king but also willing to take risks and also of course in the system that we build at phone paying that helps them all below so today ladies and gentlemen my ask of you is just this as people with power please help tilt the world a little bit more towards equality thank you very much thank you so much Minmeet that was really interesting to hear you talk about so many aspects and we have many questions that just jumped in on our Q&A box and also we have from other platforms I'm just going to take a few minutes to ask you this our first question is since HR involves a larger gambit within the organization what are your views on role women play and is there any kind of discrimination pay gaps issue and inclusivity in leadership what has changed in these last few years if you'd like to throw some light on that okay so if I understand the question it is about women in HR or is it about women in leadership women in HR and also in the leadership okay so it's I think there are multiple different things and to me I think the starting point is kind of this thing that there are certain things that women are good at and there are certain things that men are good at that unconscious bias a lot of us just start off with men and women and I think that's possibly the one thing that if you can get over would help the question about women more women in HR actually even more women in media sometimes it's because oh you're good with kind of talking to people you're good with being somebody that people can rely on and all of that sort of stuff we've found that when we've been able to create those systems and we've tried to sort of nudge people towards working with their biases and be more open about keeping giving people opportunities about not deciding for them and letting people decide for themselves it has resulted in better output so it's really just about saying that you think that oh maybe I should not give this piece of work to this woman because she's just coming back from eternity don't decide that yourself ask the person whether they'd like to take on that challenge and that sort of helps on the other question around pay gap I think I have a little bit of that in the conversation that I just had as well I think it's interesting what happens is that one part of it is about the roles that women kind of end up taking up they're frequently the roles that tend to be the less paid roles but even in roles that are more highly paid within an organization once you get to the board senior roles that disparity sort of tends to get better in control I think especially because in recent times there's been so much more communication about the women needing to stand up for themselves but I think in the junior roles when women are still sort of trying to figure out who they really want to be those discrepancies tend to come up a little bit more frequently and at an org level what you can do about is just kind of do those surveys do that analysis figure out where those discrepancies are and help manage them right now this is in relation to phone pay particularly is how phone pay has curbed the gap between being financially independent and being between financially educated what is phone pay's vision on empowerment for us I think and that's an interesting question because I think it plays out to both sides both what we do within the organization for our employees and what's happening outside the outside part definitely I'm quite proud of very frequently a lot of the initiatives that you take around creating a more equitable space are just about opening up opportunity so they're not you don't very as you also saw from what I mentioned in the in the conversation earlier it's not really about saying oh I will do these special things for women it's about saying that how this opportunity is now available to everybody and now it is going to make it easier for people to pick it up so for example if I make it so simple for you to just open up your phone and make a payment or receive money or to in other ways be in control of your finances keeping track of your money and all of the rest make financial investments and all of that stuff that by itself makes it a lot easier for anybody in a in an maybe a less powerful position to take advantage and I think that's sort of how we as an organization are helping opening up the financial space to make make sure that there is a lot more independence there and and we have a bunch of plans that will make this even more more concrete in the coming years Wonderful so there's more like a neutral ground where people can come forward what's your message to the new budding women leaders and how they can shine in their respective walks of life I think if I was to think about it in terms of the advice I would give to myself from 20 years ago I think a couple of things one be ambitious and when I say ambitious I mean think about the biggest most complex problem that you can solve and go ahead and solve it don't think about oh I don't know I don't know how I will be able to solve it I don't have the capability I don't have the training you have all of it inside you go ahead and take off a big chunk of the challenge and solve for it because you absolutely can and the other thing is that build your networks have people around you who have faith in you both men and women and move forward with them Wonderful now we have some questions that have come in on the platform itself so I'm going to take a couple of them here Neha says how do you think we are more empowered now that we are able to speak in leaps and bounds about women empowerment and what has changed now in comparison to let's say a decade ago I think the I would say that there were some brave people who first stepped out and made those had their voices heard and then they turned around and looked at the rest of us and held out a hand I mean I would talk about you know people like Indira Gandhi people like Kalpana Chawla Arun Diti Roy people who did not necessarily had anybody voting for them or biding for them but they sort of made that space for themselves but once that space was made I think a lot more of us are role models to generalize I can do this if she can do it I can do it and I think that's what has helped more recent times I think we are a lot more aware also of the fact that we don't have to be limited and I think that has also helped a lot Absolutely next question is from Shikhar he says are women reluctant to take up role in operational HR HR personal in India we only see women in recruitment and training what is your take Okay I don't know Shikhar if this is more of an industry specific thing I have not really seen that if I look at my own team it is definitely a team with more men or more women than men in it more women in the more leadership roles as well and women across roles multiple different ones and not just necessarily limited to anything which you would sort of consider female specific I think what does happen is that HR sort of seems like a place that more women will get started on but I think in recent times you see a lot more of them also going into more holistic positions whether it be compensation whether it be operations whatever else so I see that changing right and here's a very open-ended question any advice to new entrants in the PR industry so I will take inspiration from Priya Patankar who is our communications and PR head I will say that if I had I had thought sort of differently about stuff I thought PR was the most glamorous place to be and I would definitely have wanted wanted to be in this particular space so I love the love the work that the space does and and Priya is an amazing leader herself I think for young women or young people entering the organization at this point in time I think this is a space that is alive with opportunity given how much more that is happening in media I would just again say the same thing just grab the opportunity don't let it go you're great at it don't sell yourself short just go ahead and grab all opportunity and do the best of an industry that has got so much going on in it thank you so much Manmi for your time and for sharing these insights here with us on the platform thank you so much from the entire team of exchange for media thank you for the pleasure of being here thank you everyone thank you the pleasure is ours thank you so ladies and gentlemen we can see the interaction going and the buzz is on on twitter using the hashtag e4m PR women achievers you can share your key highlights from the session so far and I can see that all of you are enjoying these conversations so we are going to straight move into our next panel discussion which will talk about COVID adversity what opportunities and challenges lies ahead of us so here we have our esteemed panelist I'd like to welcome on screen we have Jeanette Aroul AVP and head corporate communication we have with us Sukanya Chakraborty global head corporate communication and CSR VFS global we have with us Pooja Khan head corporate communications Panasonic also on the panel we have Ati Puriya Saravath director brand communication and corporate citizenship itself and we have with us on the panel Nikki Gupta director teamwork communications moderating this session is Ms. Tasmay Roy assistant editor exchange for media group very warm welcome to all you lovely ladies and Tasmay I'm going to leave the screen to you to take the conversation forward thank you so much Cathy for the introductions welcome speakers so glad to have you on the panel today there's a great session waiting ahead of us so without much delay I think we should start this chat and you know what's interesting and what we've been hearing from the speakers before this also that how the your gone by has changed everything right has changed operations it has changed management marketing communications every day so you know I would just start with one question for all of you and I would like to you know your two cents on it how has the past year and a half been how has it changed what is new what's been happening for you and your organization in the year and a half gone by we'll start with you Sukanya thanks Tasmay hello to everyone who's listening and a big hello to my co-panelist it's great to be here on this platform quickly on how the last one and a half years has been for all of us I guess the pandemic has been an eye opener of thoughts of thoughts for all of us all individuals businesses and communities at large disrupting and creating new ways of adapting to everyday situations and a lot of learning as well you know setting a you know the so-called new normal in every step emphasizing the need to be agile flexible to make shifts wherever needed in fact as soon as the pandemic hit us businesses had to quickly we look at ways that they were working and devised the best ways to reach out to the stakeholders both external and internal and for us in communications at that this time when everyone was experiencing uncertainty and turmoil we made sure to shift our focus to address crucial subjects of public information safety health that was more contextual with the times right right we'd like to hear from you Niki since your brand has so many health care brands under its umbrella how has it been you're seeing all your different clients all with different demands how has it been just give us an overall understanding of how it's been unmute yourself Niki yes we can hear you yes thank you exchange for media and Thamsai for having me here so we are meeting again very soon now within the week only so as you're talking about the COVID adversity opportunities and challenges right so if you talk about the whole communication industry we all the panelists are from the different domains of the communication industry and due to COVID the whole communication has taken a 360 degree approach it has affected our way we used to communicate it has affected our daily way of communications be it colleagues be it you know team members be it you know with the media I would say with everybody so COVID in the today's scenario it's a malformation I would say of a traditional PR and the new marketing strategy when it comes so in this scenario multi-tasking communication person in this world a communicator has to play a multiple rules to meet the brand expectations as you have correctly mentioned that the healthcare industry I would say that this pandemic has given multiple challenges to the entire communication industry however it has given it has given immense opportunity when it comes to the healthcare communication industry the whole communication industry has got multiple challenges but huge opportunities absolutely absolutely those are great insights you know multiple challenges and great opportunities are something that you know has been a part of businesses their strategies in the past year and a half gone by Janet over to you tell me a little bit about you know how it's been at your end what are the challenges and what are the opportunities that you put spot in the last year gone by yeah hi Tasmay thank you for having me on board can you hear me yes we can loud and clear yes okay so yeah I think the year and a half has been I would say I would say it's a you know there's a lot of introspection that we all went through because there was a lot of learning we did a lot of unlearning we did I think we were just thrown into a situation where we had never expected and anticipated this kind of a scenario so we all had to learn to adapt to the new scenario adjust to our new ways of working whether it is at home whether it is at you know at the office level I think when you're just thrown into the sea to swim you know you'll figure your way out and from there you know your learnings will begin and I think we all stood together whether as a family unit or as an organization we all stood by each other and I think that has been one big learning absolutely absolutely Atapriya how has it been for you how different was it or how similar was it to the experience of the other speakers we just had how has the year gone by been for you and your company Atapriya may I request you to just leave and join back again and connect the audio that's made till then sure Pooja meanwhile we can hear from you at Panasonic how has it been what were the challenges opportunities if you can submit for us honestly you know the life as we know it will never be the same again and I think the year has been like it's really extraordinary time that we are living through it's a life changing experience we all have recalibrated what we believe in what we stand for our priorities are starting to change and I see this whole concept emerging whether it's with my colleagues or with my friends outside the whole YOLO concept or Kharpati M so it's it's kind of taking the whole world at storm and you know we are no different and I see our colleagues going through that quite a bit I'll just give you my two bits on today's topic of discussion which is on COVID communications and how things have been I don't think there's any readily available playbook to help us navigate through what we have gone through I mean the last time we faced something like this as a mankind was the Spanish flu I think that was 100 years ago and today it's really a different world that we are living in and none of us have ever faced something like this before it's been about in the first wave the conversations actually started with that as I was telling you guys earlier also it was life versus livelihood yeah when the second wave it moved towards and during the course of the year it actually moved towards life and livelihood both are equal important part of the pillars of our economy whether it was government whether it was corporate we all had to align switch our narratives and figure out what was the best way to communicate and deal with the situation and like