427: Empowering Women in STEM: Rashmi Chaturvedi’s Journey

In this inspiring episode of On the Brink with Andi Simon, host Andy sits down with Rashmi Chaturvedi, a trailblazer in the technology space and an advocate for women in STEM. Rashmi shares her remarkable journey—from her early beginnings in India to becoming a respected leader in digital transformation and entrepreneurship in the United States.

Early Beginnings & Bold First Steps
Rashmi opens up about her initial challenges as a young professional arriving in the U.S. with little knowledge of the local work culture. Fresh from completing her master’s degree in India, she took a bold leap by applying for a role at Nextel. A series of unexpected events—starting with a delayed connecting flight and a van accident—set the stage for a defining moment. Despite arriving late at a closed office, Rashmi’s determination led her to insist on speaking with someone. A senior executive, who happened to be the only one still working in a lit corner office, not only listened but immediately offered her the job. This serendipitous experience taught her the importance of persistence and trusting one’s gut.

You will enjoy her video on Youtube:

Climbing the Corporate Ladder at Nextel & Disney
After proving her mettle as a database administrator at Nextel, Rashmi’s journey took her to Disney, where she immersed herself in a culture known for both technical excellence and inclusivity. At Disney, she encountered one of her most influential mentors—a senior woman whose authoritative presence and drive left a lasting impact. Their informal yet transformative mentorship sessions (often initiated in unexpected places like a restroom) helped Rashmi expand her perspective from strictly technical expertise to a broader understanding of business strategy and customer-focused innovation. This period not only reinforced her technical abilities but also ignited a passion for leadership and holistic business thinking.

Entrepreneurship & Building KAYGEN.
After a decade with Disney, personal challenges at home—most notably caring for her ailing daughter—became a turning point. Realizing the need for a more flexible work-life balance, Rashmi embraced her entrepreneurial spirit. With encouragement from her supportive husband, she launched her own data management practice, which later evolved into  KAYGEN. The company, whose name is inspired by the Japanese word Kaizen (continuous improvement), reflects her vision of blending technology with business strategy to drive sustainable competitive advantages. Under her leadership, KAYGEN has grown exponentially, even earning recognition on the Inc. 5000 list.

Empowering Women in STEM
A key theme throughout the conversation is mentorship and the importance of representation. Drawing on her own experiences of isolation in male-dominated tech environments, Rashmi has launched the UpTempo Careers program. This initiative focuses on guiding women returning to or advancing in STEM fields through job coaching, mock interviews, and mentorship from top executives. By fostering a community where women see themselves represented in leadership roles, she believes that more women will feel empowered to pursue and thrive in STEM careers.

Key Takeaways

• Perseverance Pays Off: Rashmi’s early experience at Nextel is a testament to the power of persistence.
• Mentorship is Vital: Finding role models and nurturing relationships can transform a career.
• Embrace Change: Whether it’s a career pivot or launching your own company, change can lead to growth.
• Invest in Community: Supporting underrepresented groups in STEM builds a stronger, more inclusive future.

To learn more about Rashmi and her journey visit her here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashmic/

Her website at: kaygen.com (KAYGEN)

You will enjoy these other podcasts:

426: Time for Work That’s Worth It?

407: Shaping the Future: Dr. Emily Springer on Responsible AI in Business 

420: Join Kevin Cirilli to Meet the Future

Additional resources for you

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From Observation to Innovation,

CEO | Corporate Anthropologist | Author
Simonassociates.net
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Read the text for our podcast here:

Andi Simon

00:00:02

Welcome to On the Brink with Andi Simon. Hi, I’m Andi Simon, and as you know, I’m your host and your guide. And our podcast designed around an anthropological theme is to help you see, feel and think in new ways so you can get off the brink. And I go looking for people who are going to help you with their own life story, give your ideas about how you can grow. You can change. Change your business. Change your own self. It’s a great time for us to step back and look at what’s going on around us and find a pathway that makes us happy. So today I have Rashmi Chaturvedi, and I think this is going to be a wonderful conversation today, a successful woman, and her story is going to give you some insights into how women have to often be very agile and adapt as the times change, but you can be as well. Her bio-Rashmi is a co-founder and president of Cajun. She’s going to tell you about the meme. A minority owned, a minority woman owned company comprised of a team of experienced technologists created in 2003 to offer talent, solutions and technology consulting to clients worldwide.

