Neema Pitchiah

Pushing myself, Networking and Learning. I think I've been a learner throughout my career. I've learned so much from everyone around me, and I've had that open mindset that everyone has their own forte and everybody has something that they bring to the table. I have also learnt to be adaptable in a highly dynamic environment. Just keep learning - it doesn't necessarily have to be technical. Sometimes it's people skills, sometimes it's dealing with situations. Sometimes I trust my learning and experience, and at other times when my peers and directors have an alternate mindset, I am open-minded in giving that a shot too . There are multiple ways to skin a cat, and collaborating together, we're going to get to the solution.

Best Career advice happens to be an advice given by an ex-manager of mine - To always invest in people as much as you invest in your skills. As someone who loves interacting with people and gathering different perspectives that end up broadening my own perspective, I have taken this one to heart and lived by it for several years now. The most recent one from another trusted friend and co-founder of NGO "Chai and Chit Chat" (C3) for women empowerment that I am an active volunteer of is to "Live intentionally" - everyday have an intent of what you would like to achieve and get it done. You run your day vs your day runs you. Also keep investing in the long term of your intent for life . every now and then, ask yourself "How do you want to be remembered by everyone ?" I think that is powerful !

This is an industry that keeps changing and evolving. I think it's very important to keep up with all the technologies that are there, but also not be overwhelmed. If the technology you invest in, does not get the returns you expected, don't let that disappoint you. Just keep moving onto the next where the industry is moving. For example, a decade ago, Big data was a big buzz word that stirred up data analytics. The latest buzzword has been AI - be adaptable, be focused on your passion, and be a lifelong learner. Also for women specifically - Believe that you can be a leader too. I did not see that potential in myself till I heard it from my management and couple of peers I work with.

The latest disruptor, that is both a challenge and an opportunity that I see all around me is Artificial Intelligence. While this has been a popular notion ever since I started my career, AI is very real now and its here to stay. There is a lot of value in looking at this as an opportunity in adopting to prompt engineering and learning what LLMs to go to for the work you need done. If done right, it puts a lot of time back in your hands, that you can be using for bringing about creativity elsewhere. I strongly believe that AI combined with human intelligence is an another pivot to all the industries in general - Kind of like how a few decades ago Internet changed the way we work for almost everyone in the world.

Respect, Growth and learning - I've been lucky that I've always had to work with customers in customer-facing and people-facing roles. I would say empathize with people, respect everybody's opinion and combine it with your own experience to make really wise data driven, analytical decisions. This mindset has helped me grow in both personal and professional life. Keep learning, adopting and investing in people ! Despite Work and personal life being different, they are a similar parallel roads that we all navigate together. It's interesting because I'm also a parent, and you can take a lot of strategies that actually work on kids and apply the same thing at work or vice versa take a strategy that you have had to implement at work in your personal life. Personally, I am also passionate about women empowerment - I strongly believe that there is a lot of untapped potential here that the world should be tapping into.