all industries every industry had this unique set of challenges while some somebody spoke about a lot of opportunities yes there were opportunities but there was also a lot of disruption that happened and if you see the manufacturing index again gone down so it's not a very happy time to be in terms of economy and employees and employment generation but having said that there were opportunities and all industries had unique set of challenges whether it was like especially for us being in manufacturing I mean it was a big thing of coming back to business and that I'll speak about more when I speak later there were some green shoots of opportunities if I have to look outside the business and I have to say that you know cloud kitchens what a big success that was that was a very big opportunity that came out IT, ITES huge opportunity again and they have made huge profits so that's been and NGOs have really come up quite a bit in this time and there'll be many more such things with the conversations further will come to life so I think I will leave it at that I don't think there's any playbook it's been a very tough time for everybody right welcome back at the Priya again can you tell me now yes absolutely so you know we were talking about like Pooja was mentioning it was a year like no other and you know while there were opportunities there was a great deal of challenges as well so you know if you can help us understand how has it been at your end how have you all been coping with the entire learnings and unlearnings of the COVID times thanks so much again Taskeen sorry about that those are some perils of you know working from home the technology is the purpose you wanted to serve so let me just start by saying that we are an essential services organization you know focused in financial payments and technology and fintech I think you know pretty much everybody has covered different aspects of how the pandemic really impacted us but two aspects that you know I want to be able to focus on is the fact that you know we very consciously as an organization took a shift to not necessarily identifying the new normal but really addressing the fact that you know what is it that we as an organization and our people and our clients need to be able to do to you know succeed in the new normal right and that was I think something that clearly stood out for us especially because you know we saw a massive uptake in digital and we've all heard about that right that the pandemic has really fueled digital so how do you you know ally and those are our clients financial institutions merchants and customers where you actually saw you know consumer behavior change overnight completely right so how do you align your client needs to your workforce and that required a lot of focus in terms of you know continuous talent and development internally internally to be able to address those needs for clients so I think from my perspective I would say that you know there were two clear aspects that came out when we wanted to be able to see how we succeed in the in the new environment and that was culture in terms of how you really bring your teams together how you're able to actually you know align them to your organization's goals and your aspirations and new changing demands in the industry as well that stood out very strongly for us and something that we are extremely proud of is the fact that you know even before the pandemic we as an organization have very strongly you know invested and believed in the need for a very strong internal communications charter which you know because we keep hearing this and all of us are very familiar with it is that you know the internal and external lines have completely blurred and my employee and my associate is really my first brand ambassador so and we really live that right and the fact that we have a very robust internal communication mandate actually helped us you know really bring out the whole together piece very very promptly and we were able to evolve quickly there was agility in the system that you know we were able to take back to our peoples the intent was really and I think like a lot of the panelists also spoke about was that nobody should you know in a time like this in a challenging time like this nobody should actually feel alone right whether it is your client whether it is your employee or you know the communities that you operate in they should all feel they you know they are shared this is a shared experience that we all are going through and they should all feel a part of that experience relatable stories as to you know everybody is going through the same thing and you know you're not alone in it I think that aspect as communicators we were able to bring out really strongly that was an opportunity that we saw that we completely you know bridged on and that was a probably a gap that existed as well that we were able to you know bridge and take forward with the with the pandemic got accelerated hugely absolutely absolutely very interesting insights at the point and you know picking up just from there it is very important that we value the people that we are working with whether it's our teams or it's our clients it's our customers the entire ecosystem and just to be there just to turn up and just to make them feel that you know there is empathy and that you're not alone in it so I'd like to start with you puja you know minimizing crisis and impact of COVID on employees you know that has been I think one of the focus areas of all communicators across board if you can tell me how it has been happening at your end at Panasonic even in corporate life you know we've been introduced to so many new things like work from home there are a lot of employees who've never heard about this concept it's an alien concept for a lot of people right so getting aligned to that thought getting aligned to that new idea how has it been you know how how have you dealt with these entire COVID crisis and how what has been the impact of communication in this whole scenario yeah as I mentioned earlier you know there was no playbook so we all had to kind of put our hats on and move super quickly you know there was no time agility was the key so I don't think I had any like you know we started off we put together a crisis management plan I think in April in Feb March I just joined Panasonic and most of my time in Panasonic has been in COVID and so first thing I did was put together a quick crisis management plan because that's how we're trained to do right like you know when you get in you look at everything so first thing we did was that but trust me that was followed but not even followed because things were changing things were so dynamic what each day brought nobody really knew I think it was a big wake-up call for the ACE industry which I belong to the technology industry but it helped us change gears very quickly pick up digital I don't think Panasonic is a hundred year old company and you know while we're technology company heavy on digital all that thankfully was there so the ecosystem was in place for internal communications called workplace you had your digital work from home systems in place which could kick into immediately I think we actually like you know I think lockdown was announced and we all went home and the next day we all were connected at least that was the only positive part of the whole thing I would say so we were at least connected and if I have to look at it from a communicator's lens it actually furthered management's belief on effective communications you know as Ate Priya mentioned you know lines have been blurring between internal and external norms and the fact is that you know and suddenly the management actually started to realize how important communications was to bring people together to keep people together with traditional campaigns taking a backseat it was actually PR and social media that gave prominence and became the centerpiece for strategic communication right and as I said earlier you know every industry has this unique set of challenges for Panasonic being being a B2C and a B2B kind of a company with consumer durable energy integrated solutions welding I mean name it and we have in terms of heavy machinery and with 15 factories across the country it was like you know suddenly to the shutdown lockdown across the board and bringing people back was another challenge 100% work from home is never an optional for an industry like us when 90% is actually out on the field or in the or on the shop floor right so communication was the key in bringing people together as I said no fixed strategy the key piece was to inform engage the only thing I followed was inform engage as soon as you get the information analyze process and ensure people are aware of it turn off wise empathy and compassion I think because that's how you could really come up to speed without like if I have to think and make strategies at that time you probably won't have implemented other things that we did right there was a COVID task force I mean for example you had our spokespeople actually became a brand ambassador our employees became a brand ambassador and he rolled out a lot of relevant and exciting campaigns during that time just to keep people engaged and involved right so first we started with work from home hacks because suddenly people who had never worked from home working from home right it's a work from home hacks so how you were dealing with all of this then we thought okay fine that's how we engaged them more then it was life at Panasonic homes so we actually gave people on LinkedIn and on internal platforms quick view of how and it so happened all our employees have Panasonic devices at home so they actually became a brand ambassador during it talking about our products and our whole story out there solutions and youth then there was another campaign we launched the leadership where keeping them engaged because when the market is shut you can't do client meetings so many how to keep them engaged solutions and youth so they got down to writing a lot of content and sharing on social media in terms of the kind of stuff they were doing our CEO was hyperactive during that time I think he's one of the best communicators in my 20 years I've come across right and he actually came forward like I have not seen many CEOs come forward right from town halls I mean bi-weekly town halls we had done them just to engage people keep them informed what we were doing to bring them back and how was business firing and how not to worry that nobody will lose their job we did not sack anyone no one lost their job and so keeping that aligned keeping people giving people that mental peace which was a critical thing daily catch ups with the team you had COVID task force like most organizations that we also did set up ensuring oxygen concentrators and medical supplies and doctors and everything was available but to ensure employees knew about it comps team was the key we kind of bridged a gap between the management and the people by ensuring all the information was easy to read readily available at people's fingertips what a cooler conversations coffee conversations had finished you don't have them anymore right so internal communications platform like workplace Panasonic Times and other newsletter being more prominent and you have to change the way and the content change you have to change the content to reflect what people were going through when to share what they wanted to dissent to I think that was the key things that we had to kind of align and quickly do that these things also helped break silos we have some seven divisions right and each division is a business in itself right and so like when you're in office you walk across it off to people but you can't in a situation like this even when you are back in office you're restricted to your little zone that you are stuck in you can't move to different zone so what do you do there so all these things helped break silos also it was very important to do that so what SSD was doing is it be what consumer durables were doing so it just kept them all informed aligned and then knew what's happening with the business information is the key if people are informed they are engaged they are mentally in a better space so I think this is what communications did and PR was integral for this whole story internally and externally as well I would say right right my two bits on this great insights Pooja thank you so much for all those valuable anecdotes that you shared with us I'll come over to Janet next you know a very interesting thing that Pooja mentioned is there was no rule book so there is no handbook that defines you know COVID management 101 or something like that so there is no rule to follow there is no precedent to follow here so and you know while finding new ways of communicating must have been a very important thing for Panasonic and the likes for retail I'm sure innovation was the keyword right there was a lot of focus on innovation so if you can tell me a little bit about how it has been happening in retail you know at the apparel business the innovation in portfolios we know that for a change that you know an important part of our fashion statement is the mask that we wear right so if you can tell me a little bit about you know how the apparel business has been dynamic enough and adapted to the new normals or the changes that the pandemic introduced walk us through it Janet sure so as Pooja mentioned you know we had to change years quickly so same happened in the business while the business you know took a beating in terms of stores you know had to get in operational and all of that stuff what happened was we had to listen to our customers we had to understand their needs and given that scenario you know we had to come out with mask for consumers right when we didn't have the capabilities and the capacities and given a lockdown situation where your manufacturing capacity are closed your design teams are operating from home you can't have your products touch and feel so in a given scenario like this and your consumers you know you can listen to your consumers what are their pain points and you I think this is where information comes about where you quickly have to adapt the brands have to adapt and you know come out with you know designing mask producing mask taking out to consumers reaching out to them and I think this is where you know I think the adversities bring out the best in you I this is a little bit of a cliche but we were able to create masks for our consumers and I think that was a very big thing at that point of time because you know you had to import certain amount of technology from overseas and how do you how do you manage in you know a scenario where everything is locked down and I think this is where you know our organization you know stood very steadfast and we were able to think think things in a manner where not only serve customers but stand united as a team as it was you know again belonging to another Kerala group organization the kind of support system you get is immense and I think that helps you you know I think we lost Pooja for a bit there we lost Janitya Janitya back yes yeah yeah yeah so I think uh you know belonging to a good organization who takes care of you half of your battles are one over there absolutely the third piece uh you know was the digital transformation which got escalated to a next level because of covid we had while we were there in the digital space it got further accelerated so you know and the collections changed masks became the new normal at leisure became the new normal so I think those were at the at a professional level those were some of the big changes that happened within the own communication space I realized that you know my team we worked like as if there was no tomorrow the kind of staff we did