Andi Simon

00:01:17

She focuses on helping businesses in all areas of digital transformation, and those are exactly what we’re doing now. Cajun is notably derived from the Japanese word Kazan means continuous improvement, providing services that not only create efficiencies but also allow for a more sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. And that’s her vision and her mission. She had more than 25 years of expertise to her industry. Prior to forming Cajun, she was leading business transformation for The Walt Disney Company for more than a decade, and she held several leading roles with Nextel Communications as well. She has a wonderful and long bio here that I could read, but I think for today’s podcast I’m much more interested in her telling you about her own journey. It puts a softness on facts, because this is a woman who’s an engineer and a leader in tech, among other women. That’s really wonderful and unique. But I’ve done many talks about how women can thrive in male dominated industries, tech being one of them. And she’s going to be able to help you a little bit.

Andi Simon

00:02:25

She has many honors and awards, including the top 50 Women Leaders of Los Angeles for 2022 by Women We Admire, and top 40 women owned businesses by Orange County Business Journal. And I could go down the list. She’s wonderful. She’s a graduate of Northside College of Commerce and Economics in Bombay, India. I’ve had clients in India. It’s a wonderful experience. If you ever have the opportunity to go, but also to work there or to be part of a great transformation. Rashmi, thank you for joining me today.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:02:57

Thank you. Andi

Andi Simon

00:02:59

Tell our listeners, who are you? What’s your journey been like? How did you get to where we are now? And Cajun is a wonderful next phase in a wonderful journey for yourself. Please. Your story.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:03:12

Thank you, Andi. You know, thank you for the bio and the wonderful introduction. I think first, I’m a mom. I have two very wonderful, smart, young adults, as I would say them. And, it’s been a pleasure, you know, being able to share my experiences with my children so that there’s a path forward for them to learn and build their own experience.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:03:36

But then, second, I’m an entrepreneur and I love building companies. I love building companies with a purpose and a mission to help our next generation. And third, I’m a wife and, a daughter and me. I love my parents, and my parents are my first mentors, and my mom is a teacher. And I see a lot of my dad is an engineer. So I see a lot of what I do now, resembles what my parents and vision for me, which I think as young adults, they don’t want to hear that. But I, you know, in the end, you start reflecting that and you start appreciating what your parents are. So that’s a little bit about me.

Andi Simon

00:04:22

Well, then how long have you been in the United States? How did you come here? How did you get to next step? What’s the part of the story that we need to share? Because it is a reflection of your ingenuity and your entrepreneurial spirit, even with the large companies. How did that happen?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:04:38

It’s an interesting story.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:04:41

My journey to Nextel. As you may know, Nextel was acquired by sprint in 2004. So now it’s a Sprint Communications. But I, I came to the US in 99 and my, I, my brother, my older brother was working for Intel in Sunnyvale in California, in the Bay area. And I had taken I had finished my master’s, and I wanted to do some work. I didn’t know how to work in the States because you need a visa. And I was very near to the States, had never traveled within the country. And so I decided to apply for a job, and I applied for Nextel. And the next day I got a call from the recruiter, we have, the fair we have a campus fair in Atlanta. So would you like to come? And I said, yes. they send me a ticket I got on the flight. but, you know, they say everything happens for a reason, and I believe that, you know, every, every change that happens, you have to take it with a grain of salt and see what’s good going to come out of it.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:05:48

And so I had a connecting Flight to Atlanta from the Bay area and my connecting flight got delayed. So I waited for the next flight. And this is me traveling first time in in the US. Got on the next flight, got to Atlanta. It was pretty late. I would say it was probably around 4:00. the fare was only till 5 p.m., so I was already very late. they had arranged a van pool. So the van pool, took me and some other people, to Nextel on the way. And this is really interesting. the van pool ran with an accident. It met with an accident on Pete Street and Pete Street.

