Adira Nurani Vaidyanathan

I would definitely attribute my success to my family, and first one would be my husband, because I feel he's given me that upliftment in terms of going to different countries. I always have a job that wants me to travel, that asks me, that's a requirement of me, and he's given me that support system in terms of, you know, you do you, I know you have a lot to do in life, I know you want to conquer a lot of things. I've always been driven, and that's something which I feel is my backbone to conquer anything in the world, and that's going to be my support system. Apart from that, my inner self, the little girl who just came back from the long days, always keeps telling me, there's more, you know you can get it.

The best career advice I received was when I was really confused about what to do with my two degrees and how to balance them off. Someone told me that I will get there eventually, and every opportunity that comes my way is a stepping stone to get there. Every opportunity should be considered as a learning opportunity, rather than something which might not be my cup of tea. Every opportunity has something for you, has something to learn out of it, and that's how I have always seen any internships that come my way, any opportunity that comes my way, I've taken it.

My advice to young women entering this industry is that it's not something which is really daunting. It is when you're from outside, it looks really huge, and it looks really fast-paced. It is fast-paced, but everyone right now, I would say, at least every woman, they are really well equipped compared to us back in the days. I think they are ready to conquer anything in the world, and you just need to brace yourself and just learn to have the right skill sets, and you should be ready to conquer anything that comes your way.

I would say the challenge is getting onto the right role at the right time. That's something which is challenging. Something that's an opportunity is definitely the skill sets are really vast. In the field of marketing, everyone knows at least a little bit of each other's work, there's a lot of overlap in terms of skill sets, so that's really good. But getting onto the right role at the right time so that you set your pace in your career and you reach that goal which you want to go in, that strategic or CMO kind of a position, that's really challenging to pace yourself there.

I think transparency is really important to me, and I would say definitely smart work. In the old days, I used to say hard work, but now I would say smart work, because that's more AI-driven, and that's more solution-oriented, rather than something that's just momentary. And the last one I would say is long-term strategy. So all these three put together is a good pace for you to set things up.