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Two successful Pune women share insights about work-life harmony
Radhika Gupta, chief executive officer, Edelweiss Mutual Fund and Anu Aga, chairperson, Teach for India shared their life experiences at the event
Instead of asking how you balance your work and life, you should ask how you maintain work-life harmony, said Radhika Gupta, chief executive officer, Edelweiss Mutual Fund. “Work Life balance is a crude term as we try to portray life much pleasant than work. We, women, harmonise both as we love both,” she added.
Radhika Gupta and Anu Aga, chairperson, Teach for India, were speaking at Lemon Tree Premier hotel, during the 5th anniversary of Finnovators Solutions, a leading financial distribution company. Vikrant Vartak, an accomplished entrepreneur interviewed the two women. The theme for the event was ‘Women and wisdom’, saluting the innovations and success that women bring in society.
Radhika shared her own experiences with the struggle in the early years and how she rose to the position of chief executive officer of the leading asset management firm. “Women often are more capable and talented than men in similar profile, but they don’t come forward and accept challenges or higher responsibilities simply because they have to manage work and home. Work-life balance is a crude term as we try to portray life much pleasant than work. We, women, harmonise both, as we love both and one should ask oneself as to how can I have work-life harmony,” expressed Radhika.
Anu Aga shared her experiences as to how she overcame personal challenges and took hard decisions which helped grow Thermax Ltd. “Women should not be afraid or shameful of asking for help, instead they should be open to discuss their problems and seek help whenever required. Also, they should stop portraying themselves as idols of sacrifice because they are not martyrs, but the soul of any home or workplace,” said Aga.
She further added that there will be a time in the future when the men would want to be at home and would want the women to be at the forefront of the workplace. “As a society, it takes time to change and we are moving in the direction where this will be a reality soon,” she said.
Radhika said that women take their job roles too casually and they should be more demanding in their workplace and this could be a reason why recruitment of women is lower in all spheres of life and also the reason why we find less number of women in higher positions. “Women should be on the boards of companies not by quota, but by their own talent and skills. Meritocracy should be promoted rather than a quota,” she added.
During the event Balvir Chawla, director Finnovators shared the company’s growth for the past five years. Bhupendra Ketkar and K V Balaji, directors at Finnovators proposed the vote of thanks.