Andi Simon

00:06:30

Oh, no.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:06:32

So everybody gets out of the van pool, and we’re thinking, what do we do now? So I call, my air contact and. Excellent. I told her I’m I we met with an accident. I don’t know what you do now. And she said, well, take a cab and get to the office. And so this is still around I think 430 so they are still open.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:06:53

And so I take a cab, and you know, in all that commotion, it took a good 30, 40 minutes to get to the next cell. And now it’s 530 and they’re closed. So, so I get their lights shut down. Nobody’s in the building. There’s a security guard outside. And I told him I’m here for an interview. You know, back then we had paper, so I had a paper which shows the interview details, and I showed him that. And I said, I have this interview, I have to go up. And he’s like, sorry, ma’am, we’re closed. Come back tomorrow. I’m like, I have a flight. I have to go back home.

Andi Simon

00:07:30

And you said.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:07:31

Well, sorry, we are closed for today. And I just stood there for a minute, and I said, well, I have to get up there. I have to see because I did talk to somebody and maybe she’s waiting for me. So I tried calling her. I didn’t get an answer, but in my in my gut, I felt like somebody was there waiting for me.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:07:52

And I had come all this way for the first time in the country, and I just didn’t want to go back home. And so I pleaded, and I said, can I just go up and look and come back? And if you don’t mind, just give me a minute and you can come with me if you like. So he believed me, and he let me go up. I go up to the fifth floor and the whole place was dark. There was nobody. There was lights out, but there was one light at the end of the corner office that seemed like somebody was there because it was lit. And so I didn’t think twice. I just started walking to the corner office, and there was a senior executive sitting in that office. You know, she looked like she was doing something very busy, busy work. And she looked very serious about whatever she was doing. And I walked in. I knocked on the door. I asked her, can I please talk to you for a minute? And I.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:08:52

I was like, panicking at that point because in my head all these thoughts were going. I came all this way. I have to meet the right person. I have to make sure, you know, I at least I get to talk to somebody. So I go in and she’s very sweet lady. She said, who are you? What do you want? And I started, I just started going really fast, telling her this happened to me and this happened to me, and I’m here and nobody’s here, and I don’t know what to do. And, you know, I’m 23 years old, so I’m very young at that point. So you can imagine, you know, the Gen Z’s and, you know, it’s just it’s just, you know, you’re in that panic mode. And she said, sit down. So I just sat down and then she gave me a glass of water and she said, what job were you looking for and what did you interview for? And I said, I interviewed for a database administrator and this and this person was going to interview me here.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:09:44

And she said she looked at me for a second and she said, you got the job.

Andi Simon

00:09:49

Ha ha ha. Oh, you can’t make that up, can you? You can create it into a novel. It just is life. It’s life. But she also was she the HR person or who was she?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:10:05

I think she was a senior VP or probably the head of that division, it seemed like. I did ask her for her business card, and she said, I don’t think you’re ever going to meet me again, so there’s no point in giving you this.

Andi Simon

00:10:21

Oh, so the next day, did you come back, or did you go back home?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:10:25

So she asked me, what time is my flight? And my I think my flight was in two hours. And she said, you know what? I don’t want you to miss my flight. I’m going to the airport. I’m going to drop you in my limousine. So she took me in her limousine to the airport, made sure I got home.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:10:40

but yeah, but, you know, I tell this story to my kids because it’s determination and perseverance. And if you believe that you have a goal and you’re going to get there, you know, life might throw challenges at you, but if you believe it, it’s going to happen.

