World Economic Forum Gender Gap report 2018 says it will take over 200 years to achieve economic gender parity globally. India ranks 142 out of 149 countries in the economic opportunity and participation index. India is reaching newer heights in Global arena and this is when we are missing the power of half a billion, both economically and culturally. Just imagine what we are capable of achieving!

We are living in a world most suited to men. One of the unsaid performance indicator to succeed in a leadership role is “unfailing availability”. Limited domestic obligations of men in India makes it easier for them to be more available. This criterion is clearly pro-male and penalizes most women, particularly working mothers.

I learnt it the hard way in my journey, it’s not just others, we are also limiting the paths of our growth. Women need to be more confident of what they are capable of achieving and stop doubting themselves when challenged with a new task. Stepping out of the comfort zone can take us places. Certain traits that I developed and they helped me a lot in my journey - never shy away from expressing yourself, do not underestimate yourself, never assume – just ask, don’t let other’s perception decide your way of life, if you get a hunch that maybe you can – just go for it with full thrust!

Also, I stopped trying to be perfect in every sphere of life – best performer at work, perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect daughter. Let us acknowledge that it is not possible and we need to stop running for these badges! Stop pressing yourself so hard, just do what makes you happy. Happy employee, happy wife, happy mother, happy daughter will always do better in all the spheres of life!

Also, it is important that each of us stops judging and starts treating each other as humans first, irrespective of the gender. Independent and objective assessment of every situation is the essence of a growth-oriented mind-set. Perception driven approach only adds to more biases. It is also critical that we place ourselves in the other person’s shoes every single time, be compassionate, be open and transparent in conversations and give a fair chance to understand and respect each other’s views instead of judging people through preconceived biases.

“Balance is better” – we need to change our mind-set, eliminate biases and build conviction that balance is indeed better for the world!

After having gone through several phases of my life, I firmly believe that hard work is the only key to success. Irrespective of the gender we belong to, our goals could only be accomplished with consistent efforts and perseverance, despite of adverse circumstances.

My story started from a small-town Udaipur, Rajasthan where I was born and brought up in a middle-class business family. After completing my schooling and graduation, I decided to become a qualified professional and enrolled myself in chartered accountancy course.

As the fate takes turns, I was married at the age of 23 and came to Delhi. Trying to cope with complete change in life in a fast-moving metro city, my preferences could have easily changed. However, I had a strong determination to become a working professional hence continued to pursue CA, gave exams and cleared my CA intermediate after 6 months of marriage. Destiny had its own plans and I entered another phase of life ‘motherhood’. With cheer all around in the family, my career was starting to take a back seat when I decided not to stop and continued appearing for my CA final exams while I was six months’ pregnant. After birth of my child, I took a break, however, with my supportive husband, I decided to continue with my studies again.

Bringing up a toddler and studying for CA final exams was a devious task. Challenges creeped in and faced my part of failures too. It was difficult to conquer the anxiousness, pain and deterrence that came in with those failures. However, with the support of my family, I started with full commitment yet again and achieved the milestone to become a qualified CA. Now, the aim was to utilize my education in the real world. Challenge was to find a job as well as to manage my little child. Determined with my goals, I started with my first job while my little kid started his play school. During the tenure of nine years of my first job, I faced many tough occasions between work commitments and time needed to my family & second kid. However, I kept sailing through it dedicatedly by maintaining a fine balance between my profession and family.

It has now been more than 11 years, I am a working professional, thoroughly enjoying my family life with my kids growing up. Today, when I look back, I feel that being a woman it could have been so difficult for me to move even an inch towards my goals, had I chosen an easy route during my journey. As a woman and a professional, I learnt that anything can be achieved by taking the challenges head-on and pushing yourself towards the boundaries, while striking the right balance between your professional and personal life.

Like every individual, I also started my career with a standard question of ‘where do you see yourself 5 and 10 years down the line’ and like a standard answer it was ‘working successfully at a top position in an organization doing the work you love’. However, as easy and cliché as it may sound, success never comes easy and is especially challenging for women. The ever-changing dynamics of the business world wherein aggression and networking are pervasive, navigating your way to the top whilst maintaining a balance between professional and personal life has always been a challenge. As a matter of fact, there is an unsaid unwritten rule book of achieving personal milestone expected from women.

In light of the same, faced with such expectations, making a choice of creating a work life instead of succumbing to the conflicting demands, I powered myself to cross all the hurdles that came my way. In this journey of 11 years, gulping all the bitter experiences and taking failures as positive lessons, I achieved what I wanted to be and where I wanted to see myself today.

Additionally, at the initial stage, I personally felt that there was an incessant conflict between truly acknowledging myself or becoming the one as per the requisites of the corporate sector; since, this sector is more inclined towards the people who have extrovert qualities. However, in this fight of my thoughts, once I started embracing my introvert nature, the inner strength found its true form. Having acknowledged myself, I happily faced all the challenges and went assertive in my own way paving the way to a successful career.

So, my message to all women out there is; the secret to be a successful woman in today's world is to walk to the beat of your own drum, embrace your flaws, listen to your intuition, and never give up!!!

Opportunity may not knock on everyone's door; however, what matters is how you snatch and make the best out of it.

