Unlocking Potential - The Diversity Journey at Centrico-India

We started the journey just with an intention, "to develop the leader within all our women employees'. The structure of the program started evolving around this goal by talking to our colleagues in the industry, the input from our own employees and yeah through some research that we did.

Our journey in the year 2023 can be classified into the 5 stages:

1. Understanding Bias- The 7 types of biases as defined by Deepa Narayan became our basis of understanding and identifying the biases against women. A Ted talk of 12 mins inspired a discussion of 120 minutes. Every woman wanted to participate and share her interpretation of the biases.

There was a moment of realisation of how conditioned we are and that these biases have become so integral part of our society, that we do not even identify them as one.

§https://www.ted.com/talks/deepa_narayan_7_beliefs_that_can_silence_women_and_how_to_unlearn_them

2. Developing Thrive Skills- We identified 7 broad categories of Thrive skills needed for personal and professional growth. While we had a facilitator, each of our employee donned the mantle of being the facilitator, pitching in with their interpretation, contributions and experiences. It became a forum for sharing experiences where women realised that they were not alone in their doubts, difficulties, dilemmas or discovery.

3. Realisation of Self- Our employees drafted for themselves their, "personna", 'short term' and 'long term' goals. We also shared our hurdles in life and how we overcame them to become who we are today. Sometimes we forget to remember and celebrate our own milestones and the journey undertakent o acheive them. This exercise help in "self realisation" and enforced the "faith in self"

4. Meeting with Women Leader in Tech - We had Ramya Sampathkumar former CTO GMMCO| Top 100 CDO 2022 addressing our women employees. The key takeaways from her session were:

• Clarity and confidence come with contemplation.
• Caring for thyself should be a priority.
• realisation of self is Critical.
• we all have Choices, and it is imperative to exercise them wisely and own the consequences.
• career breaks don't have to break you or your career.
• culture building is at every level and not just restricted to cascading from the top C suite
• Communication lays the foundation of a strong partnership even amidst personality differences.we also had a fireside chat with her spouse Rajesh Balasubramanian to discuss how two equally ambitious partners could achieve their goals simultaneously.

5. The Business presentations under Unlocking Potential Series

the 20 most active of the participants were divided into 5 groups. They were each assigned a topic of Industry relevance. The aim was to

• research the trending topics in tech and banking domain
• develop presentation skills.
• make presentation to a large audience.

The audience was the entire Centrico-India team.

The topics chosen and our employees covering them were:

The level of research and presentation was so exhaustive that employees highlighted them as one of the key source of learning this year.

The unique aspect of this program was that it was owned by the participants. The organisation showed the direction and let the women own it. It focussed on holistic approach towards encouraging each woman to be a leader in her own right.