Hear from Women in Business Leader- Rubi Khan, Head-Culture, Learning, Talent and D&I at Luminous Power Technologies

Q1. What is your success story and what advice do you have for aspiring women leaders?

Rubi: Success is highly subjective. I feel learning is success for me. At the same time, I would like to believe that I have a long way to go. I don’t have any advice for aspiring women leaders. I think they should just be themselves, do what they want and keep rocking. Life is a book and I feel in the end when you pause and look back you should be proud of writing a best seller.

Q2. What are your specific achievements or milestones that you are particularly proud of?

Rubi: Yes, I am proud of building a learning culture where we moved from a push to a pull culture. I created relevant learning experiences and build a conviction in business leaders to become partners in offering learning opportunities to their teams.

I strengthened the Talent Process by aligning managers, talent, and business leaders as well as curated personalized learning paths for the top talent. It helped in building fungible talent for critical roles in the organization. The process enabled talent mobility and visibility among business leaders across the organization. This also led to strong succession pipeline contributing towards the original talent strategy of building talent for critical roles.

I feel very grateful that I got an opportunity to create mid-level women leadership program. The program was designed, curated and implemented by me internally. ?The program was an amalgamation of series of intervention encompassing experience, exposure, and education. The program helped in 50% women taking next level or stretched role. This journey helped in addressing the broken rung in the organization. As per Mc Kinsey and Lean.in Report, Broken Rung is when women miss her promotion to become first time manager. It adversely impacts the self-efficacy and confidence of the women. I feel that if we address the broken rung within the organization, we will be able to break the glass ceiling.

Q3. What do you think are the success factors for a successful women leadership programme?

Rubi: Every woman has their own success mantra. I feel for me three things work well. I call it ABC mantra. A is Authentic. ?B is Belief and C is Confidence.

Authentic- Being authentic has its own pros and cons. However, it works in the long run. Stay real to yourself, work, and relationships. This also brings vulnerability but at the same time it enables you to be more aware of self and gives an opportunity to reflect and improve wherever required.

Belief- No one is going to believe you until and unless you don’t. I believe in my strengths and weaknesses as well as my potential. ?The belief allows me to embrace who I am. My ability to put forward my point of view comes from the fact that my belief system is strong.

Confidence- One of the pivotal reasons for me to be confident is my belief on my capabilities. Its not that I do not question myself, but my belief and confidence always encourage me to not get ruffled by questions. Confidence also helps me in displaying tenacity and resilience.

So, I keep it simple-ABC of living every day.

About the Women Leadership Development Program: https://www.peoplebusiness.org/women-in-businss-leadership.html

Our program aims to empower and nurture the leadership skills of women professionals over a transformative 5-month journey. Participants will be drawn from various sectors, creating a rich and dynamic learning environment that fosters cross-sectoral collaboration and learning.