From a conservative middle-class background, where being career ambitious is a taboo especially for girls, became the first Chartered Accountant amongst the extended family. With the dream of being an independent working woman, it took lot to convince parents to pursue this course. Self-financed graduation and Chartered Accountancy out of private tuitions money and became a Chartered Accountant within the time frame allowed by parents. There, she started her journey and learnt the value of being focused and persistent.

Joined one of the top CA Firms in Kolkata as first post qualification job. As luck would have it, got married within a year of qualification and had to change jobs to an average CA firm to prioritize personal life over professional.

Job transfer of husband from Kolkata to New Delhi after 2 years of marriage came like an adversity that eventually turned out to be a bliss. Joining Nangia & Co. gave birth to fresh aspirations. She acknowledges association with Nangia & Co. and working with Mr. Vikas Gupta as her reporting partner has been the finest experience directing her to achieve the pinnacle of professional success. This provided her ample opportunities to deliver, grow and improvise and helped her to enhance her knowledge and skills and let her become an expert in her field. Serving a wide range of clients as team leader and handling a considerable team size through hard work, honesty and commitment helped her explore her own abilities. Successfully covered journey from an assistant manager to associate director in a span of 6 years and continuing with a thrive for further success.

She does not think she is anyone famous or done anything that will make a mark on society. She just has a desire of pursuing things to broaden her life and keep going. She strongly believes that being a woman is not a bane. Success in personal as well as professional life can go hand in hand.

Her message to the woman of today’s era is while pursuing our dreams, we search for opportunities continuously, work hard, and try to accomplish everything at once. Facing failures and rejections on our way, may become disappointment. But the essential thing is to not give up and continue to work hard. Be strong, independent and unstoppable.

“I Believe…….I will……I can……I did…….I Won…….I continue to Dream” My Motto for Life is to Dream, to achieve and make myself proud of being a Woman, a Woman that’s an inspiration to my 10-year-old daughter, whom she feels proud of, whom she looks up to, whom she loves unconditionally, the way I have been inspired by my Mother and my Elder Sister. I am a big believer that all of our experiences – Good, Bad and especially the tough ones, helps us in defining our Present and most importantly our future and make us what it takes to face the world and emerge “Victorious”. In today’s world, the Working Women find themselves pulled in multiple directions. There is Work (Career) and there is Home (Family). One need to strike a perfect balance in both the spheres and eventually feel justified in the respective roles they are in, not only for others but for ourselves (within). Also to mention varied roles we need to perform as a Mother, at Work and as a Leader. Born in Agra, youngest sibling, loved and spoiled by everyone in the family, got everything without any hassle, made me believe that you get whatever you desire without any hard work. Basically the fact that “You need to earn what you think you deserve” never got registered in me. After completing my Chartered Accountancy in first attempt, I moved to Delhi and got my First Job, life seemed like a smooth sail, loving the Big City Life too. Then came a reality check in life which was called Competition, Peer Pressure, Work Pressure, Office Politics, Performance Pressure and list went on and on. Learnt the dynamics of corporate culture, started dealing with them, same time there was a change in my Status – “Got married and blessed with a Daughter”. Now I was a working mother, who was finding it difficult to do justice to all the roles specially being “Mother”. So after working for 8 years I decided to Quit. Quit my ambition and aspirations. However, my quest for leaning and meeting new people never faded, started taking guest lectures in management colleges, GMCS faculty with ICAI. Found a new “Me” which made me learn that quitting is not the solution, exploring is. From there was a new journey, wherein I ventured back into the CA Profession, now no looking back, passion to do what I love, now working in a leadership role, with an amazing organization. “The empowered woman is powerful beyond measure and beautiful beyond description” Steve Maraboli

Wishing all the lovely ladies a very happy International Women’s Day. It’s a gift of God to born as a girl. God has given the maximum powers to Women since we are the creators and not just bring new life to the world but also we are always buoyant with good ideas, imagination and creativity. We have the ability to make the environment around us very vibrant and lively. Its great to see around that today’s women are fearless and more experimental than before. Women in today’s era are following their dreams surpassing all the obstacles. I don’t believe in statement that Women can’t have it all rather you can have all that you want and more with a robust support system and if not in one go then in different phases of your life - be it professional advancement combined with the personal growth.

My message to all the women is to keep dreaming and work towards the bliss that you want to create for yourself and never hesitate to seek guidance, mentorship and Support. At last I would like to leave a powerful message by R.S. Grey - “She believed she could, so she did!!”

They say that our movies reflect the mindset of our society and are a reflection of the changing trends. Recently, a dialogue from the movie Dangal ‘Mhari Choriyan Choron Se Kam Hain Ke? ’reinforced the same.

Yes my friends, society is changing and for the good. ‘Patriarchy’ is now unfashionable and cliched. We are moving towards a more tolerant society with the right to ‘Equality’ not merely being a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution of India. People have started believing that a woman is nothing less than a man, infact she is much more.

The importance of education in this regard cannot be undermined. An old proverb says “If you educatea manyou educatean individual, but if you educate a woman you educateafamily(nation)’. It is important that we educate our girls and encourage them to pursue higher education. Education not only helps in making a woman successful, strong, confident but most importantly makes her independent and self reliant thereby enabling her to garner the respect of all around her, both professionally and personally.