Andi Simon

00:10:56

Yep. But it was also going to happen. Are the serendipitous moments that you can plan for. But you have to dig deep and be persistent and agile and self-confident. Not arrogant about it, but just, you know, humbly trying to do the right thing and not knowing what to do. It’s okay. So that. So how long did you stay at Nextel and what kind of a job did you get?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:11:22

I was a database administrator for, you’ve heard of the company Oracle. So it’s a product company. So I was a database administrator for them, but they were wonderful. They were based in Oakland in the California. And I had an amazing team of mentors, people that really cared and when they heard about it and I joined, they were all very helpful.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:11:45

They wanted to make sure that I was welcomed in the company, and I had one mentor who would really help me understand the system, and then another one would help me understand the culture, make sure that I felt my first job in the US was really fun and exciting and a good place to learn, so I had a really good time in Excel.

Andi Simon

00:12:05

That is really interesting, mostly because people don’t expect large companies to necessarily do that, but they were doing it in quite a long time ago with almost intuitive perfect. And you spent how long did you spend it? Nextel.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:12:22

I was there two years because I love the company, but they were moving to Atlanta, and I had family. I had my brother was in Bay area, so I wanted to stay close to him. And just the thought of moving to another state was, a little bit scary for me to just leave? The one person I knew, so I didn’t. I didn’t want to move.

Andi Simon

00:12:44

And from there you got into the Disney Corporation.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:12:48

So. So that’s an interesting story because, I came back from work one day from Nextel, and I knew I didn’t want to go to Atlanta, but I just didn’t know what I would do. And I was browsing on the internet and Disney ad came up and it said Disneyland. And I had never been to Disneyland. And that was one of my dreams, is how do I get to Disneyland? And so I was clicking on that, and I saw careers. So I click on careers, and it says Oracle Database Administrator. And I said, that’s what I do. So obviously I applied the next morning, the person from HR calls me the next morning. And she said, you are doing exactly what we are planning to do at Disney. So we want you to come for an interview.

Andi Simon

00:13:38

Oh, that’s so interesting.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:13:39

And I was ecstatic. I jumped on my bed for five minutes because I just couldn’t believe this was happening. But then I went for the interview. I was interviewed by this senior director there, and probably ten minutes.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:13:55

We must have talked, and he said, you’re hired.

Andi Simon

00:13:59

Now, I just a note for our listeners in the world that we’re in today, this could also happen to you, but it doesn’t happen all that often. I mean, you clearly brought to them expertise and experience in a person who they found very desirable. Is that how it all came together? I mean, you just had the right stuff at the right time.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:14:20

I think so, I think it just the opportunity came at the right time. because whatever I had done was what they were planning to do. but their application and so my skills were very much required in the market. And it was the perfect time because I wanted to still be in California, be close to my family, but then work for a large company, and have unlimited access to Disneyland. So it was the perfect blend.

Andi Simon

00:14:49

Oh, that is just wonderful. And so the Disney story, how did that develop? Where did you do that? How did that what happened there?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:14:59

I, I worked for Disney for a long time.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:15:02

It’s a wonderful place to work. You know, they say it’s one of the happiest places to work. I think externally, for people who visit Disney theme parks and resorts, but also internally, they really care about their employees. It’s very diverse. It’s very inclusive. But for me, I think back then, this is 2000 or 2001. There were very few women in the tech space, and for me, I always struggled to find that balance of, you know, how do you build your how do you build your experience? How do you how are you able to talk about and self-express your thoughts? So when I would go to meetings, it was mostly men, or maybe me and another woman, and I felt no confidence in speaking my thoughts or why my experience was relevant for the projects I was doing because I wasn’t taken seriously. And that always bothered me, is how do I make them see the validity and trust from my experience, that I was hired for, and one day this one woman walks in.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:16:14

she was she really was amazing. She, she was a very smart lady. she would carry this, like, big briefcase that would walk with her, like, you know, when you go to the airport and you have this, like, carry-on bag, back in the day where you put your laptop and, you know, your work items, she had that, and she would walk around with that and she would come into meetings and, she would just say, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do this. Everybody has work to do. Okay? And then she would leave, and I would be like, I want to be like her. I want to be in power. I want to be able to be someone that’s respected and heard and listened to. So I, I wanted to figure out a way to talk to her. So every time I would go to her admin to ask for time, she had no time. She was busy from morning to night, and in my head, I needed to find a way to talk to her.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:17:08

So one day I was in the restroom washing my hands and inbox. Nancy and I just took that moment, and I asked her, and I said, Nancy, I really admire you. You’ve been in my inspiration. I want to be like you. And is there a way I can learn from you? Can you be my mentor? And she said yes.

