Even a river originates as a spring

I am told that?#linkedin?identifies me as "Public Speaker in the Internet industry from Greater Bengaluru area".

Sure, I take on a lot of speaking engagements and I had a fair share of these in 2022 also. So, you might say, nothing very different than the previous years. Well, there was a difference and we will come to it soon!

Sneha Ganesh and I have been on social media for a few years now,?LinkedIn?in particular. While we have ourselves dabbled with writing content on various platforms, we have in some ways understood what makes content "click" on Linkedin. This made us wonder why many people write their posts in a manner trying to "comply" with some rules and regulations, especially trying to get the algorithm to work and boost their content when we have seen it's always the soulful content that captures the eyes, hearts and minds of the reader. So, we started 2022 by hosting a webinar titled "Content is King". We were humbled to have a large and diverse audience attending the same and happy with the appreciation that we received. We do hope some of them used those tips and made some breakthroughs in the content that they were writing in 2022!

When it comes to being a woman and leading teams, organisations or initiatives, sometimes an additional lens gets used to assess whether you are a good leader. Did that ever bother me? The talk at Whatfix's Inspired Series which I titled "Believe" answered that question!

The year continued to shower invitations to be on panel discussions and panel format talks.

1. It's great to see platforms like?SayCheese?being set up, a trusted and safe women-powered community for women to grow and help other women grow by breaking barriers. Getting introduced to?Rajpreet Kaur?and the great work that she is doing in building this platform was one of the highs in 2022, and being on a panel discussion on this platform with?Ruchira Jaitly, which was?moderated by the awesome?Shreya Krishnan?on the topic of?"Being Unstoppable"?as a woman, was exciting.
2. Malathi T. Krishnaswamy?is building another platform far away from India, for the Indians in Germany called?Bhogya.Online. It was a privilege to speak to the women of that community on?career opportunities?as part of the Swasti Shri webinars.
3. While one learns by sharing their perspectives with other panel members, the moderator benefits the most! And I had a great opportunity to moderate a closed-door round table conference hosted by?Global Talent Exchange?and?BridgeLabz. Honoured to have had the opportunity to discuss a very important and relevant topic "Tackling the Talent gap" with industry leaders?Anshula Verma,?Sreeram Radhakrishnan,?Swati Agrawal,?Joydeep Roy,?Ravi Mugalikar,?Ruhi Gupta,?Vinay Agrawal,?Sujatha Saha,?Ritesh Ranjan and Narayan Mahadevan. Best wishes?Avinash Bichali?as you enable the talent in our country to find game-changing opportunities through your organisation
4. Women's day always brings in plenty of opportunities to talk on women-centric topics and I had a fair share of it.?

Saumya Singh?moderated a panel discussion where Akanksha Govil and I spoke on "How to get into leadership roles".

"Empowering women to make right career choices" was the topic of discussion at?Women PowerUP Network's event where I got to interact with?Aruna Katragadda,?Ivana I. Osagie, and?Meghana Parwate.

Centelon Solutions?celebrated International Women's day by inviting?Elizabeth Williams,?Ratika Gore?and me to talk about our experiences and perspectives on?#breakthebias.

Break The Bias was the theme and topic for the workshop that I conducted at SEFPRO. I have always advocated to look at the biases we possess internally rather than look at the external world and complain. Had a good opportunity to speak to the women at SEFPRO about building a mindset which will enable them to #BREAKTHEBIAS

IWD opportunity to address the employees of XPERI globally on the topic of

Work Life Integration. Awesome co-speakers Dorota and Sally

IWD panel discussion moderated by Shreya Krishnan, with co-panelist Antra Bhargava. Hosted by Lions Clubs International, District - 317E and NMKRV College for Women. We traversed through our life and career journeys to impress upon the young college girl students that life is not a bed of roses, nor does it get served on a platter! But if one can make use of every opportunity that comes their way, they too can take on the stage some day!

A women solopreneurs community called SHEmantra which initiated

a Link-A-Thon, that kept Linkedin buzzing on 8th March, with their posts on "Break The Bias".

As a memory and an inspiration, here is the compilation

The year also brought in opportunities for me to share my life and work experiences through a series of Video interviews and podcasts

1. On?Naveen Samala's show?The Guiding Voice?:?Sneha Ganesh?and I spoke about "Building Content to Elevate your Brand & expand your Network"
2. On?Prashant Handoo's show?Leadership Insights with Prashant
3. On?U n' I with Rashmi Shetty?- Proud to have been on Rashmi Shetty's podcast which won the Hubhopper award for Best Interview in 2022
4. On Shwetha Sivaraman's podcast Being Meraklis where I spoke about my journey from meek and shy to confident and outspoken
5. On Vedashree Nagabhushan's Leadership Leap Series on "Courage to Speak Up when it matters the most"
6. On Mandeep Maitra's Women in Power WonderWoman Wednesdays

There can never be a year where I don't get invited to speak about my signature topic "NETWORKING". This year, the opportunities to spread awareness about this topic came in different and unique formats.