during this year and half was amazing whether it was internal communications whether it was external communications we were all learning to adapt and I think in that whole journey we had to make sure that as communicators we are able to narrate our story in a manner which will inspire people I think that was very very important so whether it is your digital platforms your social media space whether it is your internal communications we had to keep that in mind the sensibilities of the audiences whether it was internal or external and create a whole communication piece which would bring about unity which would bring about at the same time excitement and not create boredom so we built a whole lot of exciting stuff within the communication space as well wow right right so you know one very important thing that I picked up from what Janet you just said that you know listening to your customers what they want and so you know picking up right from there I'll go over to you Niki you have a lot of clients so basically you have a lot of people asking you for the same solutions but in a different way right and you know we also know that how marketing has changed from having focus on one plan fits all to something you know which is customized and tailor made for each of the clients right and since you handle around more than 40 brands under your team so tell me how is it what has been what has been the demands of the clients how differently were you strategizing you know communication plans for your clients in the healthcare segment thanks Tasmay so Tasmay just to add on here so if I'm talking about 40 clients so 40 clients these are all 45 clients these are all health specific right right have non-health specific vertical and it was an equal challenge to keep all the sectors client keep them happy and give them customized tailor-made solution for all the clients right right when it comes to the healthcare you know clients so as I mentioned that you know it came the whole covid thing came as an opportunity but initially it came as a crisis right of course it is very frank and in the crisis in this whole crisis we try to maintain so that we don't become a crisis it's it's very important losing your head in a crisis and become a good way to handle you know the whole crisis thing so keeping that in mind we notice that bigger audience is waiting for the communications because initially if we talk about the post-ovid era there were only few takers of the healthcare news right the healthcare here the everybody be it adult or a child everybody wants to consume everyone wants to know about what is happening in the healthcare and keeping that in mind the agility everybody has talked about that was something because nobody was aware even the government WTO and we have to work for so many clients send the communications to the media and you know at every level I cannot forget that our team used to work till 12 a.m at night when this pandemic started we used to work around the clock no Saturdays no Sundays we very faster accepted the work from home thing but the whole culture is like you know we were just working like mad people and you know we decided okay on a regular basis one can take you know chutti and they can take leave they can take a pause because at the same time the mental health of the team was really important so keeping that in mind because many of them were also facing the COVID problem at home so providing the customized and tailor made solutions to the clients so we work for various client as I talked about we have more than 16 hospitals in Delhi and CR we have diagnostics chain and these are all working with the COVID so how the women so when the communication is going it's not about the communication going and just delivering to the media it was the giving the right information accurate information how correct information because multiple time it used to haven't happened that big media houses were not aware they used to reach out to us okay now what's the solution okay so handling more than 100 plus doctors in our organization the whole media was with teamwork and team was standing with the media and we were just floating and tried to give the right information when it comes to the custom made and the tailor made approach for the brands I would say the when it comes to the bigger audience and the bigger medium so if I talk about the bigger medium so bigger medium was the media so the biggest challenge for the corporate for the PR industry was the acceptability was reduced when it comes to the paper absolutely so I would say the transformation of the digitization and the fast track of the digitization happened that time and everybody started communicating prior used to happen only we reached we used to reach out to the certain cities media and the customization happened we started reaching out to multiple cities media and they also become quite acceptable absolutely they also started supporting you know us and they understood that it's a need because they also want to get the what is happening in the national capital healthcare right right of course not about the national media even the international also we did multiple huge level campaigns right and of course COVID and along with that I would say when the government started doing the press conference digital the biggest thing has happened that we also started communicating with the media on via Twitter all the communication used to handle that was a one tailor made communication because crisis was you know the every become a everyday affair and Twitter was the one thing and the digital media was the one thing we started communicating and keeping the bigger market scenario in mind everybody wanted to know what is in it what it what is it in for me so every health status of every individual vary so be it vaccination so government also issued multiple time communication related to vaccination so keeping that in mind that's also we started communicating for the you know brands in a different level with the different be it influencer marketing we beat a regular shortage plan because you you don't know what you are going to communicate tomorrow so the plans of the all the healthcare clients become you know a week plans we switched to the weekly plans weekly strategies and more over with the meetings with the journalist on a regular basis so that that was a more you know strategic approach that we took along with the I would say the influencer marketing is one of the new tool which as we not only for the other vertical healthcare also it has become a really big market it is not the next big thing it is the big thing and every brand's beat healthcare corporate everybody wants to do it so that's a new thing that we are doing providing a customized solution very focused content driven and then to all the healthcare brands absolutely very interesting insights Nikki thank you so much for it and your one word I picked up from whatever you said is acceptability and with that I want to go to Sukanya you know there's one thing that none of us have been able to accept is that there's been no travel right so if you could walk us through you know the communication that's been happening there there has been there is so much going on around travel anxiety vaccine acceptance etc etc so you know in a field like yours where you are working you know where you're working with travel with where you're working with travel related queries you know what has been the communication like what is the kind of communication that you're giving out how has there been a change in the tone of the communication if any so you know just walk us through that right yes so like you know we know that travel and its ecosystem has been you know one of the worst hit in the pandemic especially with border closures and you know I would say uncertainty over being allowed to move across countries and of course you know like in every in the in this COVID situation you know no company is a stranger to crisis mitigation but right there's no reference point there was no reference point for the pandemic and for us to go back and check and our end with the travel ecosystem you know francing drastic changes slowdowns and even suspension of services it became very critical to keep all the stakeholders both internal and external apprised of every single development and almost real time and you know this had to be done in a way that was both transparent and reassuring because at the end of the day you know while we don't know where in travel would resume like it was in the pre-pandemic era but it's always important to keep the faith on you know the faith that we will travel again we work across you know one 40 plus countries and we serve more than 60 governments and it was no mean task you know given the speed at which the information was required to be communicated every stakeholder and you know this information was changing because every country every local authority had their own rules and it was very dynamic very fluid and we were aware of that so you know from COVID-19 FAQ CDs that you know had all the probable you know questions related to visa applications answered to you know safety first you know campaigns that highlighted the health and hygiene measures if one were to visit our centers for anything or even safe travel for that matter you know where we spoke about measures that people could follow when they review travel and another very important you know series we did was you know how how do you not fall for fraud because this is the time when you know there were a lot of scam stars you know all over the place you know scamming people and it was very important that we did a series so that people realized that you know it's someone's you know telling you about even you know something like you know come to us we'll help you with the work permit no don't do that because there is no work permit at this point in time you cannot move across the border so you know we did a lot of do not fall for fraud series series and it's still continuing even today so empathy engage advocates constantly you know these this became our tenfold for this strategy and several learnings also came up and very similar to some of what micro pan research for the first the need for speed and agility things were changing so much so frequently so the ability to whether unforeseen disruption adopting the newer ways of doing business and working it was important to become agile and adaptive the second one you know one of my co-pandest brought out was the culture bit so this it's another very important aspect that came out is without seeing people face to face on a daily basis you know it became very important to think of creative ways to bind the employees together in such crisis times big focus on health and safety I mean for everyone you know beat employees beat the customers it was you know one of the important teams that emerged from on-ground safety measures to new health and work health and work-related policies rise of digital consumption like Nikki mentioned you know we didn't have the the luxury of print anymore I mean it was primarily digital at that point in time and even today it's continuing the dependency on the platform you know continue to rise which means that for communicators you know you had to expand to the users newer platforms for more engagement and more reach and the other aspect internal communication obviously became as important as external communication is being because most of the companies do focus on external but internal communication is not something that consciously you'd focus except for certain brands to do it very well so this became a big focus knowing that how with a remote workforce how important it was to keep them connected and like Pooja mentioned about newsletter etc so those were the only mediums that were available constantly to keep your employees informed and engaged and you know the L and D programs that helped employees pick up new skills upgrade themselves while there was an uncertainty over the business and operations but how do you keep them constantly know that they are valued in the company and you know how would you reseal them to adapt to the new business or the world order that we were entering at that point in time and even today so I guess these were some of the things and the other things we saw going forward on you know technology is going to become a big enabler it has always been and even so now the digital readiness you know that's become a big topic for discussion across organizations especially with the emergence of the hybrid workforce that's that's you know the the model that's coming up and from a communication point of view of course you know everyone's talking about purpose driven communication but that's going to you know how people interpret that is you know maybe a debate for another day but proper driven communication will become very important as we move forward as communicators in this world absolutely thank you so much Sukanya those were very interesting insights that you gave on travel and how communications change mentioned some very interesting points in your introductory comment about you know a slimming line between internal and external comms and how there has been a role reversal you know in comms and how it has been so dynamic and changing in the last year and a half so you know I think if you can elaborate a little bit about the new opportunities where communication plays a significant role or it has the scope of playing a significant role be it you know in terms of people be it external internal whatever it is help us understand you know the new opportunities for communication roles yeah thanks so much for that question so let me pick up with something what Pooja started with you know one of the biggest spaces I see a huge amount of opportunity and you know to some extent it was a challenge for a lot of organizations transformation that we're going to see in leadership communication right the fact that you know how what what frequencies at what levels at what messaging at you know how are you reporting it and how are you putting a framework in order to be able to ensure that that people are engaged and informed is going to see a huge amount of change to my mind and I think I think and it's not restricted leadership and that's what the that's what that's what makes it interesting right because you know for an organization like us for example which is like almost 9,000 in number of employees how do you you know cascade information across those different levels so how do you empower people to be able to take messages forward right I think that comes is going to see a significant change and a huge opportunity for communicators to be able to build really compelling campaigns around that the other aspect that I see which which which to my mind will turn out to be a huge opportunity is going to be workplace experiences right and so Kanya alluded to that saying that the whole hybrid model that we are moving towards you know how are you going how is you know how are you going to keep of you know a hybrid model workforce engaged right how are you going to how are you going to deliver programs to them like how will your induction module look like what will your learning and development in interventions look like right and I think you know people are workplace experience by itself is becoming extremely center stage right now you know the way you're able to create experiences you know throughout the journey of the employee in your organization I think that is a place where communities can play a significant amount of role as well right just the fact that you know how you will define your employee value proposition because that is really what it is you know when you define what is in it for me for your existing people for your partners or anybody else your suppliers