On this women’s Day, MediaNews4U.com is acknowledging women leaders of the Media, Marketing, Broadcast, and Advertising fraternity who have given more than expected.
SoCheers Infotech Pvt Ltd. Was established in 2013, what started as an idea between two friends working from home, quickly grew to a 3BHK flat to an office to a 4000 sqft office in a swanky building and over 100 team members within a span of 7 years. Today, SoCheers is a full-fledged digital marketing agency based out of Mumbai, servicing clients all across sectors like banking, automotive, fashion, hospitality, F&B, technology, pharmaceuticals, retail, e-commerce, real estate, music & entertainment, home appliances, consumer durables and human resources.
In this segment, Women leader Rajni Daswani, Director – Digital Marketing, SoCheers shares her experiences of breaking the gender stereotypes and how they continue to inspire many other women who are true leaders in the making.
Journey
In one word, my journey has been ‘experimental’. And, this experimentation has helped make it exciting, giving me a great learning curve along with keeping things interesting. When I started off in 2010, I was very new to finance, macro economy and commodity markets but my curious nature helped me ace my role. Similarly, I entered the public relations industry in order to seek some learning’s on how brands use communication strategies to build perceptions. Moreover, having always wanted to create something from the ground up, I took the plunge to start my own clothing label, and I learnt more in those 2 years of running it than I did in the 4 years of my work experience till then. Balancing a job, a business and studying for GMAT was obviously challenging but was equally rewarding.
Although stumbling upon SoCheers was coincidental, my experience with digital marketing while running my own business and the learnings from my PR stint, indeed helped me seamlessly understand what the brands were looking for.
Even at SoCheers, I have continued to experiment with multiple roles. Having worked with multiple teams, on several brands, from various industries, has helped me understand the agency and the industry on a deeper level. It also led me to build a strong team at SoCheers. It’s been a gratifying journey so far, and it’s nowhere close to done.
Inspiring Women
I didn’t have to go far for inspiration, just look within my own home. I’ve been brought up in an entrepreneurial family and business skills have always been like my second nature. Reading books about the journeys of inspirational people like Barack and Michelle Obama, Sheryl Sandberg, Steve Jobs, to name a few, have helped me shape my understanding of where I want my life and career to head.
To be very honest, I haven’t made any attempts ‘to inspire’ my team at any point as Inspiration is not something that you can inculcate. The only thing I believe that one can do is be a better person, a better manager and a better leader every day.
Moreover, when working on giving guidance to my team, I try to do it with compassion and with the objective of empowering them to readily take ownership, which visibly aids them in their growth. I do work on pushing my team to go out of their comfort zone, one step at a time. Showcasing the possibilities that can exist for them, providing a clear career path and helping them understand their future in the organization helps align their long-term goals.
Empowering Women
I’ve been privileged enough to be brought up in a family that always supported me and encouraged the women around them to do their best in whatever choice that they make. This has been instrumental in shaping my views on equality, gender roles and women empowerment.
However, traditionally, women are trained and accustomed to think in certain limiting ways and it passes on from one generation to the other as common lessons. I believe it’s important to break this chain. Which is why urging women to get out of their comfort zones is something that I push for, imploring them to gain the confidence to achieve their goals and helping wherever I can with my support. It is every individual’s responsibility to enable and empower women by facilitating proper education and employment, which in turn would help in eliminating poverty and illiteracy, uplifting the society as whole and not just women.
