Phenomenal woman entrepreneurs are disrupting industries, creating innovative products, leading the teams globally, and ultimately, changing the world. Something which cannot be ignored about female entrepreneurs is that they are really getting it done on their own rules. In the past, there was a common misconception, that women have to demonstrate masculine characteristics to be successful. Does this case still persist? Heavens no!
In the patriarchal society many times it becomes difficult for women to get acceptance in lead roles and that’s what leads to a glass ceiling. The caliber along with persistence, assertiveness, confidence and the ability to maintain relationships are the key traits which help in overcoming such challenges.
“My personal mantra for successful business is to be ambitious, be passionate about the job you do, be a fast learner, be adaptable to dynamic situations and deliver in challenging situations. As where there is a will, there is a way. Statistics shows that organizations having better gender diversity have better revenues. I also lead women charter in India for a diversity portfolio as I believe that gender diversity is a key essential to bring up the organization in all respects.”
Awita Badonia, Director, IT-Client Service Management at Nokia, India, is going the extra mile to align Information Technology with the business skills to add maximum business value; and realize maximum benefits in terms of process improvement, automation, digital transformation and efficiency in the organization. She is responsible for end-to-end service delivery, including enduser computing, networks, data centre operations, vendor relationships, IT governance, transformation and capacity and cost projections. She also has extensive experience in Delivery in core R&D in Switching, Network Management, BSS and OSS domain, her technical expertise along with a business focus has come a long way.
Recently she swept four awards for her company amongst fierce competition of 350 companies as the Jewels of Digital Champion and Project Excellence Award in the Infrastructure, Middleware and BYOD category organized by Dynmaic CIO.
Prior to Nokia, she has served Alcatel-Lucent as Director (CSM) South Asia, Tech Mahindra as Group Head BT and in Network Programs as Director Switching.
Accrediting her motivation and achievements to two great ladies who keep her motivated with the attitude “come what may”, and she credits her success to them.
Awita has been quite the allrounder right from her school days. She has won more than 100 accolades in her school and university mainly in debates, creative writing etc. Many of her articles and stories have been broadcasted on All India Radio during her college tenure.
She is also active with NGOs which work towards the upliftment of poor children by providing them with academic scholarships. She is also often invited to anchor events and do event management.
A keen speaker, she is also frequently part of panel discussions by various forums like ISACA, Digital CIO, Dun and Broadstreet, TCS, Dell etc. She is passionate about Cloud Technology and loves to write and speak on related topics like Big Data, IoT, 5G and Digital transformation.
Awita says,“My first role model is my mother who got married at the age of 13 and completed her post-graduation post marriage while becoming a mother of four daughters. In spite of her severest personal challenges even when my father lost his eyesight, she never gave up and strived to give her best. I owe my fighting spirit and never-ending grit and determination to her.” Adding further, “and the second person is, Elizabeth Theophille, Global CIO, Nokia Corp, a sharp and dynamic personality, and commands great respect in both inside and outside the organization,” telling more about her, Awita says,“She is an enigma who has not only achieved great laurels in her profession but also is a compassionate and loving human being.”