or anybody as well right that is what is going to really drive market differentiation so I think workplace experience and what communicators can do around that to be able to elevate those experience to build stories around it to build narratives around it share experiences around it is something that will will become like a you know will become is a massive opportunity that I see and we should all be able to leverage it you know to give you another example of external you mentioned right like which we as a as an organization saw as a as a great opportunity was right with the whole hybrid model again right we saw an opportunity to you know enhance our talent tools where are we actually going and getting people on board and you know keeping that in mind we introduced this program called Forward for her which is basically a program targeted specifically at you know women who have taken a career break and not necessarily because of maternity but any other reason that they've taken a career break and you know how can we as an organization be committed to getting them back to the workforce you know what kind of a work environment can we create for them so that even you know aligns to the focus around diversity and inclusion that aligns you know that the fact that you you are not only creating a new talent pool but you're actually taking forward a very important message which is you know that you're not only your technology organization right and you like like any of us actually you're not just a health organization or just a you know travel company yes to actually organizations which have very which are invested in very strongly invested in human potential right so that was an opportunity we saw we were able to leverage it it gave the campaign had you know it had like a typical 360 degree campaign it had different aspects social media press and otherwise we had a huge uptake and I think that was an opportunity that we were able to leverage really well we piloted it last year we've it launched a full-grown campaign this year that was one thing I think the last piece that I would you know look at as a as a great opportunity for all of us to jump on in is going to be cultural transformation I think cultural transformation is going to be central and the pandemic has really brought it to center stage it's like it's right in our faces and I don't think it's something that we can anyone of us can as as communicate communication leaders can ignore it anymore right how do you you know like I said earlier how do you align your teams to the goals and aspirations of your organization how do you encourage people to you know be able to thrive in an organization right how do you how do you create campaigns and say success stories and achievements and how do you celebrate individuals in the organization right and for example when it comes to diversity and inclusion you know how are you promoting your people to bring back to bring their authentic self to the organization how are you celebrating originality and these things are going to make a significant impact going forward because you know the more you meet your own employees the more interactions you have externally as well whether it is with a press or with partnerships or suppliers or any one of them people want to be associated with brands that have that are empathetic that have empathy for their people you know they want to be associated with with workplace attributes like culture and learning and growth opportunities you know like diversity and inclusion and all of that right so how do you build that you know as a very interesting part of your culture and you know Sukanya mentioned a very pertinent and important aspect you know like I said we are an essential services organization right and imagine you know anything that you do digital from online payments to accepting online payments everything went digital right and we are pretty much you know we facilitate those services right from starting from for financial institutions right to the end consumer to have a workforce to be able you know to be to be engaged and to be try proud enough to be able to ensure that you know there is seamless work happening and there is seamless you know contribution being driven and we're adding value to clients and we have but you know we are catering to market demands is is a very big you know it's a very big aspect in terms of bringing to front you know what is important at that point in time for the market to be able to do so I think those will be the you know couple of things that I think will make a huge difference and just to add to that I think again Sukanya mentioned this is about security security has been done for so strongly right and especially for again for our financial services company security for us is absolutely of top most importance right so building a culture that you know and and your associates and your employees are your first line of defense right so how do you create a security posture of the security first posture for your organization how do you you know get your people to be more conscious and more aware of it so that you know that is a place that you can you can stop any breach that may ever happen right so I think the many aspects to culture that you can actually take up and I see that as you know significant I see communication is a significant and a very you know strategic enabler to be able to push those messages across in the organization and influence culture to the extent that you are influencing mindset shifts you're influencing behavioral patterns you're in you know you're influencing change in how you do things probably regularly you know you're inducing new thinking you're in you're you're thinking of innovative ways of doing things I think that is going to be something that you know as communication leaders something that we'll have to very actively look into as to how we can you know bring that about for people how you can bring that about for your organization absolutely absolutely thank you so much Atitriya those were very important things I think as a communicator one must remember and you know things that help in carrying on the communication function better thank you so much speakers for those interesting insights it was a great learning session I think as well for all of us who are tuned in thank you so much for connecting thank you thank you that's my thanks folks thank you thank you thank you everybody everybody bye bye thanks you ladies thank you that's my first hearing this very interesting conversation so many nuggets of insights and wisdom for all our viewers and if you have any to share with the wider audience then go ahead and tweet to us using the hashtag e4m women achievers so I'm going to move forward quickly to our next panel discussion which is going to talk about pandemic and power of purpose power of purpose based communication for brands so ladies and gentlemen I hope you are already and set as we welcome our esteemed panelists on screen we have Indu Sharma senior general manager communication Schneider electric we also have Anindita Mukherjee Sinha head of corporate communication L&T metro rail Hyderabad we have with us Shivalika Malik senior manager PepsiCo and Dr. Suvi Chaturvedi PhD IITD chief corporate and public affairs officer at ZUPI and moderating this session is Ms. Chosna Sharma from BW business world a very warm welcome to all you ladies and just I'm going to leave the screen to you to take the conversation forward Thank you Thank you Kyati welcome all so I don't know we're talking about communication and how the pandemic has sort of moved that but if the pandemic has ravaged the economy it has caused so much destruction to businesses okay recovery is taking place the finance minister of you know she gave some relief packages industry experts say 9.5% is the growth the GDP growth expected this year but throughout it all I think communication is the key for brands which has kind of helped us together and today we're going to focus in this discussion on how that communication has changed what has changed in it so let's start first with Anandita let me ask how has consumed sentiment at all if at all during the pandemic well thank you so much and wish everyone a very good afternoon so well see the first one foremost thing is that this is so unprecedented we never expected to happen and the entire planning prices you know the manuals and whatever communication manual or whatever we have everything when topsy-dovey so you know absolutely the change in your thinking change in your you know your approach everything you know completely changed so you know to come again you know like the topic today how we say is that you know how do we connect so the connect with consumer the approach has changed now here we know that you know we for any communication for people the two main stakeholders are internal external so as we say that internal are our main brand ambassadors so they can also play an active active role in promoting the brand so are the external stakeholders to run a business is imperative that to we keep a close watch on how the consumer is connecting with the brand so you know that is very important now didn't the brand do this earlier they did but because of this pandemic the approach their way of looking at things that has changed you know there they are selling credibility now you know they are the human angle being more digitally friendly you know as staying is the new going out as we all know and we don't know when is when this is going to end so you know the promoting the brand ethos of a particular company is very very important that would resonate for a longer time you know it has a positive influence so that it has a positive influence influence on the customers behavior and you know the what to say the accepting patterns the habits in accepting the brand and you know the shift away from physical product is in line with the increase health concerns and accessibility also in fact you know Deloitte study pointed out that consumer concern for physical health now remains high compared to their concerns for financial health so even you know it though it is very very important in this time of pandemic but still it is taking a you know second place so striking a balance between the competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility you know more value driven decision making so that that approach has changed and it has you know now consumers have more they are more aware on how business is intact interacting with the stakeholders the community at large the society at large so today's kind of consumers they are you know they have become more in favor of products that has been produced locally this is one and that's there is a greater you know expectation that brands should display leadership as a process they should be the pioneers the leaders in in their own way in their small way this is one of the very important thing then business already there you know reeling from the pandemic need they return to they need to return to you know a normal normalcy and of course you know get a hold on their revenues replenish their revenues so organization will need to work out you know more how to serve more value conscious I would say health conscious more more digitally you know digital friendly also you know a consumer like who demands purposeful brands that reflects their environmental and social values so what we have seen is that you know everything is having a human connect maybe the way we have dealt with things each and every household has taught us to do so how we did for our family you know it is just resonating with the brands and the customers also so you need for an accurate trusted and up to date data on how people feel how they intend to engage with brands so it's a 360 degree approach you know I would say Jyotsana and it just see the consumer sentiment is evolving for sure no doubt about it you know as consumers feel safer they are prepared to go back to activities previously abandoned they are coming back so therefore any brand whether it's it's any any sector like retail financial services then FMCG travel hospitality we know that everyone I mean has faced the brunt and they're crippled in today's day so they need to capture data across all touch points you know online in store customer services and identify what consumers actually will respond to so service experience brand innovation aligning with customer values as I said articulating them appropriately and truly to live with them see now people have become more aware they see how the brand is living up to their philosophy so I feel that all you know operating more ethically demonstrating a continued commitment to greater sustainability because sustainability is the in thing now we have to think about and being conscious to the current sensitivities also so we cannot be very aggressive in a way that it hurts anyone sentiment or it is completely off sync from what the situation or what the country is going through so the ability to capture you know all these things I think that I know taking this you know a wholesome approach and 360 degree perspective of things and yes empathy I think you know the last session someone mentioned about empathy I fully feel that it is whether it's an internal customers or your external customers it is very very important yeah so humane and purpose driven communication is what you're going to be pressing on Shivalika let's come to you in terms of you know employees and you're at the brand's communication with the employees and their well-being would you like to say a few so thank you for now and first of all very good afternoon to all of you know all of you so like you did mention and you know Ananta also mentioned about employees being the real brand ambassadors it's very very important in terms of brand and our company or an organization to ensure that how you know they are the ones who are actually the real mouthpieces you know for for stand for for the value that to bring to the table and especially what we've also seen during you know the last two years in in the pandemic one and a half years that we you know face that that how organizations have really come forth and it's become more of a people first you know people first environment which is very very good to see while you know it is very important to ensure that there is you know a conversation going out externally in terms of hope trust you know there is a conversation also that we're also going internally as well and that is something that we see across the industry across organizations and that is very very hard one and it's very important also at this point in time because what you reflect internally it genuinely comes out externally as well you know and that is what's happening at the moment right so coming to you Indu this shift that we're talking about do you see that it is something that's going to now become the new norm and this is going to stay and it'll be consistent throughout what are your views on this definitely you know uncertain times are not going anywhere we have been anyways talking about this VUCA times for quite some time and you know every brand has maneuvered the conversation around it but I would say the proliferation of digital and the lifetime information that people have today demands that are brand reacts to it you know much more effectively than it used to be earlier no more we have the monologue times you know people have to be spoken to you have to take a conscious call of you know what do you want to stand for what your consumers would relate to and that conscious call helps in making it lot more realistic so you have to have authentic communication you know like my friends here have spoke about empathy your conversation has to resonate and relate with people it cannot be like a 30,000 feet conversation that we are going to do this and that and whatever and not following it through so that consistency in communication is going to remain and yes employees are going to be the biggest evangelist for any brands in times to come because if there is a sense of pride in an individual to work for an organization and that person is putting out a kind of communication then that goes a long way and that paves a way for a lot more people to come in because I was just reading up yesterday only that this has been a year of maximum number of resignations globally where in after pandemic people have taken a call to not work with organizations who are not caring enough so at this time if you have a strong employer brand and you are able to really you know ready click the right chord with people so that's going to remain with you not with consumers with employees but you know businesses your partnerships everything is going to need this in future to come right coming to you should be we were just discussing we lost you for a bit out there but we were just talking about how this change in communication and how this change in thinking from the brand point of view is going to stay now and we've stressed on how employees are the biggest assets and then the changes happened there as well what would you like to say about this Jyotsana thank you so much and I'm really happy that we're celebrating women we're celebrating this platform I really hope everybody's been safe and well I congratulate E4M and the entire team from BW and the group for bringing in some of the champions and heroes to this session so I'm looking forward to a very learning fun engaging session on this really important question you know the discussion centered let me take a step back and let's see a 40,000 feet view above the ground we are putting purpose at the center of all that we do which means your employers your employees your investors people who'd like to root for you people who'd like to consume your brands are now asking for more so when you're attracting the best talent you know many years ago when we grew up in the 90s getting a job getting a house getting stability in life was really important before I came back to my corporate stint I was teaching for five and a half years in Delhi University and you learn some of the brightest minds in the country wanted to explore they wanted to take gap years it was not a bad thing to drop a year and suddenly a new world had opened up so when you're looking at either attracting cutting edge talent or you're expecting brand loyalty from a group of young people whose gratification is instant the most important thing Jyotsna that we need to look at is putting purpose in communication and at the core of central decision making processes across planning across product offerings and when you talk about this I think the most important journey is the transition from me to be so consumers are no longer making decisions you know solely on product selection though we're a price sensitive market but they're assessing what does a brand say when we say that what do we mean as employees why do we choose an organization why would we not want to go to a particular FMCG brand or work with a certain other brand or work or wear a sweatshirt which talks about brand purpose what are they looking for they're looking for what the brand says what it does what it stands by let me explain this to you the support that the brands give to their beliefs to their philosophy and not just pay lift service is the question that consumers and employees and talent is asking today so Harvard Business Review did a research study and they're saying 64% of consumers say when they connect with a brand it is because of shared value it is because of the causes that relate with them that they also want to espouse so 70% of CMOs today are saying that putting purpose at the center of marketing messages is a creep priority you know the metrics have changed so it's now the way we operate has changed it's not about sales it is about engagement it is about finding that authentic voice it is about giving voice and agency and purpose to your employees and saying that these are the single biggest brand ambassadors that you need remember why is this so important because we're having this conversation in a post-COVID-19 world where how we live how we work how we play has changed and that means you had a black swan event where there is a very low probability of that happening but it has happened and it has had a monumental impact which is not incremental it's a paradigm shift so when they say companies you know several surveys has happened and I can quote research studies ad nauseam but 94% of companies are now expected to look at critical problems they're expected to look for climate change they're expected to be green companies they're expected to look at solutions around critical issues shampoo you know and soap companies are today talking about sustainable packaging they're talking about lowering their plastic footprint the brands I love to celebrate body form bumble dove Microsoft you know a lot of these companies are examples of companies that are doing it right when we talk about startups you know the purpose of SpaceX is making space radically more accessible the purpose of zoopie which is a three-year-old startup that was started by iitians is putting engagement and power education and the kind of rewarding and entertaining experience when we look at research studies again if you're looking at either politics or if you're looking at policy solving for health right now making sure you're saving lives making sure that is not mere lip service health causes became the second most popular category after gender equality and advocacy around LGBTQI issues so you know these are campaigns that don't just come in when there is a day to celebrate this is where whether you put your money where your mouth is is important lastly you know on this specific question I believe purpose is an expression of a company's core value proposition viewing purpose as a strategy which is rooted in the company's very reason for existing and that's when we say create a brand with purpose it's not just a good to do or a right thing to do Blackrock's chairman Larry Fink sends out a letter every beginning of the year to all his investing companies where he says if you're not being able to locate your social purpose your social governance strategies and your ESG record you're not worth my money so increasingly both employees your investors and your consumers are going to start asking the tough questions and therefore if we look at an organization that puts purpose first and that designs your products and you know your way of life how do you and it starts with how do you enter the employee engagement process through the very first experience when you walk into an office when you walk into the campus as a lot of startups now like to call their offices what is it that you see so this is where every aspect of how you're designing engagement will get you the best talent will get you brand stickiness loyalty and engagement and that is what we truly care for today I'll stop here for you right so a way of being a way of living really is what we are going to do so coming to you Anandita I wanted to also talk a little bit now about the specific challenges that were faced you know in regards to communication during times of COVID so would you like to talk a little bit about that well we all know that the first and foremost thing what we are facing today is you know shopping of all the marketing and promotional budgets and so this is one of the things which has badly hit us but yes the deliverables has I mean they have to be there so one of the biggest challenges definitely this that fund is a problem everywhere then of course you know the production also has you know been negatively affected you whatever you need to produce even your collaterals or anything for the branding opportunities they are being called off engagement programs for any communication professional which is very important that is very very important which is which has taken us all then you know you don't have I mean the manpower we know that you know coming coming to the led work when it comes to any work even the printing production or anything where all the few businesses have shut down and the people have traveled to their hometowns we don't have people to do this and one of the things other than these topics one is misinformation and fake news about you know we know how it is going viral now no matter how much we are trying to control it so I think you know I'll do combat to counter all these challenges one of the most important things that we are we want to do is you know being being consistently and continuously there you know with your customers like for us you know every single I mean see we were our Metro Rail it was shut down for about more than a you know for five and a half months but did we completely close our shop no so through our social media platforms and other digital platforms we explored and we utilized them and we were continuously touch with the customers so basically you know to to overcome these challenges what we need to do is we have to anyhow we have to customize as for the business we are in and then being completely continuously touch with the customer saying that here there we are there okay we we may not be operating for a particular time but we are there so we know that because of the physical absence to reach out to customers is is very you know is being very difficult and we have faced that Manpower Crunch was also there but so whatever platforms we can utilize we have to do that and another thing is that you know senior management coming forward and being there show you know their face it's very important at least for our product our material what we did is even the single I mean once we our operation started each and every time change each and every operational updates we send and we have been sending we have been even even see in other you know time maybe we wouldn't have used a senior management quote but here even if it was not really relevant for our press release of course a press note but we used that you know our senior management's name as a spokesperson otherwise we generally do it with official spokesperson just to say that we even the small time change of even 10 minutes or half an hour or one hour you know we are communicating the senior management is communicating that we are taking this business and our customers so seriously so all these are you know this posing as big challenges for us and of course the industry you know I think you know people's pockets also is a big problem mainly when it goes to be to see businesses so since they are not being able to you know brand properly or go full gaga over their marketing communication so you know they are not maybe reaching out to people so as we have seen that many people have started you know the other they have explored other businesses the mergers happened and there are you know all these things which are coming up so for us the most important because we see we hard work material we run 69.2 kilometers of stretch in hard work city with 57 stations so you can understand how big the network is and not being physically present in those platforms in I mean in figuratively and you know literally how we are not being able to get in touch with our customers which has definitely hit so another thing we have explored a lot to face this challenges is you know going digital about purchasing tickets or you know the cards I mean tying up with some you know make my trip and sort of that so that they those gateways can be utilized to for passengers safety so that they don't have to stand in the queues so whatever challenges we are facing as communication team I think we are that is what we it has driven us to go more on the social media and website and other digital platforms so slow but steady I think this situation will be there for some time and we have to really think of more innovation and innovative ways how to look at things and of course the decision making we should be more value driven for sure and well we any business I think not only I have any business has to be resilient enough to deliver you know against the customer demand and because the expectancy will be there so there comes a question of efficiency how we can counter the challenges which a communication team has been facing even for newspapers say we are not being able to the print run has gone low for many publishing houses most of them has you know have gone online the physical paper is not available and so you know the mask what you want to reach out to as you did earlier is really posing as a big problem but this I think how we should counter it So Shivannika now moving to you what were the key challenges in keeping consumers engaged during this time like Anandita pointed out that you know still keeping at it keeping them engaged and getting senior management involved and you know that sort of keeping them invested in that what were the key aspects that you want to highlight So now I wouldn't want column challenges per se first of all I think they were you know we were talking all we're all stuck in a position where I think this time needed innovation and I think these are opportunities of innovation honestly if I can put this through like that and I think there are four key things that come to my mind in terms of again as communications team what we really had to do at this point being in an FMCG company you know myself one big thing what we saw was there was a really diverse in a early you know fast evolving changing marketing and messaging mix that happened so you know well when the pandemic hit there was a cautious customer sentiment there was a digital uptake because content consumption was happening more online than anything else there were events being postponed etc but again when we were looking at digital also you know there was a lot of clutter in there because everybody was going there so how to break that clutter how to ensure that we work around the virtual environment more so keeping the customer sentiments in mind ensuring that we're empathetic as well work really you know some of the key things that we had to keep in mind and we had to be sensitive to the current environment more than anything else and therefore how to drive that messaging how to drive that mix also and we seem to have lost your the audio can you hear me now Dotsha we can hear her oh yeah we can hear her Dotsha we can hear her okay so then it was me no no worries no worries at all so I was just saying that it's very very important to adjust the marketing messages and you know and overall messaging per se and where to do it was one thing second was in terms of there was there's a big big focus on the brand reputation because during especially a crisis like this which is a you know global health crisis listening reporting adapting to the entire environment is very key right now because you know even the smallest mistake in terms of anything can kind of ruin your reputation so again working with tact working with empathy ensuring mindfulness in terms of you know in terms of the media you're using the forums you're using the messaging you're having your in-product you know tools that you're using all of that has been really really important and then applying technology I spoke about digital platforms but more in terms of how you're also being innovative in your applying technology was important for example we just very recently did a campaign on Slice and it was all about the fact that we saw that there was a lot of consumer uptake in terms of online consumption people were sitting at home the sentiment was all the fact after the second wave of a lot of gratitude because you know India kind of came