Session: Using an Eclectic leadership style to navigate challenging situations
The word eclectic caught my attention: "a person who derives leadership style or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources." If you think of eclecticism in terms of leadership philosophy or styles, it presents a unique, powerful, and practical leadership style. It allows you to develop leadership traits in a holistic way from both scientific and practical perspectives. It calls for more context-specific leadership unique to every person and situation (in both the giver and receiver senses), combining multiple elements. Often, we leave out micro context, facts, and critical aspects to lead and achieve desired results. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to leadership. Even with the same organization and team, you may have to combine different leadership styles depending on where the organization is in its journey.
Bio
Kaitki Agarwal is the co-founder, President at A5G Networks. A5G Networks is a leader in converged 4G, 5G, and Wi-Fi autonomous mobile core software.
Before A5G Networks, Kaitki co-founded Parallel Wireless in 2012. Kaitki was the Chief Product Officer at Parallel Wireless and led product and operations. She led the disruption of the traditional RAN market with the open RAN movement. She established global operations in the US, India, UK, and Israel and grew the team to 500+.
Before founding Parallel Wireless, Kaitki was at Starent Networks/Cisco where she led the multimedia team and architecture for various packet gateways, VoLTE products, led customer engagements with several customer wins.
She created a culture of innovation and has 50+ patents pending and granted. Kaitki has a strong track record of innovation and leading disruptions in the end-to-end telecom networks for RAN, Voice, and packet core.
Kaitki holds MBA from Babson College, Product Strategy from Kellogg, and a BS in computer science from IIT Roorkee.
As a woman in technology leader, Kaitki is driving several initiatives for women via forbeswomen, IEEE WIE, DWEN and women in tech forums. Her story is published by the government of India and the British high commissioner for SheIs – 75 women in STEAM, a book that will showcase women role models for youth, make visible the leadership of women, and generate interest in the SDGs. Kaitki is also recognized in CRN’s Women of the Channel list for 2023.
Kaitki is a board member, strategic advisor, A member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council, an official member of the Forbes technology council and a member of FastCompany executive board.
She recently received C-Suite champion in Mobility award at Move America 2023.