Manya Punyani: A Fearless Diverse Leader, Digital Enthusiast, Does What She Likes & No Complaints

Leaders

Manya Punyani: A Fearless Diverse Leader, Digital Enthusiast, Does What She Likes & No Complaints

Manya Punyani: A Fearless Diverse Leader, Digital Enthusiast, Does What She Likes & No Complaints

Manya Punyani
Director, Head of Digital India, Fidelity International

A brilliant professional executive, a sportsperson and a doting mother. A woman who wears multiple hats and takes each of her responsibilities with great sincerity, which is also her key mantra for success. A rare combination of beauty and brains, Manya is not only a highly successful professional, but also a first runner-up of Mrs India 2019 and title winner of beautiful smile. An inspiration for young girls to be bold and beautiful.

Strongly independent and takes pride in staying outcome focused, she has trained herself to 'keep going despite the odds'.

Currently, Manya is the Director and Head of Digital India for Fidelity International (FIL). She drives the Digital Transformation with an objective to deliver best-in-class Customer Experience. With her ability to reimagine outcomes from customer lens, she believes in keeping things simple and sustainable to drive powerful outcomes.

In an exclusive interview with Women Entrepreneur, Manya talks more about her professional journey and how she was able to make a name for herself in the industry.

Take us through your early educational journey and prior industry experience that you bring to the table?

Regarding my academic journey, I completed my schooling from Springdales School, Pusa Road, New Delhi, I was a gold medalist in Computer Engineering (BIS(H)) Delhi's Indraprastha University. After that I did my MBA in Information Technology.

As for my prior industry experience, I started my career journey with HCL Technologies, Genpact and thereafter joined Sapient Consulting Gurgaon in Program Management domain. That initial phase of my career was full of immense hard work, grooming and continuous learning. I grew to the position of Director Program Management with Publicis Sapient and was working in the capacity of India Delivery Lead for the one of the biggest FMCG clients. I was responsible for delivering end-to-end digital marketing solution globally, for 70 countries and 80 languages, leveraging rich marketing technologies and engineering best practices with innovation at the core of it.

What are some of the challenging aspects of your current role? How do you deal with them?

There is no room for complacency in today's fast-moving digital world. Thus, the biggest advantage one can have over others is agility and the speed of delivery. The challenge we have today is the relentless need to reimagine how we embrace our daily risk appetite and ability to celebrate failures on the go, as speed is the new currency of business.

What motivates me each day is the fact that driving digital transformation is the opportunity for me to help raise the quality of life for someone in a sustainable manner. I am personally very passionate about building sustainable digital solutions by ensuring our solutions create minimal digital waste and carbon emissions. At FIL, we strive to be more responsible individuals and include this as a corporate behaviour.

It's no longer the big beating the small, but the fast beating the slow. There is no room for complacency in this fast-moving digital world. So, the biggest advantage we can have over others is agility. The challenge we have today is the relentless need to reimagine, how we embrace our daily risk appetite and our ability to celebrate failures on the go, as speed is the new currency of business. What motivates me each day when I wake up is the fact that driving digital transformation is the opportunity for me to help raise the quality of life for someone in a sustainable manner.

As a business leader, tell us about your most significant milestones that you have achieved. What is your guiding leadership philosophy or mantra?

Well, I like to state that my life's biggest milestone is yet to arrive however as I look back, there are several important ones that I have achieved, which made me who I am today. Thus, I will expand the list beyond business to include the ones in life. A few important ones are being University topper, grow to become one of the youngest directors in Sapient and FIL too and, winning runners-up crown at Mrs India 3 years back.

Just like how we diversify our investment portfolios to gain maximum returns, I believe in investing my time & energy to explore different dimensions of my personality. And in the end, I measure success by the pride and joy I bring to my loved ones. Life is about making choices and experimenting. Sometimes, it is important to give up something good for something great. So, I believe that one should not shy away from trying new avenues; however one should keep focus on the goal. As a personal example, after winning Mrs India runners-up in 2019, I received several offers for modelling, however I culminated my glamour world journey immediately after winning the runners-up title, as it did not fit into my career aspirations. It was a dipstick and testing waters in the field of glamour, but it was never my ambition. A small yet treasured journey I will cherish forever.

“Driving digital transformation is the opportunity for me to help raise the quality of life for someone in a sustainable manner”

I also believe that your leaders and mentors play a critical part in shaping you as a professional. The foremost role of a leader is to create leaders. I have been fortunate in my career to have such leaders who have helped me in my journey.

In the professional space, i had a 15-months Executive Leadership Development Program in 2019 for high-potential leaders in Publicis Sapient, that helped me develop several dimensions of my personality and professional ability. I am always thankful to all my mentors who helped me in my journey and a special mention of Rohit Pandey (GVP, Publicis Sapient) for his mentorship since 2013 as he probably saw more talent and capability within me, and helped me evolve as a professional.

As a successful business leader what would your advice be to young women and girls aspiring to become business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future?  

My advice to young women is to always put one's self-respect above all else. It is important that they recognize their beliefs, stand up for it & take the high road. They should see themselves as ambitious and courageous who happens to be a woman, and not the vice-versa. The subtle difference is do you want to be seen as a woman who succeeded or a successful person. I believed in the later, as that made me stand equal in my own eyes, and that's how world starts seeing you. At the same time, I would like all young women to nurture their natural ability to empower others, at work and at home.

One question I often get asked by women is how do I manage work-life balance. For me, work life balance is never absolute & it's like a rhythm. I follow a few simple rules to make it work

1) Let priorities change daily. When personal life needs you, don't worry about missing a conference & when work needs you, don't vent over left-out chores

2) You can't make everyone happy, so make your choices

3) Value yourself and ask for what you deserve I think picking challenging roles empower women to break their own boundaries and strike an even better work-life balance through newly obtained perspectives. As I think the only person, I need to win over is myself, rest everything falls in place.

Manya Punyani, Director & Head Of Digital India, Fidelity International

One of the youngest digital leaders driving digital transformations, who has achieved this with her courage, determination and perseverance. A beauty with brains who believes in discovering different parts of her personality, take risks and competes only with her preceding self!

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