(Women on Top in Tech is a series about Women Founders, CEOs, and Leaders in technology. It aims to amplify and bring to the fore diversity in leadership in technology.)
Preeti and Meera are founders of Mentoring Matters, a business coaching services and an initiative of Spoorthi Corporate Counselling Services Pvt Ltd., where several senior coaches with decades of the corporate background are brought together to work with leaders at different levels on their coaching requirements. The coaches come with diverse backgrounds from diverse industries and globally recognized certifications.
While Preeti brings several decades of HR leadership experience, Meera is an experienced IT engineer and leadership trainer. Both women have a deep understanding of the challenges of leaders and HR teams and bring together their combined experience to partner with organizations on their leadership coaching requirements.
What makes you do what you do?
Businesses in India are seeing exponential growth at the moment. Indian organizations are expanding and foreign MNCs are looking to grow their businesses in India. Indian business leadership now than ever before is faced with the challenges of the changing market as well as workplace dynamics.
With our corporate background in leadership development and training, we understand that senior leadership needs customized 1-1 coaching to attain peak performance rather than generic training programs.
We believe there is a tremendous opportunity for Leadership coaching in India. It is our endeavor to provide world-class leadership coaching programs to business leaders by putting together a diverse and expert panel of business coaches.
How did you rise in the industry you are in?
We believe our growth is fuelled by our focus on
– Customer-centric solutions. We spend time understanding customer requirements and customizing our services accordingly.
– Quality over numbers. We follow a robust Coach empanelment process. Our panel of Coaches is handpicked based on strong references and credible business and coaching background.
– Active Program Management and Client Relationship management.
Why did you take on this role/start this startup especially since this is perhaps a stretch or challenge for you?
Both of us come with a rich background of working in diverse roles in the corporate. We have an intense passion to make a difference in the leadership development arena by providing personalized coaching services to the leaders. At this stage, we believe there is tremendous potential for such an offering in India, as it is a market with young leaders. The idea of being able to bring about positive changes in leaders is very exciting to us.
Do you have a mentor that you look up to in your industries or did you look for one or how did that work?
Actually, we have had two mentors both of whom have been instrumental in getting us where we are today. One of them mentored us when we set up the venture and the other when we were scaling the business. We owe a tremendous lot of our success to both of these mentors.
Now as a leader how do you spot, develop, keep, grow and support your talent?
Our impaneled coaches are our key partners in the success of our business. Each of them brings a unique value to our offerings and we are extremely respectful of that. We are cognizant of the individual strengths of our coaches and work towards engaging them in assignments that bring out their best. We are also respectful of the commercials terms that they want to work with which helps us retain the best of the best.
Do you consciously or unconsciously support diversity and why?
Unity in diversity is going very well with us.
Consciously or otherwise, our panel happens to have experts from diverse industries, with diverse education and work background and with varied personal passions and interests. Our coaches are from different parts of the country and overseas as well.
We have also impaneled associates who are experts in developing the culture of diversity in organizations.
What is your take on what it takes to be a great leader in your industry and as a general rule of thumb?
Customers are the best references for our work. Our belief is that staying focused on ‘What customers need’ and customizing services to cater to that need, will go a long way. In addition, transparent and ethical business practices are paramount.
Advice for others?
Our advice to aspiring women entrepreneurs is to work in the area you are passionate about, find a work partner who shares a common vision and values and finally and very importantly, enjoy the journey. It’s a long one but extremely enjoyable and fulfilling.
Since the last three years, the clientele of Mentoring Matters has been growing steadily to encompass organizations spanning IT, ITES, Manufacturing and Logistics domains in India. The ability to scale, the ease of tracking and monitoring the program for the HR team, the convenience of scheduling sessions and having virtual meetings, uploading reports and other such features of the platform have enabled coaches and coaches use it beating geographical constraints.
The team can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].
