Renu Pavate

I definitely attribute my success to a good team and family. The kind of support systems that are built through the family enable you to push yourself and to do well. I think also the team itself - your mentors, your support team, and then your mentees - are all very valuable. There's an entire ecosystem that is essential for success.

I've received lots of good career advice. I think being authentic, being conscious of a career path - you sort of know what you want, and you don't take your work as a job. You want to make something out of it. I realized that this ability to feel like you're doing something meaningful is very essential. So yes, do something meaningful. Do something that excites you. Recently, my son was saying he wants to find activities that interest him, and I told him, what if that activity is your work? That's the best situation - 8 hours of doing what you really enjoy, and that brings you to the table where you're not waiting for the time to end to go back and do what you really enjoy, but to really do what you enjoy for your work.

I would say keep a learning mindset, just be open to ideas, and think about what is out there. Don't dismiss it - listen, and I think listening is probably the first step. Be curious, just be interested to know what's going on. One thing that I do see in young professionals is the ability to advocate for yourself. I think that's very essential - COVID might have taken some of that away for some people. It's essential to advocate, to speak up, and not feel that maybe you don't have the knowledge or maybe you don't feel like you're ready to present. You should take it in the good way of bringing out ideas. You're learning as you're testing what you're learning, and that's always a good framework to have. Don't wait till you've learned everything before you try to test something out.

I think in the field itself, we're all trying to see what the potential is. I wouldn't say it's a challenge - I see it as we're all trying to gauge what the opportunities are. The challenges are that we need to know that there are data points out there that we can do something with. We need to be ethical, we need to respect how data is processed. We do need to see how we are making sure that people feel, or are actually protected. But I think the bigger thing is to make sure that these are not bad hurdles. These are problems that we should be thinking of and trying to solve - whether it's ethics, whether it's communication, whether it's trying to enable and help people, whether it's trying to reduce errors that can be made, and trying to elevate the way people think. I think these are all good problems to have. We need to see those as opportunities, and we need to see how we can move to the next step.

I think curiosity is a no-brainer. It's important because you will never join work knowing everything about that industry or about the tools that are out there. The best way is to go in saying you're going to soak in, and you're going to just make the most of everything that is offered to you. I think that, to me, is a very valuable thing, especially in this time where there are so many changes in the way people are doing or are expecting work processes to be. I think having that learning mindset is important. I think collaborativeness is also very good, because you need to get along and work with a team to see what can be done, what's the most effective and efficient way to build something, to show something. The third core value that we have at Sapient, which I feel is also very essential, is to be future forward - to think about whatever you're doing in the period of time and see what's the most innovative way of seeing or what you can bring. What I love doing is asking people to just come up with their ideas, and I don't believe fully in a hierarchical way of bringing in ideas. I feel like ideas are always welcome, and then you see how this would actually innovate or disrupt what you had originally in mind. I think those are really valuable, but the most is the learning mindset.