Andi Simon

00:17:30

In the lady’s room. I mean, it’s a great story and keeps showing up and who knows and just speak your mind. Isn’t that wonderful? She must have been a fabulous mentor.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:17:43

She is. And, you know, fast forward and I’ll talk more about the program that I’m building. But she’s on my board, my advisory board now. we’ve been in contact. It’s been 25 years now, but she’s still been in contact. She still believes in me and she’s still supporting me. So I’m really blessed to have such wonderful women in me in, you know, in my career.

Andi Simon

00:18:05

I’m curious. Rashmi, did she talk about things like how you assume, authority.

Andi Simon

00:18:12

Responsibility, speak. I mean, were these the kinds of things that that that she could help you, skill develop or just watching her? Were you mimicking her? Give it. Give the audience some idea of how you did this.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:18:28

So she would meet with me every week and would ask me, you know, what do you what do you want to be? What is your perception of? Where do you want to go? For me, it was more understanding because I was very technical. I wanted to understand the business. I wanted to understand the different functions in the business, to really understand what are we delivering to our customers, you know, what is that moment for our customers and how do we get there? Because I always believe customers come first. If we understand our customers, we understand their needs, then we build technology that’s relevant to them. And so I was always intrigued and understanding what is that happy moment for the customers and then build that. And so she helped me understand the different functions in Disney.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:19:12

She helped me move around to different departments so I could really understand the story of, you know, how things come to life and then what’s the right technology to implement and bring it to life. And that really made me feel whole where I could actually talk about the end-to-end product from, you know, from the starting of like, what is the pain point with the customer to actually building something that’s, that actually makes a difference to that customer.

Andi Simon

00:19:43

What a wonderful opportunity to learn from somebody like this woman in a way that gives you a holistic approach to business, not just to the technical side of what you’re doing. And because you could have stayed in the technical side and been a better technician, but in fact, you wanted a bigger holistic. That’s really cool. I have a hunch that’s what you’re bringing to your clients now in your company. Yeah, but there’s a story about how the company came about. Also, you want to share it.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:20:12

Yes. So I had completed my ten years at Disney, and I loved every moment of it.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:20:18

My daughter was I have two kids, so my son was, I think five and a half by then, and my daughter was three, and she got sick, and we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but she was very sick, and she was hospitalized for two weeks, and, she had a very high fever around 104. And that was very worrisome for us. so I took an extended sick leave to take care of her. And then once she got out of the hospital, she had lost £5, which is a lot for a three-year-old child. And I had, I couldn’t think twice. I just wanted to be with her. I want to make sure she’s okay. And so I didn’t think twice. I just quit my job, and I just could think about what I can do to make her better, make her healthy. And as a mom, that was my first calling. And so I stayed with her home for a year. She got better and she went back to, I think she was in kindergarten or preschool.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:21:25

and then Disney called me, and they said, why don’t you come back to work? And I would have loved to go back. But, you know, back in the day there was no work from home. So you had to be at work five days a week. And I had that. I had that feeling in my mind that what if something happens and I don’t have enough time to run back to her school and pick her up? And it just as a mom, I always had that the feeling that I needed to be close to her. And so my husband really helped me. He became my mentor, and he said, why don’t you, you know, we had started Cajun at that point. And he said, you have done so much work for such large companies. Why can’t you do that for other companies? You have that experience. You have that knowledge. You can do that yourself. I didn’t believe that I could do it, but he helped me realize that, yes, I could do it.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:22:17

And so I started a practice for data management. And in the first year we grew 200%.

Andi Simon

00:22:25

Oh, my.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:22:26

Just two clients. And it just made me realize. You know what? It’s. I can do this. I have the skills to do this myself.

Andi Simon

00:22:35

Yeah. You know, you said before, you’re an entrepreneur. Did you know you were an entrepreneur before you became an entrepreneur? No.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:22:42

I was an individual contributor, and I was very happy in my life.

