VISHNU-ERA-ISSUE-09

ISSUE 09 OCT 2015
LEADER SPEAK
3
Rendezvous with Ms.Anupama Arvind Kumar of Capgemini
How would you describe your journey so far?
It has had its ups and downs. But by far I think it's been a very
interesting journey. I started as a developer in the Telecom Vertical. I
worked with TCS for over 9 years on various projects and domains
including Telecom and Manufacturing. I have done various roles such
as developer, tester, quality lead and security lead before moving on to
managerial or leadership roles. After TCS, I joined Capgemini and I
have been here for close to 10 years now. These 10 years have been in
the financial services sector where I have had the opportunity to
manage the projects for some well known Banking clients. Currently I
am a Delivery Executive for the biggest BFSI account for Capgemini.
With each change in role, there have been challenges and of course a
lot of learning too, in the past 20 years.
We understand that you occupied diverse positions in IT sector.
What is your opinion on women diversity in IT and other fronts?
Women Diversity in most IT companies hovers around the 25 to 30%
range. The diversity percentage is higher at the lower levels and
becomes a single digit at the Senior or Executive management level.
For many women, the priorities change after marriage or once they
have kids. Many quit due to lack of a good support system at home.
Rarely, they try to come back after a long break. Some of the women
who pass the marriage or maternity phase and continue working don't
look at it as a career.
In Capgemini we are focused on improving the diversity and we run a
number of initiatives under the banner WinspirE. Some of those are
mentoring programs, women specific management and leadership
training, gender sensitization workshops, support for pregnant women
and new mothers, crèche facilities and many more.
What challenges did you face while changing domains?
I haven't actually had such challenges. At the beginning of the career,
one doesn't have much choice wrt to the domain or the project (was
the case atleast when I started). One usually gets allocated based on
their technical skill. I was a C++ developer and was allocated to a
maintenance project with Telecom client, Lucent Technologies. I
worked in this sector for about 5 years. During this time, I got a couple
of opportunities to go onsite for a few months to bring the project work
to India. On the personal front, I had my first child. After coming back
from maternity leave, I chose to do a quality lead role. I was in this role
for about a year during which time I had the opportunity to participate
in external ISO and CMMI audits. Then I played the security
coordinator role for a few months by which time I was itching to get
back to Delivery. That's when I got an opportunity to play the module
lead role for a project with P&G client. That is how I moved from
Telecom to Manufacturing line. Within 6 months, I became the Project
Manager and then started handling multiple projects for
Manufacturing sector. With that I gained confidence on my
managerial capability and didn't think twice to switch to Financial
services sector and handle the account for GE Money. This journey with
multiple sectors has helped me to pick up some domain knowledge
across the sectors.
You mentioned that you were passionate about project
management. What is it that fascinated you in that field?
As women, we are used to multi-tasking and managerial activities.
There were days where I used to pick up my kid from school, take my
mother-in-law to a doctor and also manage client calls and proposals
in parallel. While coding and testing used to give me a high in the
beginning of my career, I saw that project management was coming
out as an inherent strength. So I thought to cash on that. Technology
was also continuously changing, so at some point of time you have to
decide if you want to become a technical expert or a domain expert or if
you want to be on the managerial side. That's when I chose project
management.
Managerial side involves managing large groups of people. How
do you manage these large groups?
I have a team of about 600 people working under me. Even if the team
is huge, it is organized based on domains/technology/business units.
So it's not like all 600 are reporting to me. I have 5 to 6 people reporting
to me and about 8-10 people reporting to each of them and so on. It is
a pyramid structure. As long as the foundation is right and the team is
working cohesively towards project goals leading to client satisfaction,
I think we would have the basics right. It is a lot to do with how you
develop that culture and the team and percolate it down rather than
looking at micro-managing specifics. We have project meetings,
Floor-walks or Town-hall kind of meetings where we share
information and also motivate the team by giving a spot award or
monthly award to someone who does a good job. Apart from the formal
way of working, there are a lot of informal things that we do. We have
parties, outings, cultural and sports events. It could be a simple thing
as having coffee or lunch together at work where you don't talk about
work. So it goes beyond formal working to make sure we are well
connected.
