Hi, everyone. I am Jona Mani Kantin. And I'm here on this super important topic of career growth and especially in the period that we refer to as the post pandemic uh effort. Yes, the pandemic is almost done. It's on the backside of the exit process.So what do we do as women? And how do we progress and what is growth in this new world because it's a brand new world and we are already living in it. So let me give you a quick introduction about myself and uh thank you Anna for um you know, the first intro. So today I am Jos Naman Kant and a lead product manager with AD P. I'm in my 17th year of my career and 13th year with AD P. So, and the current role that I have is a role of higher visibility, responsibility and accountability. It's a growth that is through building tenure, building relationships and how can we use where we are working today, the projects that we are working on and the people we are working with to help us take the next next step. So, yes, very much is this start from uh Chennai India. And at a personal level, I do love, you know, building on innovation and talent growth, especially the aspects of diversity and inclusion 7 billion people in this world.

And each of us unique in our different ways means that our different perspectives can help us to be the best version of ourselves working together with each other. That's the premise of how we are working together in our companies. And I find through my career journey, the only way anyone can do great work is to love what you do. So, and as women, many times in early in my career, I've thought how are women supposed to network when we have our responsibilities of family, we are committed to our work. We also have this commute aspect. So what is networking and how do we do it? And I found in my career journey that networking is not about after office hours. It's also about networking in the office by volunteering for a great cause. So, so at AD P, we are based in uh New Jersey as a corporate headquarters, we love to give back to the community. And here is a picture of me and my friends on another volunteering event where you can see while we volunteer to pack bags of food for, you know, uh the much needed uh people, we also take it as opportunity to connect and support each other in our journeys.

Career growth is not necessarily defined by our job title. Yes, we have been many times raised in a way that, you know, like, yeah, we have to like, you know, be um you know, we are told, oh, where is your promotion? Where is the stuff? How are things happening? Is there like just like, you know, when is the next one? What is the growth but growth is very different and growth is not necessarily connected with the job title and it is definitely not defined or limited me in my growth opportunities. This start in India and you can see started in technical writing. And as I was looking at, what do I learn? What do am I expo getting tiny exposures? I also found that's what is my first step. I can take the next step and then keep building into my career journey to see how far I can go and in what direction I choose to go for. So courier very much is a journey sometimes early in our life, we think, ok, I got a job, whatever be the title with whatever company we think this is a destination, it is not a destination. This we if a human being has an average span of about 80 years, think about it. Do we know what we are going to be when we are 80 years old? Just a little bit too early, right?

For those of us, especially in mid careers and early careers, we actually want to see like you know, how can you plan it? Do you know what you want to do for the next 2 to 5 years? And as you are learning and investing in that time and understanding the business, the product, the work that you are doing, you are also growing personally and professionally. So what will you do from your future self? That is two years, five years out in the future. So you want to keep an adaptive mindset? I find that a very important aspect of my uh learning and uh growth comes from reading amazing books. And one of the phenomenal books is what got you here, won't get you there. You can check it out yourself. But the concept is everything that we went to school for, we went to college for, we got a job and yes, we got, you know, something yesterday, a promotion or whatever is that sufficient for us to our future path? And how is the future going to be? And how can we as women who have literally no time left? How do we go and prepare ourselves? So those become quests that each of us have to come together and then you mix in the cultural perspective. Remember I mentioned about diversity inclusion. So there's a whole concept of culture in the culture part of it, especially from being from Chennai, India, I could say like it's very standard rules.

You keep doing your job, keep doing it, you get promoted, become a manager then become a VP whatever and then it's done and then to retire. But I chose to challenge myself and say, but what if that is not a part that I want to be? I don't want to be doing the same thing. I actually want to understand the business and try my hands at different aspects of the business. So here is an amazing chart that many of us might have seen recently on linkedin. And I think it's spot on each of us, especially each women has to choose what do you want to grow and how, what direction you want to grow. There is no rule and there is no law that makes it illegal to say I must, I am a technical writer that I must always be a technical writer and I must retire as a technical writer that such a thing doesn't exist. It's a perception and it's a policy, we need to break it. We want to keep an open mind to say if you are doing something today and you've been doing it for a period of time, that means you are now more aware of the business around you. And that way you can choose to extend your arm and reach out to something around you.

