Very early on I learned that there are no free lunches or shortcuts to get to where you want to be and that working hard was the key to success. At the same time, being smart with the work and presenting it adroitly is equally important.
Tell us about your background, journey and upbringing
I come from a modest family based in Delhi with my father being a banker and my mother a homemaker. A lot of my working style as a team comes from my upbringing in a joint family since my childhood. We were a big family of about 9 people staying in a single storey house and that instils in you values of teamwork, understanding people and resource management.
Despite the women of my family not working, my entire family including my grandparents were a huge promoter of equal opportunities for kids irrespective of gender. This, I believe, played a huge role in my overall outlook in life and the belief that opportunities are not gender-based.
Very early on I learned that there are no free lunches or shortcuts to get to where you want to be and that working hard was the key to success. At the same time, being smart with the work and presenting it adroitly is equally important.
Any 90s kid would know, a professional degree was fundamental to any little success one wanted to achieve then. I chose otherwise, refusing to join the engineering college race. Instead, I took up Economics as a subject I wanted to learn and graduated from Shri Ram College of Commerce.
Now when I look back, it is one of the best decisions I made as it helped me learn more of what I liked instead of following what society often expects us to do.
How did you choose this career path?
After my post-graduation, I started working with a textile company managing their International accounts. While the experience was good, I soon realized that textile wasn't a product I was passionate about.
I realized that in that job too, it was the travel that excited me the most and that's when I started looking out for opportunities in this space. That is how I started working with MakeMyTrip about 6 yrs back and have been a tripper ever since.
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How has the supply chain changed over the years and what do you sense for the future?
The travel space has really evolved in India over the last few years. The customer travel plans and expectations are way different than what they were a decade back and accordingly both the supply and distribution have evolved over the years. The destinations customers travel to, modes of travel, accommodations available and the choices that come along have led to this transition in the travel space.
In the coming years, customers would be more inclined towards experiences instead of vanilla hotel stays, unexplored destinations and a wholesome holiday. The Indian travel space is only going to become bigger and broader as people of every age now want to explore something new when they travel and go to newer places to visit.
What does your workday look like?
Well, an ideal workday would be full of meetings, juggling continuously with time, but still finding some for peer chit chats. I also try to dedicate at least half an hour daily to figure out smarter solutions for problems at hand or to understand root issues that could be creating bigger problems.
This habit helps bring perspective to things and point out smaller issues that could have been missed thereby leading to faster results.
What are some of the challenges of this job?
I think the biggest challenge would be the dynamicity. The travel space- be it personal travel or corporate, changes very rapidly and if a player in this space does not adapt to this change, they fall behind. The challenge always is how to be a step ahead, to always wear the customer hat and deliver.
What advice do you have for people who want to work in this domain?
I think it's very important to be passionate about the industry you work in. While almost all of us like to travel, it's not the same when it comes to solving for travel for others.
Thereby you should not get into this domain just because you like to travel but because you think you can make a change in this space. Like all industries, there are many areas of improvement and problems to be solved in the travel sector in India and anyone wanting to work in this domain should be passionate to solve these instead of just wanting to travel.
People wanting to learn more about this domain could start reading articles/blogs on how the travel sector in India operates- Flights/Hotels/International/Alternate accommodations etc
What is your favourite book and why?
This one is difficult to answer as I read many different genres and then to pick one is definitely not easy. There is however one book that I particularly like - it's called "Choice" by Edith Eger.
In that one book, I could relate to a lot of life events and how there is always a more positive way of responding to them- Victimization comes from the outside but "victimhood" where one chooses to behave like a victim is self-inflicted.
Though there are a lot of great phrases in the book however these 2 I use in my everyday life and could be helpful to anyone reading
- "We don't choose what happens to us, But we do get to choose how we respond to our Experience"
- "What-Ifs don't empower us, they deplete us"
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