26 February, 2007

POWERPUFF MOM

Sapient’s senior VP Amy Shah finds Wall Street, with its gruelling hours, a tough challenge for women
Ishani Duttagupta


THERE arn’t too many women VPs in the consulting world. And for Amy Shah, senior VP of Sapient in North America, this is one of the challenges that she faces professionally. “I have two young children and packed travel schedules around the world - leaving them behind - can be very tough. The consulting companies do not yet have too many women in senior leadership roles and hence are only starting to recognise special needs such as limiting travel for mothers with young children,” she feels. Of course, the fact that her husband too is part of Sapient’s leadership team and helps her to balance her professional and family roles, helps a lot. And as career manager for groups of 10-15 employees across Sapient, Ms Shah finds herself often dealing with similar HR issues which often don’t have much to do with compensation packages. “As mentor and role model, I find people coming to me with problems similar to the ones that I have faced at different stages in my career - of balancing family commitments with the job,” she says. Even at Wall Street - where Ms Shah had her previous stint with Dun & Bradstreet - after an MBA in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business - she finds the trading floor largely maledominated and women having difficulties with gruelling work hours.

“While there are a large number of younger women working at Wall Street as analysts and junior traders, there are far less of them in senior positions. In fact, I find more women doing well on the retail side of financial services such as banks,” she says. Ms Shah, whose parents immigrated to the US in the 60s, was born and bred in the Mid-West America and feels that the second generation of Indian Americans are far more comfortable with their ethnic identity today, than before. “My parents’ generation were coming to terms with their American-ness, while my children will be far more comfortable as global citizens. I feel they would be comfortable living and working anywhere in the world,” she says. She herself chose to relocate to NYC because of its multicultural feel. “Starting up Sapient’s financial services business proved to be a great challenge too,” says Ms Shah who is currently responsible for Sapient’s business in New York and Chicago with a focus on the financial services sector. “Besides NYC, I’ve worked in the West Coast and Toronto. And now as part of Sapient’s strategic leadership team I feel that leadership is more about results rather than gender, race or geography. While we are three women on the top team, 30% of Sapient’s workforce globally are women,” says Ms Shah, who joined the consultancy firm way back in 1996. As for India, while her clients bring her here on work, she would love to travel more often on vacation with her family and teach her kids Gujarati.


Source:- The Economic Times ,Global Indian Takeover ..

No comments: