Shefali Alok Pathak | Vastu Housing Finance
I completed my Bachelors degree in Finance from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA.
During my graduation, I pursued a start-up and became a part of a three member team (partnering with students from IIT Kharagpur) to launch a Voice-over-web solution called Croak.it. This was my first professional experience and the fact that it was a start-up that we were building and creating made it an incredible learning experience.
As all three of us were students, with my other two partners purely working on product engineering, I decided to gain some additional experience in business development and hence joined a successful start-up team in Philadelphia on a part-time basis where I worked directly with the VP of Business Development to learn more.
Towards the end of my graduation, I exited the start-up and joined my father's IT business full time in California. During my second year with this Company, I took up a relocation to Mumbai, India to get a better sense of the job market here.
Soon after, I joined a Housing Finance company where I worked in the capacity of a Financial Analyst reporting to the CFO. Affordable Housing Finance, or lending to those who are typically unbanked and are "thin file" customers, was a relatively new market being developed in India and I took the opportunity to drive the strategic transition of my previous organization from a Premium to an Affordable Company, which entailed systematically changing our business model and disengaging from high ticket loans to move to average loan sizes of Rs 10 lacs.
My work here was highly appreciated by the Board as well as the Senior Management of the Company and hence even with little to no experience of the market I was given the opportunity to lead a sub-function (Business Planning & Analytics) and became the youngest team member of the organization's Core Team at 24 years of age.
I worked in this organization for two years in New Delhi, India and had the opportunity to build experience in my sector and spent a lot of time on the ground with the Sales team so that I have a real view of the problem that our Company was looking to solve.
I am now a part of another Affordable Housing Finance company called Vastu where I manage various product related initiatives and continue to be among the younger team members.
At a time when I had the opportunity to stay in my comfort zone and manage a business that my father was leading, I chose to break away from the dependence, the industry and forayed into a space where I knew it was all about making it from scratch.
Though I have a very long way to go, I do feel a sense of pride about being a "self-made" individual, especially when I speak to Sales employees of other Housing Finance company and they acknowledge that they have heard of me because of my close association with my team on the ground.
I want to redefine the way Affordable Housing Finance is approached in India, in making it more simpler and easier for people who are in the economically weaker section of society to access finance from formal institutions and helping them get financially included.
That is a goal that I try taking baby steps towards every single day, while continuing to acknowledge that I have a lot to learn and a long way to go ahead of me.
Vineeta Raguwanshi | EY
With an aim to contribute towards the larger objective of building a better working world, I entered the corporate world as a HR professional post my Masters in Human Resources Management. I have spent over 11 years at work and have contributed across the complete value chain of HR. Being born and bought up in a Tier II city in central of India ‘Bhopal’ where not many corporate opportunities were available, I decided to pursue my career outside my hometown. However, moving out alone wasn’t easy and especially being the only girl child in the family, but staying firm on my decision I decided to break this stereotype that ‘Woman can’t travel or stay alone’. I shifted to a completely new location Jaipur in Rajasthan, joined HDFC Life in the HR function in year 2007. Post which there was no looking back, I has explored India and also moved to Mumbai at HDFC life corporate office and later joined EY at Gurgaon in the year 2014. It would have been easier for me to stay where I was or compromise in my career, but with the support and encouragement of my family I stepped out of my comfort zone and took up the challenge. I have built high personal credibility by achieving results with integrity and consistency and have a personal brand that stands for authenticity, professional expertise, ability to change assumptions and take risk. I have always been a key member of the Talent team both at HDFC Life and now at EY. Humility, a commitment to hard work, an eye for detail, and an insatiable hunger to learn new things and accept new challenges has always helped me grow in my career. My contributions were recognised timely and I received two promotions at HDFC life and one at EY so far, each promotion happened within a span of 2 years.
Currently I am working as Sr. Mgr HR in EY and I am also the India Diversity & Inclusiveness (D&I) Lead. Some of my major contributions are : improving gender ratio across levels, building gender balanced leadership pipe, promoting flexible working arrangements, creating a support system for working mothers, creating a work environment which is free of stereotypes and biases, providing level playing field to women, engaging with Gen Y, strengthening employer branding and EY’s presence on social media, driving leadership development interventions, creating a strong culture of recognition, coaching and camaraderie. I drive EY Women’s India Network, which has over 4000 members and has also been recognised as the best network amongst organizations in 2017 by BD Foundation. Some of my key contributions in driving firm’s D&I agenda involves, designing of maternity coaching and transition support program to ensure that women have smooth transition through maternity phase, building a culture which is bias free by creating higher awareness on unconscious bias though innovative theatre style gender sensitization sessions, building gender balanced leadership pipe, driving career sponsorship and other women leadership development initiatives. The D&I practices were recognised with D&I Impact award at World HRD Congress 2017. EY has also been recognised amongst the Top 10 best organizations in India for women in 2016 by AVTAR Working Mothers Media. I am part of the EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) D&I Leads group and represents EY India in the forum. The leads group engages to discuss the trending challenges women face, cultural expectations, how organizations can move from equal to equitable approach, how women can participate fully and be successful at work, what an organization can do to enable a striving work culture.