together and this whole resilience had to be celebrated having said that what we did was we replaced the logo for Slice into an ode and into a tribute to basically give a tribute to these unsung COVID-19 heroes but we used knowledge because it was just not using a particular forum it was a cross that we wanted to go and ensure that at every platform possibly and also ensuring that it can go online therefore to a larger audience how can you bring that to life and last but not the least it's very tricky of how to get the brand tonality into you know into your fold and then yet be empathetic for example Pepsi as a brand is very irreverent it's a lot of fun in that sense and you know the tour has not been really celebratory in that you know during the last one and a half year so again we did a beautiful campaign called Pepsi Salam Namaste it was all about encouraging people to be socially distanced but yet emotionally be connected and we also understood that you know while people were back home and this was last year people were like you know were kind of wanting that emotion that fun and they were getting bored as well and I'm talking about the first wave and at that point in time awareness was important but how could we do it in a more fun manner and that's when Pepsi kind of came out with this campaign where we were just talking about how Salam and Namaste are basically the ways to bridge each other but be socially distant and yet be emotionally connected so these were some of the things that you know kind of innovation and thinking putting your thinking has kind of came to the forefront So Shubhi I'll come to you right now we've spoken about you know communication and digital communication and the you know importance of it right now especially Shivalika so was there some sort of like also did you see fatigue do you think that there's so much fatigue now because there's too much you know happening in that space Thanks Jyotsana I think this is a really important question what is it that you celebrate which is different about your brand and that's the core of every communication every marketing professionals mandate right unique selling point differential each time I if I heard USP and I got a penny for it I'd not you know look at a tomorrow where you have to think about anything when you look at telling your own story which is unique and different and this is where the idea that are you just looking at a campaign are you looking at periodicity and are you looking at your bi-monthly plan and saying hey I need to get two things out that's where there will be a disconnect which is why when we started this conversation I said you know from the journey of me to be if you're not standing up then you will not stand out what does that mean for a lot of people who play safe it's a risky proposition and they say hey we can look at a backlash this is not our job to look at advocacy it's not our job to look at you know policy change we're telling the story but you have to be invested enough to know how you push boundaries and that's where brands with purposes brands that understand empathy brands that build the storytelling at the core of what they're doing will truly stand out having said that Jyotsna this is as much as a science as it is an art form I believe there are at least five parameters that we need to be mindful of one if you do a campaign which celebrates richness of a product while there's a famine you're going to get hammered if you do a campaign where there is fear where there are job losses and you want to celebrate joy you're going to be in trouble which is why we say that as communicators it's very important that you yourself read newspapers you're aligned with what is happening you're topical and you're relevant to be able to do that and not just say we'll be about moment marketing so if something's happening and you run a digital campaign and you know like festivals a lot of brands would do that and they want to write on the momentum then there will definitely be a me too phenomena but when I say it's a science these are the five things that I mean by it you have to look at geographies a lot of companies in mature geographies will focus on collective values they'll focus on shared experiences you have to look at product categories where when you look at utilities purpose will be less utility and the experience so if you're looking at a cleaning agent or you're looking at a detergent there are some notable campaigns but for a lot of others it's a basic function how much effort will it take what will be the impact of the cleaning agent on the hands of the woman who's washing these clothes right so offering experiences less how much of application will you do in terms of brand maturity so if my purpose is building brand recall if my purpose is building brand recognition I'll have lesser messages I'll have one clear message saying great product buy it this is what we mean to you right if it's a mature brand if people recognize you you know we've got fantastic brands that represent some of the most powerful campaigns today in the room especially look at the CSR public service record of Reckon Ben Kaiser right so from Swachh Bharat to iconic campaigns that's when you take that leap of faith and you change things around and you put meaning and purpose in the middle of it because you're looking at brand maturity but very important to look at demographics what is it that I'm trying to target who's going to understand my messaging what is it that we want to sell golden rules don't confuse the message with too many subtexts or subplots this is not Shakespeare you're not doing a work of art you have to be quick you're looking at 30 seconds you're looking at a minute tell your story look at the demographics look at the appetite that they will have for something and when I say that don't speak only to the lowest common denominator are you know a young population one of the most exposed one of the most articulate and one of the most fantastic and savvy users so if they know that you're faking it or this is a sham they'll move on very quickly so stand by the causes that you pick up lastly most important look at ecosystem readiness so what do I mean by that today you know we're all experiencing this there are virtual courts which are taking place we're dependent on the resilience of your network we're dependent upon infrastructure we're dependent upon many many variables mental health is the biggest issue that we're all trying to solve 40-day jolts now 168 children are out of schools UNICEF is saying that for development of children today we've taken two decades back in terms of how much of a setback the society is facing so three things very important you have to be human you need to humanize your statistics you have to be clear you have to be authentic and you have to be creative if you want to cut through the clutter so activating purpose led brands puts the traditional view that customer is a buyer to bed forever that doesn't exist instead companies will need to focus on creating loyal communities why is it that an Apple user will not switch loyalties it's a brand experience it is a cult it is a community so engaging them creating value if you have a bad product no amount of storytelling can help you so that's a given you know bringing this sense of community giving back when you talk about gaming right a lot of people said that people were scared and people were and that's the sector media and entertainment this is the only sector where you've seen green shoots if I tell you very quickly we're doing 13,600 crores in numbers in 2025 you're looking at an uptake of 30,000 crores there's 700 million gamers in India out of that 43% are women these are huge numbers you know so if you're looking at projection everywhere across the world India is now the fifth largest in terms of a market share we own 70% of all of the globe in terms of attention our user engagement went up to 215 hours in a day that's not a problem clearly what are you solving for so is the boy in Merat or is the guy in Lucknow can I be relevant therefore in making his life better that's when it creates thickness so my digital campaigns will have to work with my CSR initiatives they'll have to work with my social impact initiatives and that's when I have a story that's worth telling so our brand at Zupi is looking at jobs of tomorrow the WEF report World Economic Forum Jyotsna talks about the need to upskill at least 750 million Indians by 2030 how will you get there we're exhausted we're learning online this is COVID it's disrupted schools how do you put gaming and gamification in the middle of upskilling re-skilling in the middle of job creation and for that we decided to launch the Zupi Skilling Academy so as we speak we're training young people in the marginalized communities in slums in areas which have been less fortunate we're giving them digital skills we're giving them training in retail and purpose-driven marketing that's where you're truly making a difference that person will lead their life for your brand for the experience and that's when you take an experience which is about mental health which is about joy which is about casual entertainment and you make it relevant and say how do I make learning fun while staying true to my brand purpose so kalki tayari you know looking at preparedness looking at making sure where there's uncertainty how can you see results and that's where you cut through the clutter and you say hey we're here to stay and this is a brand that actually makes a difference in my life right well said well I'm running out of time so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to come to each one of you and we'll do your summing up remarks so let me go to indu first indu if you'd like to add anything to that or we can just go to you and you can give us some summing up remarks your key trends that you see all of that sure and I'm very happy when so we mentioned wrecked the teaser I'd been there for four years and you said this wish so there was a sense of pride when there was a conversation about that but I would say I would do a mix of you know what I want to say and you know what are the remarks but you know there's a saying that's you know I would say for me it summarizes all of this people don't really buy what you do they are buying why you do it that buy is very very important and that buy is your purpose hence for me I would say purpose is the umbilical cord which is really connecting a brand to the consumer so what you feed through this umbilical cord is going to bolster your relationship and that's what you're going to carry with within your relationship for times to come and broadly if we have to really look at you know for me I always say there is an A, B, C or purpose communication so for me the A stands to be authentic you know any story which is real which is not fake is going to relate to people second is believing first of all you need to believe what you're saying a lot of times you know I see a communicator doing the story and which is why your pitches are not though so strong but you're not able to put out the right kind of communication because you do not know you know what's really happening behind this C is consistency you know it's it's scientifically proven that humans don't you know remember things only once told to them so it has to be spoken again and again with creative ways you know so when we did uh and I'm going back to my previous employer and then we did you know the TikTok challenge of people uh being shown or participating in how do you wash hands it was uh engaging consumers it was passionate it was fun it was creating awareness so it picked all the right boxes so hence the medium that you choose the message as you choose you know your call to action what we in comms we call it cta the powerful cta is engage consumers and you know uh in the end uh purpose communication humanizes the brand you can only have a relationship with a human hence if you really want to have a relationship with your consumers be your human brand have a face have a personality and you know that is going to stick with you right shivalika hi sorry you hear me now yeah great so uh I think I'm just going to keep it to the fact that you know uh especially particularly in times of a crisis you know consumers interaction with the company is all about uh triggering trust and loyalty one little thing here and there kind of just fix it away and given in this situation it's very very important like in convention how do we engage with consumers how how do we also ensure that we not only engage but how do we engage with empathy care and concern so that's really important in today's time you know also understanding consumer sentiments and what we at PepsiCo kind of have seen especially in these last one and a half years is hope trust fund they've been our key pillars in the sense because you know as a consumer we need we need hope as an individual we need hope trust you need to trust each other and the fact is that there is fund required there is that little element required which can basically make you feel more celebratory more alive in that sense another thing that I want to talk about is the fact that you know all brands at this point in time or organizations they need to know the target audience but plus they just know they don't need to just be mouthpieces in terms of coming up with stepping up a message they also need to basically ensure that there's action to it so when you're talking about purpose then you need to be purposeful first you need to obviously reflect that for example if you know for PepsiCo the key thing is winning with purpose but the fact is if during the pandemic in both you know or any other situation if you are not being purposeful you're not thinking about the environment we're not going out in you know helping the communities in need then it's all a waste and that's exactly what we do we action it as well and the last thing is then I think again effective communication is not only important externally it's very very important internally and being humane being empathetic have showing concern being purposeful all these are basic pillars to ensure that we actually say and do what we really mean so yeah that's pretty much what I have to say here Anandita closing remarks from you okay so here I mean we have spoken enough about communication and brand I would talk about the awareness on the awareness part of something you know the communication whatever we are doing it is it only should we only stick on to what we want to communicate or the you know peripherals around that we have to see suppose Atman Irwal Bharat is a fantastic initiative but what are the things we need to do for that what is ease of doing business where India ranks in you know doing business now by world bank it is in 63rd position what are the parameters to start a business to continue a business what are the you know there are six seven parameters how to you know end the business so when we are you know hopping on the point that we have to be self resilient and self sufficient so what are the facilities available around so it is just an example basically I want to say whatever the product is with the communication about the product I think the peripheral awareness is very very important and also coming to you know someone already said that yes all communication it has to reach to every level that is true for some products but some products you have to have a clear segment you know so it has to reach to those particular customers and also some products we have seen a very established jewelry brand they have come to a strong CSR messaging but then again the when the CSR messaging what is it about now is it about promoting you know like women education okay fine then it's okay how you promote it but when a very established