Shenomics invited me to give a talk on Leading with a Supportive Network during their "The Conscious Woman" program.

Corporate Diva, as part of their signature program CD PLUS, gave me an opportunity to speak on "Own your Voice - In a crowded Network"

CII hosted a conference "WOMEN Steering India's success" where I delivered a talk on "Network to Succeed"

Lunarhacks invited me to conduct a workshop "Should I be networking?" as part of their Global Hackathon participated by high school and undergraduate girl students. Congratulations Emily Qi and Eileen Peng for introducing the young girls to this concept this early in their life!

While I have delivered many talks and conducted workshops on NETWORKING, this year, I got invited to facilitate the Networking session at The SHEmantra Fest. While this was exciting as Shuchi Sharma and I had to enable 200+ participants to network virtually, I had another interesting opportunity at The HerKey Conclave. This was an in-person event and I had to facilitate the Networking activities after the event was over. Did the attendees actually network? Yes - most of the attendees continue to remain connected over a WhatsApp group after the event, engage with each other, contribute to the network's learning and growth and also have fun.

Organisations like CMA-CGM and The Bay understand the importance of Networking and invited me to conduct sessions on this topic for their employees. This is something that every organisation needs to focus on and encourage all their employees to do as we all know that those who are well-networked are at least 3 times more influential than those who are not. The Influencing skill, especially when someone in not in a position of authority, is a key skill in delivering outcomes in organisations.

What a pleasure to get invited to launch the book "The Power of Connections" co-authored by Gauri Das, Nimisha Chatterjee, Bhavana BP and Dr Shraddha Kulkarni! And I was asked to share my thoughts about Networking during the book launch. Every chapter and story in this book resonated with my thoughts and beliefs about Networking!

I also had the opportunity to contributed to an anthology with co-authors from the #SHEmantra community

This year we went back to many "in-person" conferences. What a delight it was to be on a physical stage, holding a mike, and addressing people in the room! Enjoyed conducting a workshop at NASSCOM Women Product Champions Summit which I called "You are Unique - Blaze the Trail". It was good to challenge the biases that each of us had as a "Woman in Product" and look at ways to overcome them. Enjoyed playing the game of 4 Corners and seeing how women resonated with a particular corner from the below list -

1. Lack of Role Models
2. Getting voices heard
3. Unconscious Bias
4. Being a Product professional

And amazed to see how they were able to bring out solutions to address all the biases themselves!

The year also gave me varied and diverse opportunities to interact with the employees of many organisations

1. Lowe's India - At their Do-It-Herself program, a career re-integration opportunity for women professionals, where I conducted a workshop called “Rock Your Restart” for 80 women professionals who had come together to explore opportunities at Lowe's.
2. PwC - Curated a 6-month program called "Mentoring Matters" that allows women professionals to build their brand, network, and visibility by connecting with their top 25 mentors. Also, had the opportunity to conduct a workshop on "Unconscious Bias" for their Managing Directors and Diversity Champions as part of their Performance Appraisal process. One needs to be educated about unconscious biases that creep in, so that with this awareness, the process followed is an unbiased one across all genders.
3. Altimetrik - I conducted a workshop for all the mentors on "Being a Mentor" at the launch of?#mentHERup?– a flagship program under their?#WINGS?(Women’s Initiative for Networking, Growth, & Success) – to provide women Altimetrians the right kind of mentorship they need to get their careers to the next level.
4. NextWealth - A Fireside chat that Chaitali Sarkar hosted on the topic of Work Life Integration as part of their "Connect with the Leaders" series attended by their leaders from all their centres. It was interestingly titled Woman or Man...and 'Work-Life Balance' and had a diverse mix of attendees
5. DELL Technologies - I conducted a workshop on “Tackling Impostor Syndrome” for a group of senior women engineers as part of their Gender diversity initiative. Was glad that my examples resonated with the audience as someone said - "We were made aware of many attributes which we do not pay attention nor realise. I personally felt connected"

Now, what was so very different in 2022?

Many of you know that I started speaking at conferences and many other platforms as I realised(from all the feedback that comes my way everytime I speak) that my style of speaking, connecting with audiences through stories, stories from my own experiences, had lasting impact and inspires the audience to take actions. Since, I want more of this impact to happen, I take on many speaking engagements as well as write on many platforms so that my thoughts reach a wider audience.

This year, I had the opportunity to speak at TEDxYouth@JPSRanebennurWomen.

An opportunity that took me to "the" stage through which my thoughts get shared across the world, as TED's mission is to spread ideas

BE YOURSELF

That was the idea that I shared. I believe it resonates with some, inspires some and helps change perspectives for some.

When I reflect on how I started in a small way to share my experiences some years ago by giving talks on a variety of platforms, I am humbled to see where I have reached in all these years.

Yes, even a river originates as a spring.