I also played key role in setting up the employer branding strategy for EY and introducing some of the unique campus branding initiatives to engage with students and leverage social media presence. EY moved up by 22 pts in 2016 Universum study and also featured in the top 10 organization in India. I always aim to enable my organization to win by developing and deploying a business aligned people strategy and managing change effectively by demonstrating agility, proactively deploying new capabilities and shaping organization culture.
Contributing beyond defined scope of work and applying my knowledge and skills in strategic initiatives for the organization really drives me. At HDFC life, I worked on various strategic organizational change initiatives apart from my daily routine work. I was part of the ‘Organizational values alignment strategic initiative’ and made key contributions towards revisiting organizational values, aligning business strategy and all HR policies to the organizational values, cascading the value system till the last employee and creating a sustainable model. I was awarded for my contribution towards this most important strategic initiative by HDFC Life and the initiative also received the best project award for its successful drive. I was part of the core team to define the reward and recognition programs, designing employee communications framework, setting up an internal social networking platform for the employees, enhancing customers experience and many more strategic initiatives.
I always look out for opportunities to enable people in their careers and have been involved in training people to have effective upward transition in their careers. I have conducted two sessions so far at Amsterdam, Netherlands for over 60 people from different countries on effective feedback, delegation, client relationships, how to build high performing teams, social styles, etc. My scores have been highly encouraging and the participants feedback drives me to do more in this direction.
I am equally passionate about contributing to the society and have been involved in driving firm’s CSR agenda in India. I was involved in driving various employee volunteering drives including blood donation, clothes donation, tree plantation, engaging with NGOs, teach for India, environment week and many more. I strongly feel that if everyone can make their bit by even doing something small for society, this world will be a beautiful place to live in for everyone.
I am a soft spoken and simple person and yet passionate about life, be it work or family. For me work and family are the two facets of life, without either I am incomplete. Outside work, I have an active interest in what I call the finer things of life. I love to do birding, spend time on my fitness and socialise with my friends.
Yashasvini Rajeshwar | The Red Elephant Foundation
Storyteller. Writer. Educator. Disability rights ally. Gender equality advocate. There are many identities that define Yashasvini Rajeshwar. She seamlessly flits across them, binding her endeavours together with the unerring belief that language is powerful and words have the ability to catalyse change.
Full-time, she teaches at a rural school for tribal and underprivileged children weilding the weapons of personal attention and undeterred faith. In the stolen hours between the classroom and preparation, she is the Head of Communications and Media for Adventures Beyond Barriers Foundation, a non-profit that promotes inclusion for Persons with Disability through adventure sports. Additionally she serves as the chief content writer for BeingYou, a platform dedicated to narrating stories of various marginalised communities on social media, volunteers with Ability Foundation’s disability advocacy and activism, and creates corporate content for a strategic creative communications house.
Her portfolio spans ten years of print and online journalism and close to 200 articles with names including The Hindu and The Times of India. Over the years, she has worked on development projects from Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu with both public as well as private actors. She blogs about teaching at yashasvinirblog.wordpress.com and otherwise yashasvinir.blogspot.in.
Rising Stars 2017 Award Ceremony | In pictures
WeAreTheCity celebrated the winners of the 2017 Rising Star Awards last night, at a prestigious ceremony at NewsUK, London.
Over 200 winners, sponsors, judges and guest attended and enjoyed a champagne reception and welcome by Vanessa Vallely, Managing Director, WeAreTheCity; and Chris Duncan, Managing Director, Times Newspaper Ltd and host for the evening BBC News Presenter Jane Hill.
Addressing the audience, Vallely said, “It is a great pleasure to welcome all our winners and guests.”
“I think we can all agree that The Times have done a pretty epic job.”
During the interval of the awards presentation, the audience were treated to surprise entertainment from the gospel choir, Uplifted Voices. The choir delivered a moving performance and received a standing ovation from the audience during their rendition of ‘Proud Mary’.
Closing the awards, Vallely implored the audience to network with each other, make new connections and to enjoy the moment.