So for example, if you are working in the Q A testing environment and but then you're understanding the product or you're understanding the analysis based of it, reach out to see could there be an opportunity for you to be a business analyst or a product owner. So you want to start thinking of paths that are across and that can help you span and increase your bread. Now, this is my very favorite slide as I was putting this together. And uh there are two things. Uh I personally love my iphone and then the beautiful green trees. I live in New Jersey and it's a garden state. There's a lot of greenery around as working professionals. We say, OK, I'm a working mother. I'm commuting. I'm doing everything. I am the best version I am here and I don't know what to do. I don't know where to grow. Where is that growth? And I don't want to be a manager. I I I'm not seeing a role that is posted to apply for. It is totally OK. It is totally ok because if you take, let's take the two analogies here. If you take the iphone or a smartphone, Android, I'm an iphone. So Android phones too. I love you guys, right? So uh if you look at the phone analogy, then you can look at the smartphone market is today is at, is at its maturity.

We got apps, we got awesome devices, we got great cameras, we got super duper apps and I think there are more apps than possibly more people in the world today, but it doesn't stop them from, you know, creating the next version is it, they are always looking to see, can I increase the efficiency?

Can I offer features? My app already exists? But can I add a feature to it to make it better? Can I improve the enhancements? Like, you know, so that like if today when we started, you may all remember a few years back, we had the Fitbit but now we have the Apple watch, then we have the health app. Now it's all one connected to another and we can all start seeing. Wow, we didn't think it, but somebody thought about it. And today we have these cool features and look at the other angle. Look at the trees, we look at the trees in our home, our backyard and when we go to the, you know, see them all around us and sometimes it gives us a perception that it is the same tree that I saw last year and I'm seeing this year. But wait a second, how is it possible if a year went by and I saw the tree last year, how could I be seeing the same tree again this year? There's something that I'm not necessarily seeing is it? So you want to identify and look closely at how can we be better?

This, it's the same tree standing in the same spot, but it is not necessarily the same version of the same tree that we are seeing and we as individuals, we with humility, we can accept that there is always opportunities to be a better version of ourselves to create growth around us.

So you want to see what is the problem you can solve right at work so that you're going to create it. There is no knight in shining armor to say, hey, I need you. You're going to grow like this. There's nothing like that. That's fairy tales and we are adults. So we'll take a better approach. We look at the opportunity that I drive my career, you drive your career, we drive our careers so we can see that there is some things around us that can be better. So you want to identify a focus area, think again and see like, OK, if I use the same example of, you know, uh the Q A analyst or in my role as a product manager, I want to see, OK, great. I worked on this awesome project with my group of friends and you know, we did this, we had these objectives, we have these key results, we have these goals. Yes, we did it and we came close to what we set out to do. But then you want to reflect on yourself, you want to reflect and see, is there an opportunity that we possibly missed? Didn't we remember that particular client feedback? And how can that particular feedback if we ponder on it a little bit more, become an opportunity for us to enhance? And you want to be able to do that kind of a proactive approach to think and identify those areas. And let's say it's about numbers.

We rolled out a product, we rolled out releases. It's cool. But what are the statistics, how many clients are using it? Is your product successful? What is the amount of feedback are the feedback positive? Is it working for them or is it like, you know, you really don't know how to understand it and see the game. In which case as a product manager, I would find that I need to learn about predictive analytics and I'm going to be looking for it. So I'm thinking again of the problem that I worked on a project, I'm going a little bit deeper to see what I need to do and I'm going to create my opportunities through predictive analytics and it's coming together. So when you walk around and you see in spring and in fall, you see the trees are shedding their leaves and having these green sprouts think again because it is not the same tree that was existing there in the same spot for 20 years. It's actually different and there are new growth and in time it becomes your comfort zone. I want to stop for a second and pivot into a concept that is very, very uh popular and relevant for all of us and our companies that we are working for, we have gone through a pandemic where almost everything is digital.

This part of our life has been that we can order milk on Instacart and I have never dreamt that I could do it in my life. But yes, milk comes on Instacart. So what had happened in the background while we all stayed harder inside our house is that all our companies, all our employers are all around us. There has been a rapid acceleration of digital technologies. Everything that happened in person from clothing, shopping, to shoe shopping and going from, you know, to getting milk from the store, it's coming to you, it's getting delivered. So that whole digital e-commerce economy is now online and our organizations while we work remotely also had to adapt their practices. So as we look to return to the offices and our companies, we reflect back to say that your has been great, there has been learning. But how are we going to look at ourselves in the future? Now you bring in the analogy of the phone, we have come this far in digital space. What is our next? And are our people going to be ready for it? That's the business problem. That's what companies are trying to solve for. We as women, we can be better, we can, you know, we have limited time, but we are also the most creative people. So in that particular strength of ours, we want to invest in intentional learning.

