Ep. 91: Deepika Chawla - Women in Finance

Deepika Chawla is a business woman, presently serving as Vice
President of a Fortune 100 company. With 27+ years of rich and
diverse work experience in Financial Shared Services and Banking
Industry, Deepika believes She believes “Your legacy is in the
leaders you create and the knowledge you share”. She is a
Qualified Chartered Accountant who is extremely passionate about
supporting women and the community she serves. Deepika has won
various recognitions for promoting Diversity in the workplace
& society.  She has been named as one of the 25 most
inspiring women in the Coffee Book ‘Big Dreams Bigger
Achievement’s and has also been decorated with the Champion Award
from ‘We Are The City, Organization in collaboration with EY, for
her passion, resilience and tenacity in supporting diversity. She
is actively involved in mentoring youth / next generation leaders
across organizations & colleges and has attended a number of
events at various universities and colleges as a speaker and
panelist. A TEDx speaker, Deepika supports multiple NGO’s of
Cancer, Education & Thalassemia and is also on the advisory
board of two of them. A mother of two children - boy 24 and girl
20 - she recently celebrated 27 years of marriage.
Contact Deepika Chawla:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepika-chawla-181a319/


FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Adam:
(00:00)
 Welcome to episode 90. One of Count Me In, IMA's a podcast
about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm
your host, Adam Larson, and I'm here to introduce you to our next
featured guest Deepika Chawla. Deepika is a senior finance
professional and qualified chartered accountant in India. She
currently serves as the vice president of a fortune 100 company
and has over 27 years of diverse work experience in financial
services and the banking industry. In this episode, she speaks
with my cohost Rouba Zeidan about her journey to the top, and the
challenges she and other women face in the finance industry to
hear Deepika’s, perspective on how women can make the most out of
their careers and finance, keep listening as we head over to the
conversation now.

Rouba: (00:55)
So good afternoon, Deepika, thank you so much for joining
us.

Deepika: (01:01)
Hi Rouba, thank you so much for having me here to talk something,
which I am so passionate about.

Rouba: (01:09)
Same here. I'm looking forward to your thoughts and your
experience. So, women in Asia occupied just 1.1% of CEO and CFO
positions and country held positions, according to a 2012
capitalist study, why do you think that is?

Deepika: (01:29)
Yeah, good question, and really close to a lot of women's heart.
So, most of the people feel that women spend more time performing
unpaid work in childcare and housework and may not be able to
handle a senior position. Remember they feel that they may not be
able to handle this a senior position. Not to shatter the
unconscious bias that assumes women should be the sole caregiver
or associated with housework organizations should really create a
safe and inclusive workplace where men feel comfortable being
with [inaudible] and do duties and household activities, giving
both men and women an equal opportunity to look at their by
supporting each other. Now, really from that perspective, it is
so very important that that comfort should be there to the women
that they can go and work or, you know, they could be CEOs and
CFOs because somebody else can do the caregiver job. Now,
secondly, as you go higher women themselves have self-doubts and
this will come into our conversation very often because whether
they can do the job or not, and they hold back because that is
very, very important. They have this self-doubt. Should I be
perfect before I applied to a job? While men, at the same time
even if they are at a 60% at that job, they convince you that
they're the right candidate. And thirdly, and lastly, in my mind,
you know, unless the top leadership does not drive the message,
this may still go on as these numbers, only what you shared with
me. Whichever news you're hearing today, whether it is Uber,
Fidelity, lots of companies or, you know, otherwise senior women
positions are coming up. When you open the LinkedIn these days,
you would see one announcement or the other coming. Now that's
primarily because the top, you know, the top leadership approach
is to focus on the, the women candidate on the CEO positions. So,
I think that's really important. And in my early career, I have
seen women having children and taking promotions in the same
year. So, you need both the women and the company, and of course
the men to believe in that they can do it. So really that is what
I think.

Rouba: (04:07)
Makes a lot of sense, actually. I mean, that's, that was a, I'm
going to ask you a bit more about your personal experience as a
seasoned professional who's been at the forefront of your sector
throughout your career. How do you find the industry has changed
over the last 20 years? And what are some of the plus points that
you've noticed, which mark positive elements of change, evolution
and progress.

Deepika: (04:34)
Yeah. Good question, you know, because, let me share because it's
important to let people know, and they say, you know, women
shouldn't share the age and I always feel very proud of sharing
that. So 27 years back Rouba, I'm 51 now this year, but 27 years
back when I completed my chartered accountancy, I was really one
of those few women who was trying to enter the finance field and
not to an MBA, but see basically like a CPA from US, right, or a
CA in India. And when I went on to do my first job, I landed up
in a different city from my hometown, and trust me, I went
through interviews where they actually called me to say, we don't
hire women, and I was in shock.  Big, big financial
companies. And, I had just completed my CA. I was one 22 and a
half years old, and I was in shock. I thought I was like super.
And it had really hit me hard, but really, I'm not going to get a
job up to doing such a qualification. And from there to where now
the plus points, which I noticed to the journey, which I had, and
now where we see, we are creating flexible and adaptive operating
models, right? We, as companies, we are actually saying focus on
diversity. In India, diversity primarily is gender that, right?
And then you go on to other things, but primarily first you're
looking at women because that itself is a small number. And today
we actually have our own focus, making sure that you have equal
number of CVs on the table so that you give an equal opportunity
to them, right? You ensure that at least they get a proportion to
be interviewed, and then you keep tracking till the end to see
how many people were hired and was there, you know, some biasness
of making, you know, not having always  men into the
positions. So that's the second piece. The first one was creating
flexible and adaptive operating models that, which never existed
that today you would have a daycare center in a lot of cities,
right? Under the place of work, where you can think in nuclear
families that I can leave my child and pick it up. Virtual has
become a very big reality. This is a good opportunity also that I
can work, and I can take care of also.  Third is really
drawing on nontraditional resources and partnerships. Where I
really want to bring the focus on that, you know, we never used
to look at secondary means where we want to get women back, but a
lot of finance companies are looking at women coming back, from
there, after childbirth, or if they have taken a break for
getting married at or whatever. It is promoted, it is really well
accepted. Adopting a growth and innovation mindset. Which is from
the company's mindset, also...