The Rising Star awards were introduced to showcase the UK pipeline of female talent below management level and to create 100 female role models across 20 different industries and professions as well as celebrating the hard work and support of our Rising Star Champions and Company of the Year.
Find all of the images taken from this fantastic event.
ENTER THE GALLERY HERE
Announcing WeAreTheCity's Top 100 Rising Star Awards 2017
In 2015, WeAreTheCity launched its Rising Star awards and set a strategic objective to promote the achievements of 500 women from a multitude of industries in the UK and India by 2018.
The Rising Star awards recognise the achievements of women who are below Senior Management or Director level and therefore represent the female talent pipeline and the next generation of future leaders.
We are proud to announce that nominations for our 2017 Rising Star awards open on 01 February.
In previous years, the awards have been supported by an array of FTSE sponsors and this year is no different. We are proud to announce that this year’s award headline sponsors are The Times and The Sunday Times.
"We are delighted to support WeAreTheCity as the headline sponsor for their Rising Star Awards in 2017. Building and supporting a strong pipeline of female talent is a key area of focus at The Times and The Sunday Times. We are excited to be a part of this unique awards programme that shines the spotlight on the achievements of women across so many different industries. We are honoured to be involved and look forward to working alongside so many other organisations who are as passionate about gender equality as we are"
- Chris Duncan, Managing Director, Times Newspapers Ltd
The Rising Star awards are also supported by Aon, Barclays, Bloomberg, Citi, CRUK, EDIT Development, EY, GDS, Kier, Lloyd’s, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, Oliver Wyman, Pedalsure, Reed Smith, Societe Generale, Streets Consulting, Worldpay and 3M. Additional sponsors and categories will be announced throughout January.
Through WeAreTheCity’s Rising Star awards, and with the support of all our sponsors, WeAreTheCity will add to their alumni of 200 award winners by recognising the achievements of an additional 150 women and an additional 10 champions in the UK and India during 2017.
By highlighting the accolades of inspirational female talent, WeAreTheCity hopes to encourage organisations and business leaders to invest in and recognise women as leaders of tomorrow and individual contributors within their respective industries.
Vanessa Vallely, Founder and CEO of WeAreTheCity, said: “I am very excited to launch our 2017 Rising Star awards and to be once again working with a variety of companies who are actively supporting the gender agenda. With their help over the past three years, we have shone a spotlight on 200 amazing women. I am very proud that this number will rise to 350 in 2017 and am looking forward to welcoming the next cohort of winners to WeAreTheCity’s Rising Star family.”
Recognising that careers for women may follow different timescales, the Rising Star awards do not have any age restrictions included within the criteria. WeAreTheCity feels it has a responsibility to ensure that female talent, regardless of age and background, receives the necessary support and skills to transition into leadership positions and key decision-making roles within our organisations.
Alongside our Rising Star categories and Rising Star Champion award, we are also pleased to announce a new award for 2017 - Company of the Year. This award recognises the achievements of a company who can clearly demonstrate that they are actively supporting its female talent pipeline through their initiatives, training, development programmes and internal employee relations and diversity network groups.
The nominations process for all 20 categories, our Rising Star Champions and Company of the Year award will open on 01 February 2017. Nominations will take place online via the Rising Stars website. For details of the criteria to enter the awards, click here.
Categories included in the 2017 Rising Star awards are as follows:
- Rising Stars in Banking, sponsored by Societe Generale
- Rising Stars in Charity, sponsored by CRUK
- Rising Stars in Construction, sponsor TBA
- Rising Stars in Consulting, sponsored by EY
- Rising Stars in Defence, sponsored by Royal Navy
- Rising Stars in Diversity, sponsored by Aon
- Rising Stars in Education & Academia, sponsored by EDIT Development
- Rising Stars in Entrepreneurs, sponsored by Citi
- Rising Stars in Fintech, sponsored by Streets Consulting
- Rising Stars in HR & Recruitment, sponsored by LinkedIn
- Rising Stars in Insurance, sponsored by Lloyd’s
- Rising Stars in Investment Management, sponsored by Northern Trust
- Rising Stars in Law (The Lynne Freeman Award), sponsored by Reed Smith
- Rising Stars PAs and EAs, sponsor TBA
- Rising Stars in Property and Facilities Management, sponsored by Kier
- Rising Stars in Public Sector, sponsored by Government Digital Service (GDS)
- Rising Stars in Science and Engineering, sponsored by 3M
- Rising Stars in Sales, sponsored by Worldpay
- Rising Stars in Sport, sponsored by PedalSure
- Rising Stars in Technology, sponsored by Morgan Stanley
- Rising Stars Champions, sponsored by Oliver Wyman
- Rising Stars Company of the Year Award sponsored by Barclays
The awards are also supported by Bloomberg who will host our shortlist winners celebrations in June 2017.
