Over her 19-year-old career as an HR professional, Ekta Bharadwaj has earned diverse experience across a wide variety of industries and sectors. Straight after completing her MBA in HR from the Apeejay School of Management, she joined the InterContinental Hotels Group as an HR Associate and has risen through the ranks to head the HR function at Nissan Motor India currently.
Speaking to Mobility Outlook’s “Women in Mobility” programme recently, Bharadwaj offered interesting insights into her career journey, and shared experiences that have helped shape her leadership approach.
In the initial years of her career, Bharadwaj was fortunate to be at the right place, and to have the right mentors, right team and peers. While guidance and support was never in short supply, she was – very importantly – allowed to fail. She was trusted, she could take various initiatives, and was allowed to drive and implement various things. And that made her feel empowered.
It was in those initial five to six years that she got to learn about leadership. Thanks to the right leaders she worked under, the first seeds of her leadership journey were sewn during that phase.
One experience that she reminisces fondly was from her early days as a professional. When her immediate manager had to go on her maternity leave, Bharadwaj was asked to step into her role. The organisational was undergoing a lot of changes, and the HR function was being transformed. While she was double-hatting for a period of six to nine months, Bharadwaj was able to accomplish the tasks assigned to her fairly well.
Once her manager resumed work, Bharadwaj was asked by the head of HR what she would like to do now. Without much thought, she said she would like to go back to her earlier job profile. The head of HR then told her she had not come so far to go back to what she was doing earlier. That incident was an eye opener for her – a lesson on the right approach and attitude towards one’s profession.
That, in a way, framed her for higher professional successes in her later life.