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Q: What key moments or choices have most shaped your professional journey?

The first and most significant decision was to jump into the IT entrepreneur world from the comfort of a well-paying corporate executive job. It probably was triggered by an adrenaline rush to ‘make something happen’ in my late thirties. I did not fully think through all the financial and other risks and jumped in together with a few professional colleagues with a similar mindset. Throughout the entrepreneurial journey that followed, choices had to be made that essentially involved plunging into unchartered territory – new locations/ countries, new lines of business, new products and so on. At each stage, it was the same principle of, ‘we can make it work; failing which, we can take up some employment to support ourselves and our families’.

Q: Did mentoring play a role in those moments, if so how?

Yes, indeed. Mentoring always plays a role in everyone’s life. Many a time it is covert, informal and happens at the subconscious level. You choose one or more role models and try to emulate – sort of self-mentoring, if you will. Having good mentors at the early stages of your professional life shapes your own ability to become a good mentor later on. Mentors can be your own colleagues and sometimes even your juniors. It is all about the values you imbibe or impart.

Q: Can you share an experience when you had to make difficult choices in your professional life and how you handled it?

One of the most difficult choices that I had to make in pursuing my global IT career (you may label this as professional AND personal) was deciding what was good for my family, especially our two very young children – leaving the family behind in my then home country, India, or making them travel with me to various ‘foreign’ places like the Caribbean. After much back and forth, my wife and I decided to stay together and face the unknown conditions of life in unfamiliar places, including different schooling systems, foregoing the family support systems back home. In hindsight, the decision turned out to be good in many ways for all of us. 

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Q: What’s the most surprising or transformative lesson you've learned from mentoring someone, or being mentored yourself?

It is the feeling of not being alone. I view a mentor as someone who is there for you when you need them, rather than someone who can give you pearls of wisdom at regular intervals. It is almost like having a shoulder to cry on. Of course, when you are a mentee, you look up to the experience and expertise of the mentor to learn from but being supportive in times of need is the most important aspect of mentoring. 

Q: How do you tailor your mentorship approach to support individuals from other cultures, or underrepresented genders and backgrounds?

I have been lucky to have been exposed to different communities, cultures and customs from a young age. This has helped me develop and appreciate a strong sense that being ‘different’ is OK. It enabled me to follow the principle of not being stuck with, ‘my way or the highway’. I have also consciously kept myself aware of gender discrimination, ‘inter’ and even ‘intra’ cultural biases. This helps in effectively interacting and mentoring people from other cultures and backgrounds, knowing where they are coming from and listening to the battles they are fighting to move forward in life.

Q: Looking back, what mindset or habit most contributed to your long-term success and resilience?

Humility and tolerance. You need to be humble enough to realise that what you know is only a tiny fraction of what is there to learn in the wide open world. Tolerance for things that are radically different from your own self is a fundamental requirement for being a good mentor.

Q: What’s a common misconception about our societies or systems that you often find yourself challenging?

In today’s world, there seems to be an increasing pressure to be in a ‘closed loop’ – my community, my society, my religion and so on. While there is nothing wrong with belonging to and feeling proud about your roots, it becomes a problem when you start looking at everything else as ‘outside’, everyone else as ‘outsiders’ and feel the urge to segregate. As a human race, we have come a long way through integration and assimilation; to reverse direction now is detrimental to progress. This is the concept, or misconception, that I often find myself arguing about with friends and others! 

Q: What new trends or shifts are you seeing in workplace culture or leadership?

The lack of stability is a big problem in today’s workplace culture and style of operation. Generally speaking, everyone, including the CEO, seems to be in a hurry to achieve and show results, by whatever means. There is pressure for quarterly results, courtesy of Wall Street pundits. There is no time to plan for initiatives that may take a few years to come to fruition. The other trend is that, in the world of social media, everyone is an ‘expert’, freely offering opinions and solutions for anything and everything under the sun. These types of short-term, short-sighted view of things result in leadership styles that are focused on ‘run, run, run’ with no time to pause, plan or design.   

Q: In the age of hybrid work and AI, what is one piece of career advice you would give younger professionals or professionals who are looking to pivot?

Honestly speaking, it is a scary world out there! Things are changing so fast that any advice given today may well become redundant or even irrelevant in a year (if not sooner). However, I believe there are a few characteristics (more like ideas) that may help one to be better equipped to face career challenges. Be adaptable to change. Do not lose focus on the customer and their needs that you are fulfilling with all the wonders of AI and related technologies. Always look for ways to make your job, product or service more valuable to the end user. Stay one step ahead of the current status which is bound to undergo a change sooner than you expect.   

Q: Tell us about your society/country, what social shifts do you observe? Are tech and innovation being harnessed for good?

I live in Massachusetts, USA. I think everyone is aware and are seeing what is happening around here, socially, politically and culturally. We see shades of these types of cultural shifts in other countries too. A lot of this has to do with (the lack of) open-mindedness and tolerance for things that are different from you, as I have alluded to earlier in this discussion. I have confidence, at least a strong belief, that things will settle down to a state of acceptable equilibrium.

Technological innovations are like tools in the hands of a craftsman – they can be harnessed for good, bad and anything in between. In today’s world of sensationalism in news, the bad things get the most attention. But that does not mean good things are not happening. Look at the speed with which a vaccine for Covid was invented, in less than a year. Technological innovation and shared knowledge was the key to this. Another example, from the world of tennis, my favorite sport, is the sensing of line calls by technology eliminating (human) error, and the resulting agony for players and spectators, by nearly 99%. So, a lot of good is happening, albeit behind the scenes.

Q: How can we support entrepreneurial thinking among young people and women?

It helps to start early by putting ideas in the minds of young people, especially women. Students in their senior years in college as well as in high school could have guest lectures (virtual or in-person) by successful entrepreneurs on what it means to be an entrepreneur. Where possible, funded and sponsored opportunities and projects could be given to students from developing countries, in communities and societies that generally lack support and exposure and we could collaborate with charitable organisations and non-governmental agencies (NGO’s) to attain the reach required to promote schemes.   

Q: A motto you live by? 

Humility and Tolerance. One of my most favorite quotes, attributed to the Dalai Lama: People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because someone is not on your road does not mean they are lost.