Awards Timeline
- Nominations open: 01 Feb 17
- Nominations close: 24 Mar 17
- First round Judging period: 03 - 28 Apr 17
- Shortlist announced and public vote*: 15 May 17
- Finalist judging period: 15 May – 09 Jun 17
- Shortlist celebration event: 08 Jun 17
- Public voting closes: 09 Jun 17
- Winners announced: 19 Jun 17
- Winners event: w/c 12 Jul 17
If you have any additional questions about the awards, please contact Info@wearethecity.com. For details of entry criteria, please visit here
* There is no public vote of support for the Champion of the year or Company of the year award
Rising Star in Sport Manisha Tailor awarded MBE in New Years Honours List
We are extremely proud to announce that WeAreTheCity Rising Star 2016 winner, Manisha Tailor, has been appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year 2017 Honours List for ‘Services to Football and Diversity in Sport’.
On being honoured with an MBE, Manisha warmly speaks of how instrumental her twin brother has been to her footballing journey.
“Wow, to be honoured by the Queen and be a recipient of such a prestigious honour is something that I will cherish always. This MBE is dedicated to the continued 18 year commitment to aiding my twin brother gain a full-recovery from his mental illness that tragically changed our lives at the age of only 18 years old through his bullying at school. I must also dedicate it to football, for without it I would be lost, where a part of me still remains so until I can speak to my brother again”.
Manisha began coaching in addition to her role as a full-time teacher in 2002 and worked across various boroughs in her 15 year teaching career to date, before qualifying as a head-teacher in 2011. It was then, due to personal reasons, she chose to embark upon a career change to use football and education to help her brother and the wider community, to raise awareness of social inclusion and mental health. There are many that have given Manisha much time and assistance whilst she continues her footballing education.
“There are many people that I will thank personally, for providing me with the support and much needed guidance to help me progress within football. One person most recently, who I met again in April this year, at a most significant time in my life where I was going to be out of contract as Centre Manager at Middlesex CoE, is Chris Ramsey. He gave me access to volunteer in a professional football club, before being appointed as the U9 Academy coach in September this year. I will always be grateful to Chris for his mentorship and Queens Park Ranger FC for their commitment to diversity in football and I will endeavour to work hard and continue to learn from Chris as I continue to work through my coaching journey”.
Now, through Swaggarlicious, Manisha travels quite widely, using both football and education to create social change.
Let us continue to challenge perceptions of mental health and continue to use the power of sport in creating greater diversity
“Although I am humbled and grateful, I am equally sad. The one person who I love so dearly may not completely understand or know what we have achieved together. Football has given me an outlet, emotional release for my frustration, and for that I will always be indebted to the beautiful game. Let us continue to challenge perceptions of mental health and continue to use the power of sport in creating greater diversity”.
Manisha Tailor MBE was recognised and awarded as a WeAreTheCity Rising Star in Sport in 2016 and she has gone on from strength to strength. We are extremely proud of her success and we are very grateful to be able to follow her career and her initiatives.
Manisha Tailor MBE is the founder and director of Swaggarlicious
WeAreTheCity India celebrates its 2016 Rising Star Award Winners in Mumbai
On 9 November 2016, WeAreTheCity India celebrated their Rising Star award winners at J W Marriott, Juhu in Mumbai. The 2016 Rising Stars were identified through a series of public nominations and two rounds of extensive judging.
Over 576 nominations were received during August from a multitude of individuals from all over India. The nominations underwent a rigorous round of judging before the judges identified a shortlist of 100 amazing women and ten gender champions in September. The shortlist was then published on WeAreTheCity India, via twitter and through facebook. Alongside the judging process, WeAreTheCity also sought votes of support from the public to identify the winner of public vote.
Over 30,000 votes of support were cast from all over India for our shortlisted individuals alongside messages of support across various social media platforms. All shortlisted individuals were then judged once again by a separate panel of esteemed judges, which enabled WeAreTheCity to identify the final list of 50 winners and five champions.
All winners, judges and the awards sponsors, Barclays were invited to celebrate and collect their awards in Mumbai.
The evening was a wonderful celebration of female talent which enabled WeAreTheCity to showcase the Rising Star winners from over 15 different sectors such as Banking, Consultancy, Technology, Investment Management, Journalism, Entrepreneurs, Charities, NGO’s and Wellbeing. Over 90 individuals attended from companies such as Aon, EY, BlackRock, RBS, American Express, Barclays, Marks & Spencer, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.
