer factors like consistent support, job encouragement, flexible timing, a sense of importance, and female-friendly perks at the workplace. I believe the key to success in the corporate workplace lies in self-motivation and a focused approach towards an individual goal. In the last few years, the driving factor in my career has been my passion for my work and a very positive work culture.
Spread your wings and dream bigger
Today, I’m writing about my career span of little more than 6 years, but the inspiration behind writing my story is my ‘Maa’. She was a working woman, whose humble upbringing led her to constantly encourage me to take up extra-curricular activities, and these made me do better in school, college, and in my professional life. I would like to thank her and tell all parents in our O-Force to love their girls and give them the wings to fly, as they are extra-special.
The world doesn’t need any one of us to think smaller, the world needs us all to dream bigger, to be bolder, and figure out what makes us come alive.
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