Walt Disney once wisely quoted, “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them", Bairavi Narayan embraced these words and took a leap with the fortitude to achieveher dreams. Unlike people who just talk about achievement, growth, strategies, and more philosophy of success, she takes necessary actions to make a visible difference. Her persevering actions have made her earn this recognition. Bairavi is a growth-centric leader who strategizes solutions to drive businesses. With remarkable attributes to lead the team into a high-performing "community" while innovating, she is currently Director – Global Project Office at EC-Council. To honour Bairavi Narayan’s inspiring journey, Women Entrepreneur India engages in an exclusive conversation. Below are the excerpts.

Tell us about your expertise as a business leader.

My experience of over 20 years in management and consulting spans various industries such as FMCG, Embedded S/W and H/W, Hospitality, Software products, HR & IT services, Education, Start-ups (Healthcare, Embedded S/W, Education, Farming, Pharma Support, and more.Founded 2 companies – One in Essential oils and Farming, Another in Education I started my career by farming herbs and extracting essential oils for trading. After three years of an entrepreneurial venture, I entered the corporate sector by joining Mistral Solutions. Since then I have played multiple roles in big brands like Unilever, IBM, FICO, Rotary International, Mistral Solutions, Resources Global Professionals, and Atal Innovation Mission before joining EC-Council.

Give a brief on EC-Council. What are the various responsibilities you shoulder as the Director (Global Project Office) at the company?

EC-Council is an ISO/IEC 17024 accredited organization with earned recognition from the DoD under Directive 8140/8570, in the U.K. by the NCSC and a variety of other authoritative bodies that influence the entire profession. Founded in 2001, EC-Council operates across 11 global offices in the US, U.K., Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Indonesia. Its US offices are in Albuquerque, NM, Phoenix, AZ and Tampa, FL.

EC-Council’s sole purpose is to build and refine the cybersecurity profession. EC-Council helps individuals, organizations, educators, and governments address global workforce problems. Through the development of worldclass cybersecurity education programs and their corresponding certifications, EC-Council provides cybersecurity services to some of the largest businesses around the globe. EC-Council is trusted by seven of the Fortune 10, 47 of the Fortune 100, the Department of Defense, global intelligence communities, NATO, and more) than 2,000 of the best universities, colleges, and training companies. ECCouncil programs have made their way to more than 140 countries and have set the bar in cybersecurity education.

Best known for the Certified Ethical Hacker program, EC-Council builds individual and team/ organization cyber capabilities through the Certified Ethical Hacker Program and other programs including Certified Secure Computer User, Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator, Certified Security Analyst, Certified Network Defender, Certified SOC Analyst, Certified Threat Intelligence Analyst, Certified Incident Handler, as well as the Certified Chief Information Security Officer.

In my new role at EC-Council, as a Change Agent will help the team to set up the global project office and lead global programs for EC Council Group, leveraging my experience of leading several global transformations of both strategic and tactical importance. The company was previously focused more on products, sales, marketing, and operations; now it is funded and looking forward to expanding. As a member of the Executive Committee, will be more inclined towards understanding the context of the organization and land the necessary change aligned to the organization's goals and Board’s directive.

What are your focus areas apart from leading EC-Council?

I am a mentor of change through the government of India's initiative for nurturing young minds with hands-on experience in innovation, ideation, and creativity in STEM. Introducing youth of India to design thinking, problem identification & definition, and derive contextual creative solutions.

What is your leadership approach to directing a team?

The important aspects as I see it, is hiring talent with the right attitude and then retention - it's a tricky thing. Even if skills are deficient, someone who has an aptitude and attitude to learn will be my pick. It doesn't stop at this. We then nurture that talent and retain it. To do that one needs to find the right balance of many factors that may or may not work. E.g While you give the autonomy, how do you ensure accountability? While we aspire to become selforganising teams, how do we achieve the deadlines - what level of empowerment, motivation will be required to different individuals that motivates them to show up every day in their best selves. It's finding the right balance of challenges given to the team to suit the skills such that they perform in a state of "FLOW" while encouraging them to build a system vs achieving goals. It's about building a community with shared values and constantly monitoring  certain fundamentals. Of course, factors like context matters - the industry type, current maturity of the organisation, budgets, timelines. It's a complex concoction I must say! My consulting, corporate, and entrepreneurial experience has taught me that trust plays an important role at every level. Also encourage teams and individuals to set up systems vs achieving goals – this approach gets a lot done!

“Learn, unlearn and relearn is the theme of my life”

What steps do you take to keep yourself well aligned with the periodic evolutions in your respective field of work and the technology landscape?

Learn, unlearn and relearn is the theme of my life. I make constant efforts to meet people and learn from them, attend start-up forums, conferences to keep myself up to speed with the progress happening in various industries, especially education, technology, food, and healthcare and so on. I listen to podcasts and I am interested in reading various genres ranging from Psychology, Evolutionary Biology/ Psychology/History, Management, Business, Startups, Education – Constructivism, Philosophy, Science (Life sciences), Management Accounting, Corporate Governance, Behavioural Economics, Neuroscience, Sociology and more. Mentors in the industry help in my constant effort to be aware of myself, and also be abreast with innovation, technology, and so on.

Bairavi Narayan, Global Project Office - Director, Ec-Council

Perseverance and hard work are Bairavi’s second nature. Apart from being a business leader, to do justice to her belief that fine arts can help keep one’s creative self, alive – she is an avid classical (Carnatic) vocalist, a keen Yoga practitioner and she also ardently cooks different cuisines and has participated in a few cookery shows on television channels. While embracing the profound words of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam ‘the essence of a happy life and a peaceful society lies in one sentence – what can I give?’, she has been helping people through fundraising and other philanthropic activities.