>> From Palo Alto, California it's theCUBE,
covering VMware Women Transforming Technology 2019.
Brought to you by VMware.
>> Hi Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE
at VMware Palo Alto California at the 4th annual
Women Transforming Technology event wt².
And pleased to welcome to theCUBE
for the first time Rashim Mogha,
the Head of Product at Automation Anywhere.
Rashim it's great to have you on theCUBE.
>> Thank you so much Lisa very excited to be here
>> And good to see you again you and I were,
moderating the together woman achieve event a few months ago
that Dell sponsors back in I want to say November 2018
>> Yeah. >> where you one of the
exciting things in that swag bag was one of your five books,
Fast-Track Your Leadership Career.
Tell me about the book
what inspired it what can readers learn in that book.
>> Absolutely so I come from a project management background
and for me everything has to be in the form of a template
and that's how it works, right?
So when I was new to my leadership career,
I would read all these leadership books
but they would just focus on one area
so you had to read like so many books
and skim through all those books to extract
what worked for you.
Now for me it was important to kind of templatize that
and when I templatized it,
I actually started talking about it at various events,
one of them was Women Transforming Technology last year
and as I gave that after I finished that session
and we started I started walking out,
one of the attendees came to me and said,
this was such great information do you have a book?
and I said no I don't but I'll have one soon
and then I met with my publisher
whom I met through one of the speakers at WT2
and we started working on it
and in September we had a book.
>> September 2018 and then,
probably surprisingly to you 11 hours later,
this book was on the Amazon number-one bestseller list.
>> Yes it was >> that must have been like
whiplash what?
>> It was a very emotional day it was a roller coaster
so we had thought about my publishers
had more belief than I did in terms of
the book having the potential to be an Amazon bestseller.
And number one bestseller to be precise
and I was like okay let's give it a try.
So I was supposed to go to Grace Hopper Conference
last year at that time,
and I decided to stay back
because the book launch was planned on that day.
So we launched we started telling everybody
that the book is on Amazon,
at about ten o'clock in the morning
and by seven o'clock I got an got a text message
from my publisher with the screenshot,
saying it was number one.
>> So yeah very exciting it it took me a few days to realize
what it really meant to be an Amazon bestseller.
>> I bet that feels amazing.
So tell me a little bit before we dig into the book
and what you're doing here at wt² today,
tell me a little bit about your career path in technology
so we can understand some of the recommendations
that you're giving the current and subsequent generations
about how to fast-track it.
Where did you start was it I was a stem interested kid
to college.
>> Yeah so I was actually studying to be a doctor
because I come from India
so in India they're just three careers,
you're either a doctor or an engineer or you're nobody right
so and this was when I was growing up
so I actually unfortunately fell sick
and could not take my medical exam
and missed it actually took the exam,
missed it by a few points
and and did not know what to do
because all my life I had thought about becoming a doctor
and it just so happened
that there was a computer science program
that was out there and my mom saw,
saw in a scholarship opportunity over there
and she said well just give it a try
if you get the scholarship then we'll talk about it
and then fortunately for me I got 75% scholarship in that.
So I was like okay I'll give it a try
so I botany majored and did computer science
and that's where my journey started
into into the technology field.
And got an opportunity to be absorbed within
that group the same company absorbed me as as a developer.
And within six months I get an opportunity to write a book
and that was amazing because I never thought
that I could be a teacher or be in front of anybody
because I am so impatient as a person right?
So so then we started
when I started writing the book I realized ,
this is a great way to empower people and you know
and it's a it's a great way to use my technical skills
but also my writing abilities.
And then you know six months down the line,
I got an opportunity to be a project manager I took that
so in my life if you see if my career path
I've kind of bounced around a little bit,
taken risks early on in my career
and I continue to take risks in my career
because if you don't give it a try
you would never know. >> Exactly.
>> So and that's what I tell women today like
when you come out of college
or even if you are in somewhere in your mid-career.