you know a brand ambassador wears a very ordinary village dresses up like a villager and goes to withdraw pension we have to think does it really click what we want to get because then we can match the two personalities you know that product what the messaging should be and the person who's doing it no one believes that so I think you know we have to make a total balance we have to go with a total balanced approach in our communication so that the product itself become a brand in itself if you see it's very funny to say but you know 90% of our domestic health when they need to use a washing powder they say my madam serves the DJ whatever respective of the brand it is served for them or for many children when you want to have a chocolate they will say category irrespective of the brand I'm sorry for people who are in that brand so this is the you know resonance what we are looking for with effective communication and awareness I think these two things need to have a good I mean an effective marriage for you know in days to come and also with the purpose as everyone has said human approach with very you know to live by the philosophy by the brand and of course a very you know messaging that will you know keep in mind you know keep will be in people's mind for a longer longer time for them to be established brand right so should be back to you and then Jyotsana thank you you know a lot has been said and but not everyone has said it it's it's a sheer joy for me to listen to everyone and these are champions and heroes for me what is amazing is when you bring women into the room you're not just looking at profitability you're also looking at user simplicity brands that obsess about what is it that will truly make a difference in the lives of their users and when I say stakeholders I mean your employees I mean people who are associated with you in every shape form and purpose of the way 70% of all people surveyed in the latest Edelman's trust barometer talk about putting trust at the core of what brands are doing how can you build trust if you're shaming it if you're telling a story and if you're doing a campaign that's peripheral I believe there are six very very clear metrics that drive this arrow to a higher level of trust so if you're disingenious you're going to lose out if you're commercially motivated you're going to lose out if you're opportunistic especially in a world where it is fraught with uncertainty and human tragedy with the kind of proportion that we've never seen before you're going to lose out if you're only branding motivated let me look at a transactional opportunity and plug my brand there mindlessly you're going to lose out when you start gaining is when you are CSR centric when you really care about your community and when your purpose led so brand purpose needs to go above and beyond being an expression of a statement that you'd put out in your annual report it has to be a core value proposition it needs to address societies like Dreda Thunberg said you have to respond to the environmental situations like your house is on fire and believe me friends who are on the call today our house is on fire so if you don't care about the environment if you're not focused on the positive potential impact of the company that is creating products day in and day out you will get knocked off sooner than later and that's where COVID-19 Jyotsana and I'm going to end very quickly on this brand focus and purpose have been married like never before companies have had to move away from differentiating their products and they're joining hands with the government they're joining hands with networks so creativity collaboration and curation and finding common minimum points of interest with partners from your own sectors who've been your competitors is the way forward if you truly want to purpose and if you truly want to build a brand that stays and that truly is at the heart of your consumers and your business thank you so much for this opportunity I've really enjoyed this conversation thank you so be humane be purposeful thank you ladies this was very informative thank you for your time and thank you for speaking to us thank you so much and wish everyone of all who are this stay safe please take care stay safe and be connected thank you be connected yes thank you thank you so I'm going to hand this back to my colleague Mr Bhatia yeah unfortunately Khyati got stuck I think there's a dropback so I'll take over for some minute because this is a women conference women like to stay out for some time oh we love our men Karan they're more than welcome otherwise we'll be the converted especially if we good things about us yeah absolutely and you're celebrating women so you definitely need to share the stage with us for a little while for the ride absolutely so we also have so thanks for your lovely session we really thought for working I was watching it and we look forward to see you more we'll keep engaging thank you bye moving over to our next panelist thank you everyone thank you Jocelyn for an amazing cooperation moving on to our next panelist we have Miss Pibi Segins who's the chief operating officer of a little black book welcome Pibi can you hear us hi um I think hang on my video is on one second okay I think now you can start on your camera oh there you are hi hi so nice to see your face yeah I hope everything is fine in UK so Pibi she'll talk about the topic break the glass ceiling put on different shoes and get ready to make yourself uncomfortable a little brief description at 5 to Pibi Segins and spend a lifetime in platform shoes and trainers but this talk isn't about retaining her feet after a year locked down wearing slippers it's about confidence like many women it's one of the things Pibi wishes she had more of as a young person sorry my bad something she recognized women needs more of in order to move forward in their career quickly and regardless of gender Pibi Segins gained her position as a chief operating officer of global marketing and news platform Little Black Book at the age of 28 Pibi joined Little Black Book PR arm LLB lab in 2014 as a PR accounts manager in just too short here she was running the entire department and has supported her 10th bold growth in its clients base during her lifetime at the business so a very warm welcome to you Pibi such an honor you know reading about you and we've been interacting a lot so I'll pass it on to you and you know you can just share your presentation or anything you want to share with our audience amazing over to you thank you thank you so much I wanted to actually start off by thanking you all for taking the time to listen to me speak today when I first was approached by current and exchange for media I to talk on the topic of breaking the glass ceiling I was so humbled to be asked to speak in front of so many business leaders and incredibly successful people in the field of PR today so what I would like to talk to you a little bit about is my experiences so far as you've just heard I'm the chief operating officer and head of PR at Little Black Book some may know it as lbbonline.com so doing a talk this way is fairly new to me I tend to be the interviewer as opposed to the interviewee I'm normally crafting talking points and thought leadership for other people rather than myself so at the times that I speak in public it's normally in front of a live audience most of whom I can see all their lovely faces so please excuse my fresh approach to this it's it's a bit new to me but I hope you enjoy it so today what I'd like to talk about two things I really believe have carried me through right from my school years in education up to the point of taking on a more senior leadership role in 2020 and those two things are putting myself in uncomfortable positions and putting on different pairs of shoes and when I say that it's not because I'm five foot two and I love wearing a platform heel this is actually in the metaphorical sense about building confidence and understanding other people and I'll tell you why so when I told my friends I'd be speaking on the topic of women in leadership and breaking the glass ceiling they all nodded to one thing you should talk about imposter syndrome perhaps embarrassingly I hadn't heard of it but I obviously quite often had the signs of it written all over my face I feel at least six different people maybe told me the exact same thing so for anyone like me who wasn't familiar with the phrase imposter syndrome refers to a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills talents their accomplishments and has this kind of internalised fear of being exposed as a fraud or not feeling like they deserve to be where they are so as I looked into this I found a study by KPMG from 2020 that found over 75% of female executives felt that they had experienced this at some point in their career and I could certainly count myself amongst them and as I started to think this is something I also hear so much from my own clients and female business leaders that I work with it's a daily conversation so having started to research this the topic immediately threw me back to a panel series I've been running for one of my clients basically this panel brings together senior heads of production from across the USA to talk about their experiences and on these panels we always ask one bonus question right at the end to everyone who we're speaking to and that question was always if you could go back in time to when you were 10 years old and could tell yourself one thing what would you tell yourself so across that series I found men and women answered this question very differently and on one of the panels in particular I found myself together with three really forging successful female heads of production and they all said the exact same answer unprompted I would have told myself to be more confident I would have told myself to believe in myself and my abilities and to not worry about what people thought of me so much and in all honesty this is something I had in my head the whole time it would have been my answer too and the more I started to think about this I realised that building up my confidence has been so important to my progression in the field of PR and communications and essentially breaking this glass ceiling but I found the incredibly frustrating thing about confidence is it's not an academic skill it's not something people teach you in school or something you can easily teach others it's not something you can buy for yourself or gift to anyone else it's not something you can easily acquire without making big changes to the way that you think and act personally it's also one of the things I really believe men and women experience quite differently I still wouldn't call myself an extrovert today I know I've come a long long way from the kind of nervous doubter that I used to be and whilst I can't offer up a kind of silver bullet solution to a lack of confidence or imposter syndrome I do believe two things that have helped me go from that complete wallflower to where I am today was as I mentioned earlier putting myself in other people's shoes learning from them and making myself uncomfortable so in order to I guess explain myself I really feel I probably have to first put you in my shoes so I grew up in the 1990s in a big seaside town in the UK I'm incredibly lucky to be able to say I had wonderful supportive and creative parents who never imposed any gender bias on me or my brother primary and secondary education was free compulsory accessible to all children and the kind of thought that was ingrained into us was that if we worked hard the sky was the limit and that was something that just stuck with me that the moment I got into school I loved learning and I pushed myself towards that I wanted to achieve and at age 10 my teachers recommended that I take a test to an entry test to one of our state-run grammar schools again this was something with free and accessible to all children so I was incredibly lucky to get the opportunity to do it and I ended up going to one of the top achieving schools in the borough Southend High School for Girls so academically at this point I had no doubts about my abilities in regard to my gender if anything being at this all girls school it kind of reaffirmed to me that my gender wouldn't hinder my results it may actually improve them so it's funny because there must have been something a bit in the water in the early 90s in my home county of Essex as we were often told we were one of the highest achieving school year groups the area had produced and teachers would often mention how the girls were outperforming the boys which you know was often celebrated because it was rare but outside of school I'd grown up with a brother male cousins a lot of family friends who also happened to be boys so I was quite often in male company but I was starting to notice at this point in time the rifts in our levels of social confidence especially as I worked my way through secondary school I kind of feel a growing amount of curve balls being thrown my way that simply didn't bother my brothers or my cousins and other people that I knew so I kind of actually at this point said thank my lucky stars that I didn't grow up in the age of Instagram I think in the 90s and 2000s magazines and TV were kind of enough to rock my perspective on my body image how I should act and you know what limited options might lay ahead for women especially if you wanted a family later in life so I guess this is when I first started becoming aware of what the glass ceiling was perhaps not so much under that phraseology but the fact that no matter what grades I got there was going to be some barriers to achieving what I wanted to achieve so despite the fact I was doing well academically my confidence started dropping through the floor definitely during secondary school I just wasn't comfortable conversing with people who weren't my close friends or family or they weren't in my age group I'd become very insular but I'd also started to cotton on to the fact that when I entered the real world my safe bubble of being at a smart girls school with good grades was going to burst quite quickly so by the time I got to the end of my fifth year I realized I had a decision to make even if I continued to work really hard that lack of confidence was going to start holding me back in my next stages in life getting a job applying to uni starting a career would all be much more difficult for me so how could I stop this? as I mentioned earlier I couldn't learn confidence from anyone else I couldn't buy it I had the realization I was going to have to completely change my mindset and my immediate environment in order to do it I had to put myself in an environment I didn't feel comfortable and essentially I wanted to be ready for the boys club of the working world that all women kind of told me about so I took the leap to move to a sixth form at the boys grammar school so these schools the six forms tend to be mixed at the grammar schools but just to give you some context there are about 150 pupils in my new school year less than one third of these were female it was a different part of town together and I knew I need two people there but in my mind it was something that could potentially mimic a working environment of the future so the first day I walked in there I was absolutely terrified and I often get these kind of vivid flashbacks of walking into our common room at break time on the first day of school looking in the room realizing there was no one I knew in there turning on my heel and walking straight back out and hiding in the toilets and I thought I would never be able to speak to anyone really thinking I'd made a huge huge mistake and I'd left this comfortable environment where I was going to get the best grades I could get but I had to tell myself there