Shweta Agnihotri

I attribute a lot of my success to my supportive family. There are two aspects to success - the role we play in our own successful path, and the role that our surroundings play. I've been very fortunate to have my immediate family, my parents, my husband, and now my kids who are older, be extremely supportive. They've been true, true cheerleaders to make sure that there's the wind beneath my wings. So I attribute massive, massively all of my successes so far, and hopefully more to come, to a very, very strong family.

The best career advice I received way earlier on in my career was: never say no to an opportunity when it knocks on your door, because it'll knock on another person's door, and then you have no right to complain. Say yes to every opportunity.

When you start your career in technical sales, which has historically been a male-dominated industry, know fully well that you have to be above average to do really well, because you'll see a lot of below-average men who are doing really, really well. Use that as your superpower, not as a discouragement, and keep pushing through. Keep learning, keep growing, keep evolving. Take a pause every so often, look within, and make sure you're upholding all of your values, but you're also growing. There's no harm in taking a pause and saying, do I need to pivot? Do I need to do something differently? Do that, pivot, do what you need to do, and then gather yourself again and just put one foot in front of the other. There will be times where you look around and you'll see below-average men doing very little in your field and are seemingly equally successful. Don't let that deter you. Just know that going in, it's going to happen. I hope it changes, I hope we're doing our part, but for immediate generations, for young women, don't let that question yourself. Don't. Just know that the world is changing, we're at a very pivotal point, but don't let these scenarios discourage you. The problems are that folks look at men and women and still hold us to different standards. A mistake made by a woman is discussed at length. Mistakes made by men are overlooked quickly as, oh, it happens, move on.

I think the opportunities in this field today are massive, because the world today is nowhere close to the world it was even in 2024 or 2025. AI is expanding and taking over our lives. It's a massive opportunity. Whatever background you come from, because there are no degrees for AI, so everyone is on the same level playing field. Every single person. So it's upon us to take the bull by its horn and make the most of it. There is no way you can say a certain person had better opportunities going to a better school because they got in, they were monetarily, financially in a better position to get into a certain degree. It's no longer that. See it for what it is, make the most out of it, and truly see how you can position yourself in scenarios where you can start changing things. For women, young women today, it's an opportunity. A lot of the previous generations are not very interested in learning the AI ins and outs because they're closer to retirement, closer to the tail end of their career, and may not think it's worth their time and effort. So recognize that, recognize the white space that we're in, and just go ahead in. The challenge with AI is that a lot of the pieces are unknowns. Everything is changing so quickly that the winning patterns are the ones that are able to see a few steps ahead. If you're meeting a need today, you're already behind. The challenges would be to force your mind, challenge yourself to think 5 steps ahead. What do you think the market trends might be emerging? What the trends are going to be in the next year, two years? How can you get ahead of it? A lot of it is an unknown, working through the uncertainties.

The values that are non-negotiables and critical to me are integrity. Absolutely. Nothing, there is no two ways. Integrity, say what you mean, mean what you say. Be a responsible, accountable person. Be a reliable person. Be a person that your friends and family and your professional circle can count on. If you say you'll do something, you sure as hell will do it. If you cannot do something, you know, no is a full sentence. As women, we need to know that very, very emphatically, say no. If you don't think you can do something, if you don't have the resources, say no. But if you say yes and don't do it, now you're robbing yourself of your own integrity, and you're not being true to yourself. You're also taking away a reliability factor, so those are key, key values that I live by and I teach my children. After that, there are a lot of secondary skills and principles, such as work really, really hard. But I do think that's a principle, that's not a value. I think a value is what I spoke about earlier, about integrity, honesty, reliability, being true to your word.