You want to think about what you're doing today. If you love the space that you're doing fantastic. Keep at it yet you have to find what is the new thing happening in that space. And you want to also be mindful of, you know, time and you're gonna go there, let's say you want to change your career, you want to pivot, you then want to also see how you can, you know, adapt for it, let's say from Q A to business analysis, then you want to identify those skills and you want to learn and the whole world shifting.

You want to say, how can I as a working mother and you know, with my and if you are uh studying and working as well, how can you manage it? So you want to do micro levels, you want to create a plan that you can sustain and please don't burn out. There's no ask of burning out, it doesn't work, right? Think of a plan like like you will go for a walk. Can you do something? Can you give yourself a little time and you want to plan for growth burst? Like can you for the next three months? Think of working on a particular, you know, getting a new skill and there are different ways to do it. Maybe for some people, they have the time they can, you know, they can do it like, you know, they can go all in for a month, go to the end of the universe and get those skills and certification. It's not necessarily a model that works for everybody. So you wanna be, you know, adaptive to what will work for you. You don't want to feel bad that you couldn't complete your plan. You want to feel awesome that you did it, that you will have the energy to continue. And the way I look at it and the way I built my career is, I want to identify what is the need of the hour skills.

If it is about that analytics, there is so much you can go on Google if I'm living on the smartphone, ordering milk, on Instacart and listening to my music, the same smartphone can help me search for free courses on Python or uh A I or whatever it be. I can, I read through po I can listen to podcasts while I do my laundry or when I drive somewhere, I can listen to audio books and those become inputs to my mind which will then say do not because you listen to that particular ted talk and because you read that blog, I think you can change the way you're working slightly differently for a better outcome.

So those become inputs. Now there are online courses. I totally love linkedin Learning they offer especially for the pandemic. There are many, many institutions like linkedin learning course. Are they offer free courses all towards digital empowerment and many of those courses are free, all that you have to do is ask our good friend Google and search on your smartphone to find what it is. And if there are some things offered by your company, go for it, ask for your manager to support you and that way make it like, learn something that's relevant recent and you can apply if you want to do a long term like 10 year phd. Sure thing. That's, that's a longer path, but that's definitely not going to be something that's going to help you in the shorter term. So you want to have a short term focus while you create your long term plan. Don't go it alone. Career is a journey and we can only see so much around us if you can work with your manager. There are people like us and having a lot more responsibilities, just be kind on yourself, be kind on them. If you can recruit your manager and find the mentor, you can share your aspirations and ask for their guidance. They know of projects that are out there, especially your managers and your mentors who you build those relationships with, right?

They can guide you and coach you because they have walked those walks. And that's important. You also want to be the person, you know, as women, we have struggled and that struggles are real that we don't get the necessary recognition for our work. So you want to look at how you can reach out to other people be it linkedin be it this women tech network, which is phenomenal. I'm totally loving it. I'm sure you all are too, right? Connect with the people see what is going on and give the credit. See if you can volunteer for a local chapter. Can you build your network and that way, take it forward and someone asked a question like how can I do this all in the pandemic? And here it is from the Sherm. If you look for all of this, it says there is always a way to raise your hand, be proactive and that way support each other in the journey. I have a whole list of books. I'm going to work with Anna to see how I can put it together or write a blog and chat. It, make

sure to take a screenshot of this list that is a huge powerful list of some really cool books I see here and online learning

platforms. Yes. And I have a tip for all of us women too. There are a lot of books, books take time because people wrote wonderful stuff. It takes time. We necessarily may not have it. So the visual book summary, Google of productivity game, you can get the best of every book under 10 minutes and this is awesome because your brain is super powered and you are amazing. So you want to believe in yourself and you want to believe in yourself to walk up to your manager and ask them. Please tell me how I can grow. Please tell me how I can help and that way have the conversation. Don't wait for perfection. Perfection doesn't exist. It's all in the movies and fairy tales. Be yourself, be awesome and we uh bringing it all together. Thank you, Anna for uh giving the opportunity. I think we just might be close to time. Happy to connect on the chat and be there to answer any questions and reach out to me. Definitely on uh linkedin. Definitely, definitely, you know, happy to help in any part. We're all in this together, take care.