was no way of backing out I put myself here for a reason and I had to come up with a way to work out how to interact with new people so I started putting myself in their shoes I'm sure you can imagine what a group of teenage boys are like who suddenly have 50 girls thrown into what was previously an all boys environment in which they were already familiar and confident testosterone flying all about the place they were vying for our tension and trying to prove who was the most dominant often that translated into banter which kind of sometimes would scare or upset most girls but by detaching myself from the words coming out of their mouth and putting myself in their shoes I noticed one thing very quickly a kind of overly defensive reaction to their comments and jokes only fed their desire to kind of be more cutting getting upset was helping prove that dominance so what I realized was in fact they wanted to be challenged they were also all very smart boys and they appreciate as someone who could speak to them on their level so I kind of sat back and observed what do these people find interesting what makes them embarrassed what commonalities do we have how can we have an engaging conversation with each other so little by little using that approach I began to get more comfortable being somewhere completely different around people who actually completely different to what I was used to and I began to make some really great friends friends that I'm still happy to say very close to today and when I look back making that change is something that I can point to as something that started to get me where I am today I realized at that point that confidence can be earned and that I had to recognize when I needed to try new things that were outside of my comfort zone so this combination approaches is what I believe I've used ever since to try and take step forwards in my career if I fast forward slightly I then studied history of art at the University of Warwick having creative parents I've always had an interest in how the creative world collided with social and cultural history something that has become hugely valuable to my career now I get to thrive on this because I speak and hear from business leaders all day long who bring these two elements together to create amazing campaigns so I guess at this point alongside trying to develop my social confidence I was still working incredibly hard academically I came out with a first-class degree and this was the academic pinnacle I'd been gunning for since those teachers first told me to take the entry exam to grammar school I thought this would open many many doors that these teachers had promised me and in my mind I felt it proved that as a woman I wasn't at a disadvantage academically but alas when I left university we were coming out the back of a quite steep recession in the UK and there just weren't graduate jobs about at this point I still wasn't confident enough to get through the interviews well the few interviews that I had and what I had to do was still earn my keep at home I didn't come from a wealthy family I had to pay for my social life pay for my food pay for my accommodation and I'd kind of just took whatever part-time jobs came my way in order to do that and it wasn't until a year later that I was able to get an unpaid internship at a small healthcare start-up in London using kind of some of the funds that I'd saved to cover the travel costs it wasn't the creative field that I hoped for but once again I knew I was going to have to try something different if I wanted to move forward and at this point I was obviously so grateful they gave me the opportunity when no one else would and actually this uncomfy moment turned into a very happy accident this job at Network Locom which is now known as Lantham in the UK it paved the way for my current role the CEO Melissa Morris was a former McKinsey consultant and she was only a few years older than I was I was kind of in awe of the fact that she had secured investor funding for a business that would support what I always saw as one of Britain's Britain's greatest institutions our national health service and after a year of part-time jobs post uni I was desperate for a chance to prove myself especially to this incredibly this just this amazing this amazing woman so she she took a chance on me despite the fact I kind of knew nothing about medicine doctors the systems behind the NHS so what I did was I just I threw myself into the research and talking to as many GPs practice owners anyone they would they would put me in front of obviously at this point something I was I was still very very nervous about I didn't want to trip up obviously these are highly educated people in a field that I knew nothing about but I knew I had to learn so I had to get over my fear of speaking to them and again find that common ground that that would help me learn so I have to mention this but obviously despite running this forging an incredibly busy startup I'd have to thank Melissa and her team because they personally took the time to train me in how that business worked from top to bottom it was everything from the sales and marketing that I was hired for in the internship to customer management website development funding proposals digital marketing reporting business development clinical governance and their teaching and my kind of drive to learn meant I went from an unpaid intern to a full-time communications manager after just one month and it was one of the greatest starts like I could have possibly had and it's still something that that that feeds my knowledge and my approach to my job today so then the job arose at LBB in 2014 for a junior PR account manager and when I saw the role I could just see the culmination of all of these amazing skills I had been learning in the industry the skill like in the place that I'd always wanted to work in in advertising communications media and production and despite the fact that I loved and admired my current colleagues that I'd been swiftly promoted and that the business I was in was clearly moving towards bigger things and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to sidestep into the creative industries so I guess once again my goal was to learn as much as I could about a completely new industry to me and this is where putting myself in people's shoes really began to make a difference and the unique thing about LBB lab is that the PR agency was born out of its news platform so unlike anywhere I had ever worked before I had this incredible global resource at my fingertips something that could provide me with all the teaching on who's who and what's what that I ever needed to know and what struck me about it was that it gave everyone a voice from junior to senior from post-production to brand marketer I could get into the minds of anyone in the business something that I knew up to that for this point would would help me get ahead so despite not having done PR before I realized quickly that the first thing you have to get to grips with is who your clients really are who their customers really are and what's interesting about them I'm sure it's a given for most of you listening today that the first thing you need to do is to get to know your client's business their audience and the media that you're working with inside and out but I believe there's another level to all of this what are the extraneous factors that might affect the way that those clients or journalists interact with you and the audience that they're trying to reach I always think one of my biggest pieces of advice for other young people or for leaders who were supporting young staff is that when you're a woman and grappling with a fear of imposter syndrome or a lack of confidence working with business leaders who are your clients but who are people that you've admired for a long time that you look up to that you want to be and learn from it can be so hard to take a step back and realize that they might be just as eager to hear your thoughts perspective and your advice about your field as you are to theirs so I guess for me being able to put yourself in their shoes isn't just a case of knowing what their business does and what goals they need to hit it's about being able to anticipate what them and their customers want and need along the way and also give yourself the confidence to give your best advice so as I move throughout my career I recognize it was just as important to learn from your colleagues and bosses too to look to learn from their experience when I draw and they still are half of our team with journalists working on the news side of LBV and they could actually put me in the headspace of anyone I was pitching to in the wider trade media and the CEO Matt Cooper he was in fact the kind of real life walking little black book who seemed to have worked with anyone and everyone in the business so their knowledge is something that still keeps me moving forward today and still something I do every day to try and understand my clients and this business more I guess at this point it would also be a remiss of me not to mention but I couldn't have learned so much and moved so quickly in my career at LBV had it not been for the support of Matt Cooper he's never let age, gender, race or sexuality kind of blind him from people's ability he has taught and nurtured every single one of us on his team with this kind of passionate and insight he'd acknowledge and for this I can I know I can say I'm one of the very lucky and fortunate few to have had such great role models to learn from as a parting thought I believe breaking the glass ceiling is about keeping it broken and keeping it open for the people coming up through the ranks from the same I will report I mentioned earlier conducted by KPMG they found that when asked which dynamics within the workplace were most valuable to help reduce feelings of imposter syndrome 47% said having a supportive performance manager and 29% said feeling valued and being rewarded fairly helped combat that lack of confidence when it came to running my own team I wanted to give back some of the wonderful support advice teaching and insight that I've received over my career I've perhaps found this is where putting yourself in other people's shoes is most important I mean it's a well-known fact that employees are more productive and happy when they feel empowered when they feel that they are on a forward trajectory that them and the business they are in is going somewhere in order to put them on that path I think you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes you won't know how to make them feel empowered if you don't know what empowerment looks like to them you need to understand what type of trajectory they want to be on and help them get up to that speed you need to work out how they learn best and how to keep them going because it is so so different for everyone and I think for me it is always keeping in the back of my mind that the confidence hurdles I've overcome and helping others to do the same so if you do one thing to help your confidence or the confidence of others I think you need to pull on a different pair of shoes thank you thank you Phoebe that was wonderful and I am sure that you know a lot of these young girls who are watching you right now are getting inspired with your story I have few questions quickly I want to ask you you've been a female leader who's revered and respected what do you think are potential challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for future leaders? that's a good question I mean I'd love to say that these challenges will the challenges that we all face now will be less for the next generation but when you look at the stats in terms of how slow our industries are moving towards gender parity it's frightening really and actually I can't remember where I read it but more recently there's a lot of evidence to show that the pandemic has decelerated in like the recent progression that women in business had made so I guess the biggest challenge will be to keep I think keep moving forward and learning how to accelerate that process to to give women more opportunities to make them feel more confident and to I think yeah just speed things up also Phoebe you worked in diverse organizational setup so what culture difference that you observed as world becomes closer and there's like diverse workforce in almost every organization now so would you like to share some anecdotes from those yeah I mean to be honest for me and I know this is there's evident a lot of evidence to support the more diverse businesses you work in the more creative they become the more successful they become and like I mentioned I've been so fortunate to work in two places which have been incredibly diverse and I think that the progress of those businesses speak for themselves if you have diverse people in the business you get more success and you get it quickly so yeah I mean there's countless amazing people that I've worked with and actually day to day the thing I enjoy most about my role is that I get to speak to people from all over the world from all different backgrounds and it's not just my own team that I get to experience and learn from it's everyone in this industry and that to me is I think gives you that beautiful well-rounded approach and ideas absolutely there is another question which is about the global PR communication scenario and how women are leading the band as we all know since LBB is widely covering global market what has been your experience in terms of the global PR scenario communication and PR so do you mean that as a woman or just yeah so I think for me actually it's been funny because a lot of the people that I work with in communications like you're saying they are women and they are you see you see it a lot so globally is what most of the global heads of comms that I work with at agencies or marketing or in production companies like you're saying they're all women so for me that there's been role models there throughout my career but the one thing I think I guess the biggest challenge is keeping it fresh and I sometimes experience the fact that some women who have have been through a lot in their careers and have overcome this huge adversity is that it seems they sometimes find it difficult to not pass that down to the next generation I think it's for global female PR leaders I think no matter what you've been through it's about like not having to put that down to the next generation it's making their path easier and yeah not lumbering them with any of the things you might have had to go through yourself Thank you so much Phoebe it's been a real pleasure to hear your story and to let all the females and the younger girls especially entering the industry know that how real imposter syndrome is how important it is to overcome it and develop your own confidence in the world of PR and communication Thank you Phoebe it was great having you look forward to have more engaging conversation and in other events as well Absolutely, thank you so so much for inviting me to speak I'm incredibly humbled and a bit like that imposter syndrome I didn't quite believe I'd be invited so Oh absolutely look forward to and have a nice trip take care Yeah, you too Thank you Bye Thank you so much Phoebe With that without wasting any time we are going to move straight to our next panel discussion which will talk about success or failure our prerequisite for personal growth exchange panelist on this session we have Ashken who's the personal branding and Instagram marketing expert Ashken pro we also have a my political journalist political analyst we have RJ Ginni Mahajan from Radio City we have Kumal Lath from who's the founder of Tute Consult and moderating this session is Mr. Siddir Mishra founder and managing partner Trust Legal a very warm welcome I'm goin