Andi Simon

00:22:47

And now I bet you’re very happy doing what you’re doing and building a business as well. So tell the listeners a bit about the business. I mean, how has it grown and what have you learned?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:22:58

We we’ve grown quite a bit. We received the Inc 5000 award last year. We grew 83% in three years. Wow. And we are global. We help companies across the globe, especially with digital transformation. So it’s a lot about, you know, cloud, AI and data because data is like the now the new oil, for all our customers.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:23:22

And it’s how can they find relevant information from their data? To be more competitive in the marketplace? but I think it’s been fun, and it’s been a really fun journey. for me, it’s all about because I’ve learned so much from my mentors. It’s all about how can I mentor my team so they can perform and find the best versions of themselves? Because everybody has that unique ability to do something, but somebody has to help them realize that, and when they do, they can really perform much better. And so that’s what I feel is my unique ability to help my team, you know, do better. And then when they do better, when my team is happy, my customers are happy. So that’s.

Andi Simon

00:24:08

That. It’s so interesting. And I bet your customers are coming a lot from word of mouth and from just being out there. Yep. Yes. And they’re all lining up to work with you,

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:24:18

Yes.

Andi Simon

00:24:20

You know, though, it’s interesting because there need is something you’re articulating in a way that isn’t tactical and practical, is very big picture visionary or am I missing it?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:24:35

I think it’s I do have that vision, and I have a, I have somewhere, but I want to be in the next five years.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:24:44

But I think it’s also like putting a plan. So I have advisors I have in the company, and we meet every week, and we discuss, we have a business plan, but we believe more in execution. And to do execution, you have to be on it every week because if you lose sight, you get in your business and you start working, you lose sight of your goals. So you have to work on them every week to make sure you are still aligned with what you want to achieve.

Andi Simon

00:25:09

It’s interesting because I finished a conversation with a client of ours along exactly those lines. You know, you can be thinking that you’re on a trajectory, going somewhere, only to realize that you have five direct reports, all of whom are going in different places, and they all think they’re going in the right place, but it’s not there at all. So your weekly meetings are really interesting. Is it diverse, your workforce?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:25:34

Yeah, my workforce is very diverse. We believe in different thoughts because everybody brings their own unique abilities and their strengths.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:25:42

And we also look at weaknesses as areas of improvement. So we always look at how can we create a good team where everybody has some unique strengths, and they can help each other?

Andi Simon

00:25:54

That’s cool. That’s quite a collaboration. One of the things that you and I talked about, and that I’d like to make sure we don’t miss, is that you’re also a company with purpose. You’re not just, you know, making profits. You have significance. And how are we doing that? How are you doing that?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:26:11

So I’ve, I’ve seen, you know, as an engineer and as a woman in Stem. I’ve seen this underrepresentation of women in Stem. And even though we have amazing universities with great programs for STEM it, we are not able to attract as a country, we’re not able to attract women. you know, there’s a lot of reasons and I’ve done a lot of research on this, but there’s a lot of reasons why women don’t want to get into Stem. You know, one is challenging.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:26:42

two it’s not. you know, I think women like to have a place where they can belong. They can feel that feeling of belonging, and they don’t feel that feeling when they’re in Stem because they feel alone. They feel isolated. And third, women want to be where they can feel. They can be inspired by somebody like them, but they don’t see anybody like them in leadership. So they feel they cannot. They can never get there.