You know don't don't tie yourself to a particular job role,
or to a particular area try out different things
and if there's an opportunity that's given to you,
grab it with both your hands
and then figure out how you're going to do the job well.
>> I like that I always think if you have a goal
that doesn't give you butterflies,
it's not worth having. >> Yeah
>> So in in just giving our viewers a little bit
of a snapshot what are some of the things
that they can learn and take away
from Fast-Track Your Leadership Career book.
>> Yeah so first and foremost is understanding
your superpower right?
How are you different from other people
what do you bring to the table that others do not.
Because in today's day and age,
almost everybody does a great job right?
What sets you apart for the next role is
what you should always know.
Building your personal brand
most often we introduce ourselves as
what job title we have and the company that we work for.
It's important to know
and have your identity beyond the company.
The third piece is understanding the difference
between sponsors and mentors.
And that is the place where I think women really need
to invest some time
because we normally seek mentors.
We very rarely go out and look at people
and say you know what this person is going to be my sponsor
and she or he is actually going to be my cheerleader
when I'm not there in the room
and and recommend me for that next job.
>> So that's the difference between a sponsor
I like that a sponsor and a mentors.
Mentor is giving you advice and guidance,
a sponsor is actually out there championing,
>> Absolutely >> why you should hire a Rashim
bring her into your team,
these are all the great things that she does.
>> Absolutely and then then there are other topics
that we cover we cover navigating work politics.
Most of us tend to stay away from politics
but actually how to get into that you know understanding
that I would call it work force intelligence if you will
and leveraging it to further your projects in a good way.
And then also building your support system now typically
when we women talk about support system,
we think about just two aspects.
Emotional support system and the logistic support system
but but there is also financial support system
and intellectual support system
and that's what you need to start building,
to be able to further your career.
>> I got to get a copy of this book.
You probably have some, I'm guessing (mumbles).
So you have a couple of sessions here at WT wt²,
building voice experiences through Alexa skills
but one that I want to dig into in the last few minutes
that we have.
Project you a DevOps approach to a leadership career.
Tell me about that pan and that breakout.
>> Yeah so if you if you really look at the concept of DevOps
it's or CI/CD model its development
and then pushing it into operations
and then moving into development again and then operations.
So when you actually start preparing
for your leadership career, that's the way you go.
You you rinse and repeat the cycle
what works for you in this role,
will not work for you in your next role.
So how are you continuously preparing yourself
and using that DevOps approach,
to kind of move to the next level,
is what we'll cover in that session.
>> That's fantastic.
So one thing I also want to mention is that
so we talked about becoming a number one Amazon bestseller,
the book Fast-Track Your Leadership Career,
just about six months ago in fall of 2018.
It also inspired you to found,
an initiative called eWOW, empowered Women of the World.
Tell me a little bit about eWOW
and why this book book number five being
so instantly successful was so inspirational for eWOW.
>> Yeah so I come from a training and enablement background
so for me it was and and you know
when you when you look at my personal brand,
it's all about enabling and empowering people.
So I wanted to basically find avenues,
to be able to empower other woman.
And essentially you know at eWOW,
we believe that every woman,
has the capability or is a leader in her own,
you know her own right.
And all that she needs is an intellectual platform
and a framework and that's where eWOW came into being.
We started off with just podcast,
doing weekly podcast picking up topics around leadership
and technical topics,
we have audience in about 20 countries right now
and then as an extension to that,
we also launched five Alexa skills
and that's going to be the topic
that I'm going to be speaking about later today
and it was all about you know different ways of enabling
and empowering people.
>> I love that. Well Rashim it's been such a pleasure,
to have you on theCUBE.
We thank you for giving us some of your time
and we look forward to talking with you again about,
maybe book number six?
>> Well you never know.
Last time I walked out of this conference,
I had a book in ring so you never know what's up.
>> You never know. But thank you so much.
Your story is very inspiring and and i can't wait to,
get my hands on a copy of that book.
>> Thank you so much.
>> My pleasure, Lisa Martin with theCUBE
on the ground at wt² from VMware.
Thanks for watching.
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