Garima Goyal

I don't want to be very sentimental, but it's true - it's my mom, I would say. Right now, I think she's sick and in her seventies, but she has built her own business. At the age of fifty, she built it, and she's continuing to run it for almost 20 years. Every day she goes to her work, she does it with full zeal and enthusiasm. It kind of drives me and tells me, come on, I think I have something to learn from my mom herself. It's just amazing to see how she is determined and wakes up every day to go work with thousands of people.

The best advice would be to be yourself, I would say. And it always works for me, because initially, when I joined this whole corporate thing, I was very afraid of asking questions, what people think about me or myself, or what are they going to assume of me, right? Or judge me, or what if they judge me? But as I grew in my career, I learned no one cares about you more than you do, right? Do not be afraid to ask those questions. If you do not share your concerns, no one is there to help you out. Ask your questions. Know it rather than not knowing it. And any question is not a stupid question, I think - go for it.

I think the advice will be a mix of what I said earlier as well, right? One, be yourself, ask questions. I think one good advice someone gave me, which I want to give to other people as well, is be confident in your skin. Whatever you are, who you are, where you come from, that's fine. People do not appreciate where they have come from, or what they have done, but there's nothing to feel shame about - it's fine. You own it, what you have. Everyone there has their own story to write. Everyone has their own story they have lived with, right? So it's fine. Everyone has baggage. It's fine. There's no harm in being confident, and being thankful to where you are and where you want to go - just work for it. That's all I would say.

The biggest challenge and the opportunities which I see is mainly on the AI side of it. I think right now, AI has become a word which everyone uses, okay? It has become a scapegoat word, right? Like, remove people, just add AI, or it has become an excuse. So, I think we have to use it for our benefit. It is an enabler, it's not a replacement for anything. It should help you enable your thought process, work with you and your ideas. It's your partner in crime kind of thing, right? If you have something you want to discuss and you don't have someone to discuss it with, AI is your friend. I think that's where the opportunity is - making that education more accessible for people. Right now, people use it for okay, what movies should I go to, or where do I go, or plan an itinerary or something. Those are good use cases for people, but apart from that, it can do so much for you. You just have to ask the correct questions, and use it in the correct direction, I would say.

It's very interesting, right? When I started my career, I was more of not a listener, but now I've started believing in listening to people more as well, because what I've learned throughout my career is there are no conflicts when you listen to people. People just want a place to speak, and if you can be empathetic towards them, then the world is all yours to conquer.