Her Story
About Somya
I came to the United States as an immigrant after completing my bachelor's degree in engineering in India. Growing up, I was surrounded by engineers - my dad, my cousins, everyone in my family worked in engineering, and my dad worked at an engineering plant, so I never thought of doing anything else initially. But after I got married and moved to the U.S., things changed. I started volunteering, even for Harvard for a small duration, and I realized what I really enjoyed was the people aspect and converting what you learn into strategy that you can implement. That's when I decided to pursue my master's in HR from Rutgers, because I totally believe it's very important to have the right education when you want to do something. I've been in the field for more than 12 years now, and I'm approaching my 4-year anniversary at Seagate in July. As an HR Business Partner, I support executives and do strategic work for my leaders, making sure the numbers I see in the business and things related to employees are converted into the right business strategy. My work includes coaching leaders, leading organization and talent review sessions, managing annual performance cycles and surveys, and right now I'm focused on our annual focal cycle around compensating employees with bonuses and merit increases. What really motivates me is aligning people's strategy with business goals and being within people while trying to solve situations and help leaders. I'm currently an AI champion at my company, and last year I was awarded the Exceptional Contributor Award. I aspire to become a Chief People Officer one day, and I'm in the middle part of my career, learning everything leaders need to have to reach that path.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Somya
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say resilience for sure. It took me a long time to know my strength myself, but I'm very resilient. Of course, family is very important - my husband is a great supporter, and my parents have always been there, cheering me up all the time while I was growing up and even now. I'm very much recognized and appreciated for what I do and what I bring to the table at my current company, where I'm an exceptional contributor awardee. So resilience, hard work, and family are the few things I'll definitely attribute my success to.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was from one of my very first mentors. He told me that HR is a field where people can be sloppy because you're just not showing your ownership, so don't do that. It's very important to show up every day with ownership, with the thought in your mind that what you're doing is very important, and what you are doing is very important for others also. Don't be that sloppy person who's like, yeah, maybe somebody else will kind of do it and it'll get done. Just own it and run with it.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say it's all about resilience, it's all about just keeping your head high, keep doing the right things, keep learning. That's the most important thing, because learning should never stop. You never reach any level where you can say, oh, I know it all. For the last couple of years, we've seen how things have changed at a much faster pace compared to where things were 30, 40 years ago. And to the future people, I would like to say that for them, things might change even at a faster pace, so don't get into a situation where you're like, oh, you know what, I'm done with my education, and this is what I'm going to do, and this is how I'm going to retire. It's not going to work that way anymore. You have to be on constant learning, for sure.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Right at this moment, it's all about AI. A lot of people are scared to accept the reality, and I see this as not only a shortcoming, it's also an opportunity if you just try to get on the wave, try to learn, try to stay engaged and just keep learning with the flow. I think it's definitely going to help. I'm more inclined towards seeing it as an opportunity for sure. This is a great opportunity for HR folks too. It's definitely a great time in the field of HR, where you can actually use these fantastic tools which AI is building to do your work even more efficiently and to be a more strategic partner to your leader.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I wrote my leadership philosophy a few days back because I'm doing a TAIR program, which is run by the U.S. Army folks, and it's a great program. A few of the things which I mentioned were that hard work comes at top for me. Whether you're leading a team or you're part of a team, it's very important that you should be a leader of competence, somebody who knows things by themselves, but to know things, it's important that you yourself do things, you yourself learn things. So I would say that hard work and resilience are part of my personal and professional values. Other than that, you definitely have to be very empathetic. You have to be a great listener, not only just a talker, you definitely have to be an active listener, and you definitely have to keep yourself in other people's shoes too. It's not that you-know-it-all situation. Those are a few things which I feel have helped me shape who I am and have helped shape my professional career, for sure.
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