Equality is the talk of the town. Are men and women treated
equally in the higher levels of an organization?
I, personally have not experienced any bias. When I look at a person
who reports to me, the gender does not come into consideration. For
me, it is just a manager reporting to me. Honestly, I think if you are
competent, have the drive in you and the perseverance to reach the
top, the gender does not matter. Well, there can be unconscious bias
though. For example when a developer comes back from maternity
leave, if there is an on-site opportunity then the project manager
might decide to give it to a guy even if the lady is equally competent.
The manager probably assumes that this lady has just come back from
maternity leave and she cannot handle high stress or go on-site. Well,
the lady might have all the support system and actually want to take up
the onsite opportunity. Honestly unconscious bias happens
everywhere not just at work. For instance, when I saw my younger son
crying, I asked him why he was sitting and crying like a girl. I didn't
mean that only girls can cry, but that's the wrong impression that it
created. We conduct Gender sensitization workshops for men and
women managers in Capgemini to address the unconscious bias.
Capgemini is ranked among the world's top IT outsourcing and
BPO service providers. What would you say is the reason behind
this success?
I would say the drive or the zeal to win in the champion's league
coupled with a performance oriented culture that we have in our
company is one of the key reasons. Our tag line “People matter,
Results count” reflects the DNA of the company.
What is your watchword?
Passion and perseverance. The commitment to learn and excel is what I
look for.
I see many women who come for a job but to excel one needs to look at
it as a career. There are times where priorities change for women. For
many, career takes a back seat after marriage and for a lot more it takes
a back seat after children. I also took a 6 month break after marriage
and 5 months maternity leave for both my kids. Well, all that I can say to
the girls is that don't compromise when you need time at home, but
when you come back, come with passion to succeed. It is important to
have a good support system if you want to have a successful career.
What qualities do you think one should have to work at Capgemini?
We look for permanent and continuous learners. The willingness to
learn, to keep yourself updated with the latest trends in the technology
space or the domain space, willingness to take calculated risk,
ownership and pride in the work that you do are some of the things that
we look for. The inherent quality of "I want to learn”, “I want to take
risk”, “I want to excel”, “I did this work” is what we look for.
What is the significance of students' project work at college in
your recruitment process?
Project work is one of the many things that we look for, during
recruitment. Take a project that you are passionate about and can help
you learn new things. Understanding and articulation of the big
picture, problem statement or the requirement which has led to the
creation of the project is important. If you pick projects related to the
latest Buzzwords such as Big data, Social media, Internet of
things…you have started your journey of being relevant to the
industry. Regardless of the topic, a project brings a group of people
together to work for a common goal and each one has a role to play in
order to make it successful. This is not different from the corporate
world. From the subjects' perspective, there is still a gap between
corporate world and colleges. I personally did not apply anything much
other than computer language and the analytical skills that I gained in
college. Most Organizations have an induction program to bridge the
gap between college and corporate world. I would say your project
work is the first step in the corporate direction.
What is your stand on Corporate Social Responsibility?
Very much for it. Within Capgemini there is quite a lot of work that we
do in this direction. We have programs such as Naandi, Nanhi Kali and
WeKare which are aimed at educating the girl child and also for
creating sustainable livelihood for families below the poverty line.
Many employees across the world in Capgemini voluntarily contribute
a portion of their salary for these programs. We also do our bit for
building a greener planet – Plants nursery, bicycle to go from one
campus to the other, turning off lights when leaving the seats…
For differently abled people who join our company, we have elevators
with Braille buttons, ramps and screen reader software to help them
work.
The IT sector has changed the face of Indian economy in the past
few years and is the largest employer of our country. Do you see
this trend continuing in the future?
I think, it will continue for the next few years as there are some
interesting things happening in the IT sector. May be after a few years
when a lot of work is automated then there might be a down trend.
Any suggestions to the students
The only thing I suggest to all the students is, "Go for a career, and don't
just look for a job."