Kausalya Nandakumar, CEO, Smart Shift
Right at the outset, she quips: “Till the ninth standard, my report cards carried three dreaded words – Can Do Better.”
Born in 1980 in Mumbai as the middle of three girl children to an engineer and MBA father and a graduate mother, Kausalya led most of her school life as one ‘in the middle of the pack’ student while both her sisters were studious and later went on to become successful lawyers. Her own career choice was born out of a childhood spent in Jamshedpur gathering knowledge about cars.
A self-proclaimed ‘late bloomer’, Kausalya’s successful journey in the automotive domain began with a new set of four words from her teacher – ‘you are worth more’. Without her conscious knowledge, Kausalya morphed into a ‘nerdy student’ who not only found her name in the merit list in senior school but topped her instrumentation engineering course and sailed through her MBA in marketing with flying colours.
And, the real Ms. Kausalya Nandakumar emerged when she found summer internship with Mahindra & Mahindra’s automotive division. She realised she was aspirational, and wanted to create value and touch lives. In line with it, she grew from doing a project on brand health to getting selected into their management training program. Her dream of working in brand management of vehicles is deeply woven with her belief that ‘a vehicle symbolizes progress’.
Post marriage in 2006 life threw a googly when she had to leave her first love – marketing – in Mumbai to sales in Gurgaon – a mutual decision with her husband. Way back, her first stint of selling credit cards for a big brand had left her with a valuable but bitter lesson. “Sales was a great teacher. Every day was new. Coming from a protected background, I learnt to deal with all kinds of people. Though it strengthened me, I still didn’t want to go back to sales. Yet I went for it and took on the role of deputy manager and handled corporate sales. In those four years I became the regional head for the north zone, and I was the only woman executive in the direct line function.”
During this time when her first son was born, things for her could have become dicey circumstances wise but for the support system at home. It was in these years that she faced ‘subtle’ gender biasness. “Unlike in Mumbai, the customers and the environment in Delhi offered an intrinsic bias. Many times, the clients would suggest that my boss should accompany me and I would say I was the one calling the shots. Also, travelling alone late at night in Mumbai was never an issue unlike in Delhi.”
She adds laughingly: “It was as if I were some kind of an experiment at office. But I brought in changes by initiating casual get-togethers, sometimes with families. Though strange, today I advise marketing people to do sales because it balances your learning and teaches you how to lead a team laterally, but first you have to earn their credibility. I did many mistakes, but I earned my respect.”
Each woman of mettle has her own challenges and dilemma to conquer, and for Ms. Kausalya it was whether ‘to be one of the boys and blend in or be yourself’. Over a period of time, according to her, she found the sweet spot and could handle being herself in all situations.
In her journey to become the CEO of Smart Shift in 2015, Ms. Kausalya learnt the significance of diversity to bring in balance and newness. And gender definitely has no place in it. She believes in an executive’s constructive contribution to the company – gender no bar, again – which is rightfully balanced when the organization offers a risk-free eco system to nudge the person to make the right decision.
But then her team has experienced maternal touch of this particular ‘disciplinarian’ and “probably that’s why I can get away with offering some traditional gyan,” she guffaws.
Ms. Kausalya Nandakumar does not believe that a ‘right’ success formula exists, and that is why this ‘creative engineer’ has found one of her own and is winning hearts.