Harini Boora

I attribute my success to just believing in myself, especially during times of difficulties when people don't believe in you. When I was trying to come to the United States by quitting my job, nobody believed that I would be able to make it here. I'm the first girl in my entire family to come pursue a Master's, so nobody thought that I would be able to get a job or be in a position of impact or earning good money. Nobody ever believed in me, so it was me who tried my best to believe in myself. There were days where I cried and felt low, but even on the days where I was feeling low, I also had belief in me that tomorrow is going to be a good day and tomorrow I'll be doing better than what I'm doing today. That self-belief, even when no one else believed in me, is what got me through and helped me achieve what I have today.

The best career advice I've ever received is to always be open to change. I heard this in one of the interviews or podcasts, and the quote that I live by is that evolution is the name of the game. You always have to be adaptable for anything that's coming. If it's AI, then be it AI. Just try to learn the new skill and move on with the world, because the world's not stopping for you. You have to mold yourself to adapt to all the changes that the world's bringing you. The train's not stopping, you have to get on it. This advice has really shaped how I approach my career and has helped me stay relevant and continue growing in my field.

I think there's a lot of opportunity within supply chain right now. Supply chain is always evolving, and there is AI coming in, so there are tasks that can be automated and things that AI can suggest which we can deep dive into and figure out how we can place things strategically. The regression models and strategies that we used to do manually can be simpler with AI. Using AI and figuring out how we can improve the supply chain, or how we can efficiently move things from point A to point B as fast as we can in the shortest path, is something that we have an opportunity for at all times. It's not just relevant to current times, but also relevant to the future, because it's basically making your life easier and getting things quicker to the destination. There's always scope in supply chain, and it's an evergreen field with constant opportunities for improvement and innovation.

The values most important to me are being simple and grateful for what I have. I learned this from my mom, who is a very simple woman. She always asked me to be simple and grateful for what I have. I wake up every morning and thank the universe for giving me this amazing life where I am happy, doing what I really love doing, and where everybody is healthy in my life. I also value honesty, empathy, and kindness to people. My mom does this in her life every day, and I want to imbibe that in myself. I'm probably not reaching the expectation she has in terms of kindness yet, but I'm working on it. My husband, who I married less than a year ago, has been teaching me how to be nice to people, like stopping the car to let pedestrians go first. Being nice and kind is something I'm trying to consciously put in my mind, because it's free and you can be nice and live along your life. I just want to make people happy. I also value always loving what you're doing and finding that passion in you to do what you love.