Andi Simon

00:27:10

So true. And so what are you I have a hunch you’re doing some big stuff to help them.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:27:17

So I launched a program this year, and it’s more about helping women who are actually who care about their career, who are passionate about their career. And so we’re looking at women who are going back to school to get their graduate degree in data science or computer science, because there’s so much growth and there’s exponential growth in data. Now, as you know, especially with AI, I can only work if you have the right data sets. If your data is clean, you get the right reporting.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:27:48

And then I can actually use that to, you know, build different algorithms or give you the right information. But if your data is not clean, I can’t do anything with it. So there is a huge growth in AI. And so there’s many more colleges coming up with programs for data science as a master’s program. And so we are looking at women who are really looking to grow their career. They care about their career; they care about going back to school. And so we want to help those women because they’re already individually motivated to make a difference. And so we we’ve created a program. It’s called Up Tempo Careers. And you can go on the website and look up, up tempo careers. But our focus is, threefold. One is to help them get jobs because a lot of these women don’t get jobs because one, they don’t have confidence. And two, when historically you’ve seen that when you look at a job description and it says must have five years of experience, must have this, if women don’t see that they have it, they don’t apply.

Andi Simon

00:28:48

Yes.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:28:49

And so that’s a big problem. So we are helping by coaching them. We are helping them by helping them get mock interviews to say yes you have that confidence. Yes, you have the right skills to get the job. And then the most important part is mentorship. If they can get mentored by C-level executives that look like them and they see that yes, I can be that person one day, they have more reason and more motivation to go through the program and get that job and get into Stem. And so for us, it’s about job opportunities, professional development, coaching, mentorship, and then having a community of these women to talk to each other and inspire each other.

Andi Simon

00:29:33

This is so important on so many levels because I think it was Marian Wright, Edelman said. If you can’t see it, you can’t be it. And that’s a real problem, because if you don’t see women in Stem who are successful role models who can help and mentor you, you and humans want to belong, that we’re copycats.

Andi Simon

00:29:56

We need a community where we’re among others who are like us. And in the absence of that, it’s very lonely. That’s very cool. So what’s next for you, other than being the great lady that you are?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:30:12

I want to support this program. I want to see more women in Stem. And I think I’m going to devote more of my time on this program to see how I can help, grow and, you know, build my legacy around this.

Andi Simon

00:30:28

Well, I think this is wonderful. I do think we’re about ready to wrap up. You’ve given us a beautiful story. I think our listeners probably want 1 or 2 things that you have found very helpful. I mean, I’ve made my little list here while you’re talking about things. Not to forget 1 or 2 things you don’t want them to forget when they say goodbye and we say goodbye to them. What’s important?

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:30:51

I think not giving up. Keep going. And, you know, if you have a goal in mind, it doesn’t matter how many obstacles come your way.

Rashmi Chaturvedi

00:30:59

You just have to keep going. You have to believe in the outcome in the end goal. And if you believe in it, you know whatever is thrown your way just disregarded. And keep moving. And if you keep moving, you’re going to get there somehow or the other way you’re going to get there.

Andi Simon

00:31:15

Well, but you know, as you’re listening to Rashmi, think about her Atlantis story, getting up in the elevator to the 25th floor of the fifth floor to find somebody still there who hires her. I mean, this is about life, and you need to be confident and competent and believe in yourself and have that self-confidence to keep going. So on that note, I want to thank our audience for coming today. As you know, we do these podcasts to share with you great stories so you can see, feel and think a new way about yourself, perhaps your business. Perhaps you are an entrepreneur and it’s time to go out. Or perhaps others who you can mentor and help bring along.

Andi Simon

00:31:54

But these are changing times, and I love the part about data. You know, in anthropology 101, I remember being told out of context, data does not exist, or data do not exist. And so now what I is doing is trying to put it into context. But if it’s not good, it’s not good data, it’s not good stories. But we have lots of work to do and there are lots of jobs coming as well. But this is an exciting time for change and that’s what we do. So remember, we are corporate anthropologists. We help companies and the people inside them change. My job is to help you see, feel and think in new ways. And I do think that it’s a great time for you to reassess who you are, what you’re doing, and what you’d like to do. Our books are all available at Amazon. On the brink of fresh loans to take your business to new heights, rethink smashing the myths of women in business and the new book, Women Mean Business Over 500 insights from Extraordinary Leaders to help spark your success.

Andi Simon

00:32:53

It’s about wonderful women who want to share with you, like Rashmi did today, the kinds of stories that’ll help you change and grow. I wish you a happy day. Rashmi. Thank you for joining me today. Take care now. Bye.