Vanessa Vallely, Founder of WeAreTheCity said “What an amazing evening it has been celebrating our winners and their achievements, I am so proud to meet these amazing women and welcome them formerly to WeAreTheCity’s Rising Star family. We are looking forward to supporting all of our winners in the future by continuing to profile them on our website alongside providing access to our online learning centre, Careers Club. We are also extremely grateful to Barclays for sponsoring the awards and to Marks & Spencer for their support”
The evening culminated in series of keynote speeches and awards presentations from Archana Shiroor, Head of HR, Barclays, Sheena Thompson, Digital Director, EY, Meenakshi Advani, President, The American Women’s Club of Mumbai, Ritu Jassal, General Manager, HR Business Partner, Marks & Spencer, Sally Clark, Chief Internal Auditor, Barclays, Deborah Marris, APAC Head of Global Compliance Services & India, Barclays, Kunda Jadhav, India Head, IB & Wealth Investment Management Operations, Barclays Shared Services and Caroline Graham, Programme Director, Barclays and co-founder of WeAreTheCity India.
See the event in pictures here
During the awards, WeAreTheCity also celebrated their gender champions who are working tirelessly outside their day jobs to achieve gender equality. Also celebrated was our Man of Year, Ashish Bardwaj recognising his support for women and his editorial contribution for WeAreTheCity India, alongside our winner of the public vote, Bhawna Malhotra from Barclays.
The feedback from guests was extremely positive with several commending the awards for providing a platform to highlight the achievements of women working in India.
We would also like to extend our sincere thanks to the events team at J W Marriott and to Jo Gaglani, Committee Chair of WeAreTheCity India for helping to make the awards such a wonderful event.
WeAreTheCity’s winners in India join 155 other Rising Star winners in the UK, taking the total of Rising Stars to 210. WeAreTheCity are committed to their strategic aim of highlighting the achievements of 500 women who represent the female talent pipeline across the UK and India by 2018.
The UK awards open on 01 February 2017 and India Awards on 01 August 2017.
For all enquiries about the awards including sponsorship, please contact Info@wearethecity.com.
Top 100 winners celebration video - WeAreTheCity's 2016 Rising Star Awards
WeAreTheCity presented the winners of the Top 100 Rising Star awards with their trophies on 30 June, in a ceremony at Barclays, London.
Over 200 winners, sponsors, judges and guests attended and enjoyed a champagne reception. The audience were welcomed by Vanessa Vallely, WeAreTheCity Managing Director; Sally Clark, Chief Internal Auditor, Barclays; and Caroline Dinenage, MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Women, and Family Justice Equalities.
Watch the full video of the evening
Rising Stars 2016 - Winners Event from WeAreTheCity on Vimeo.
For more videos of the shortlist event, interviews and more visit the Rising Stars Video Gallery here
Rising Stars Shortlist Celebration at Bloomberg | Video
On the 17 May 2016, over 350 men and women came to Bloomberg's London HQ to celebrate the Rising Stars 2016 Shortlist. Below is a film that showcases this wonderful celebration of the female pipeline. We would like to thank all the staff at Bloomberg for hosting this fantastic event, all of our sponsors and shortlisted Rising Stars and guests.
WeAreTheCity Rising Stars Shortlist Celebration 2016
In memory of Lynne Freeman - Rising Stars in Law
Lynne joined Richards Butler in 1997, was made partner in 2003 and equity partner in 2007.
Lynne started life as a construction litigator and took charge of the construction practice within the Real Estate Group growing it into a team of six. Partner, Andrew Jenkinson who had worked with Lynne for 18 years in the Real Estate Group spoke at the memorial service and shared some of his fondest memories of Lynne. He describes her as, “exuberant, witty, astute, loyal to a fault, sometimes thrill seeking, often rebellious, deeply caring and protective, generous and wonderful company and, of course, a very good lawyer.”
Lynne was famed for her personal touch. She had a unique way of personalising our profession and our business and reminding us of the human impact of everything we do. Lynne has had a huge impact on the direction of the firm and particularly our talent development efforts, displaying an accepting, caring, dedicating and nurturing approach to the development of our people which is an excellent example to us all.
After a short illness, Lynne passed away in 2015. To honour the great contribution made to the firm by Lynne, Reed Smith introduced ‘The Lynne Freeman Award for Talent Development’. The Lynne Freeman Award is presented annually to anyone in the firm whose contribution best exemplifies the characteristics she embodied.
Lynne was also instrumental in supporting WeAreTheCity when the Rising Star awards were first launched back in 2015. To honour her memory and all she did to support women in the workplace, our award for Law is named in her honour.