Rakhi Sarda

I would say hard work is what I attribute my success to. Because of my hard work only, I am here today. Otherwise, it would have been different scenarios. Dedication and perseverance are definitely part of it, but really, hard work is the one thing that has made the difference for me.

The best career advice I've received is don't become a roadblocker for anybody. If everybody needs your help, or they have a question which you know but you're not willing to answer, never have that kind of attitude. Your attitude should be like a go-to person. If somebody comes to you, provide your details accordingly, and if you know it better, maybe create documentation and share it. The second piece of advice I got is build the network and relationships. I'm a person who likes to build networks and embrace them, not just professionally but personally as well. Recently, I participated in a beauty pageant competition, which was out of the box for me, and I met so many different people working in different careers, which was amazing. I like to explore those things, not just my professional world. I think we should be open to everything - a narrow mindset doesn't work for anybody. So that practical advice has worked for me: become a go-to person, and build networks and relationships.

My advice is that we should always have a go-to person attitude. We should be always open if somebody asks any kind of question, and we should be helpful, definitely by processing the rules and procedures in whichever department we work in. But there should not be any hindrance or any obstacle in terms of helping others. I think we should be very much open to help others in any way, because it just brings back that kindness to you only. If we keep going up with that attitude, at times when you need it, they will definitely help you. I have learned that power of networking here, and it always helped me. So I would definitely give that advice: build the network, have a mindset of go-to person, help everybody in any way.

The biggest challenge is that there is so much knowledge already available with AI and everything. Whenever we take any kind of assignment or project, there is so much to do as part of the market research, because every tool in the market and any company is providing the same utility. Since JP Morgan has more of an attitude of creating their own tools rather than hiring third-party vendor tools, they prefer to create their own version. So if we have to build that particular scalable solution, it means we need to do more market research, and that market research is so elongated and keeps growing with this AI thing. There are so many companies doing the same thing, and it's more of a comparison, which takes more amount of time every time. I see every time there is something new out in the industry. It's exciting, but sometimes it is tiring as well. You end up getting so many different avenues, and then you need to just figure out which fits the best for our solution. That market research is something which is really challenging these days.

Honesty is definitely most important to me - I like honesty more, no lies. Whatever situation is there, we should be more honest and truthful. Discipline is very important as well. If it is not there, then we happen to have a lot of lazy patterns in our day-to-day life. So for me, discipline and honesty are very important, both in personal and professional life.