A poetess at heart but one who throws a puzzle at guessing her age with ‘it is the same as Shahrukh Khan’s’ with a laughter in her voice… Rashmi Joshi is one who has learnt the value of education early in life, and the remarkable lady swears by the lyrics of the famous Don’t Quit poem.
“My father was a positive influence in my academic and career choices. My mother was a working lady and she valued her economic independence much. It is her pride with which she did her job, and the respect she received from her colleagues is what has remained with me. All this has had a major impact on my being a career woman because being a girl it was expected that I get married at a particular age,” says Ms. Rashmi, a Mumbaikar by birth.
As a commerce graduate in 1986 and then earning the chartered accountant degree two years later, Ms. Rashmi opted to become a company secretary rather than become a professor – her first choice of career – on the advice of her father.
Her first job came in 1990 – the same year that she married a practicing CA – since ‘sharing the same profession meant better understanding of the challenges between them’. Ms. Rashmi’s challenges increased when she was growing roots in her career while taking care of a young child and providing for a healthy life for all of them.
Whether working with big or small companies – Ms. Rashmi always strove to broaden her finance skills. When a Dutch company she was working with wound up operations in India in 2002, she was faced with a dilemma ‘whether to work in a smaller company here or move to Gurugram with a popular air-conditioning brand.’
“Moving from Mumbai to Gurugram was seen as a demotion in every way by everyone, including my family, and even the recruiter asked me if I was sure of the move. It was my husband who pushed me to go for it,” she says.
Though apprehensive initially, the move proved good for Ms. Rashmi in her career: “My daughter thrived there. But soon I realised that the family as a unit was suffering and I sought to come back to Mumbai.”
Ms. Rashmi joined her present company in 2005 as the General Manager – Finance and took up the role of CFO in 2014.
Her long career has presented Ms. Rashmi a few realisations, including the one that most people endorse the gender stereotype unknowingly: “If somebody decides for me that I would not be able to put in long hours because my child is young, they feel they are trying to help. It is because nobody talked about diversity or inclusion in those times. I have seen advertisements which clearly announced that they were looking for only male candidates. It is all part of their conditioning.”
And she realised that long hours rather than quality output with flexible working hours yielded better rankings. And that was when she decided to ‘play the game by the rules’: “I decided to work longer hours and somehow manage home life. Once I did that, I was promoted in the same company. What would a woman or a man professional do if it were his/her own business? But a good company makes sure that if one has the merit, then she/he will get what they deserve,” she observes.
According to her, the glass ceiling exists for both men and women professionals, because she says it is mostly self-created limitation. As a leader, it is her positivity and strength that has always yielded results, not just for her but for her team as well.