Hi Visa Dev Community! My name is Manu Ashok, I am from India and work as a Lead Business Analyst at Loyalty Prime. We provide loyalty platforms that empowers our clients to fulfill their loyalty program strategies. As part of my role, I gather and manage the requirements of my clients and transform it into workable stories (we follow Agile practices). At times, it also means incremental product development or existing product configuration.
A typical day in my life is challenging, as it not just includes managing client expectations that span across various geographies (Manu is currently supporting onboarding clients in Europe & US and she manages it from her India office while frequently travelling to client locations), but also means managing the house and my 4-year-old daughter along with my husband 😊.
I am a Women in Tech.
What does it mean to be a woman in tech, I believe the people in technology have the power to change the course of future. People who build software are not just helping us function in our day to day lives, but they are also defining our lives and building our future. There’s internet, IoT, SaaS, blockchain and what not. It feels empowering to be a woman in Tech (Off course our male allies must feel the same).
Needless to say, the gender disparity is huge in the technology industry, but I believe there is a place for all of us – men and women. I get to be part of an industry of problem solvers, and creative thinkers who are inventing and innovating and re-engineering and recreating every day. #BalanceforBetter
This year’s theme is balance for better and while going through the main message of the campaign which is balance gender disparity in all walks, I created my own list of stuff I need to balance “for better:”
- Balance Insecurity with Confidence
- Balance “the extra time spent at work” with “making every second count that I spend with my family”
- Balance “hurting my productivity with multi-tasking” with “concentering on that one most important thing I need to achieve during the day”.
- Balance Procrastinating with better planning.
- Balance stress with exercise and meditation
Any advice for the women in Tech:
Not as an advice but as a message, “I encourage women to collaborate”. “Trust me, it works!”, That is how I landed up on the Visa Community. We were starting to develop something fairly new and unexplored and the information (on tokenization and payment security) at hand was sparse. That is when I discovered the community and so many people who are ready to help.
One advice that I would give to women especially (because I have seen a couple of my women colleagues with this syndrome) We have a lot of preconceived notions on what we think we can and cannot do. I think we need to step away from that. Don’t be complacent, stay hungry. Keep asking yourself, “how can I further myself”, “what next”. And at the end, I know, a lot of us (including me) are shy from asking, asking questions, asking for a promotion, asking for a new role, asking for a referral. One never knows, there are people out there looking for people like us and unless we speak about us, they would never come to know so take initiatives and create your own opportunities and be confident to be yourself. When I say this, I am reminded of a joke from Elizabeth Gilbert which I would quote below-
“A poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, "Dear saint-please, please, please...give me the grace to win the lottery." This lament goes on for months. Finally, the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, "My son-please, please, please...buy a ticket."
Manu
