RIFKA ZIYARD
COLOMBO : Colombo Times met with Jani Ganeshan who has served in various capacities in her career as a finance professional in several organizations across multiple industries. In addition to managing her busy work schedule, she is a passionate contirbutor to the professional institute in many roles. Jani, while recalling her career thus far, remarks – “Don’t doubt yourself, listen to your intuition and be sure of what you want. My career decisions have always been perfect which has made my career life extremely satisfied. However, there were occasions that I doubted myself and was reluctant to take certain decisions. I wish I could have been confident about my decisions. However today I am proud of my career decisions which have molded me into the person who I am today and has helped me to gain exposure in multiple industry segments within 10 years of post-qualifying experience”.
Jani Ganeshan is a graduate from the University of Colombo specialized in Accountancy & Management and a Distinction holder of Master of Business Administration from University of West of London. She underwent her articles in KPMG Ford Rhodes Thornton & Company and became an Associate member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) in 2010 and a Fellow member in 2015. She has worked in various capacities in her career as a finance professional serving in several organizations in the telecom, manufacturing, consumer foods and retail industries. She currently works for Rockland Distilleries (Pvt) Limited as the Sector Financial Controller. She is the immediate past President of Young Chartered Accountants Forum and President of CA Sri Lanka Toastmasters club. Further, she has served as a member of Members Conference Committee and Journal Committee of CA Sri Lanka and engaged as an exam supervisor and a marking examiner of CA Sri Lanka for past several years.
Jani shared her views on the challenges faced by women climbing to leadership positions. She explains, “Gender progression over the years has been satisfactorily high in our country when compared with the rest of the Asian countries, yet the recognition of women at the upper echelons in businesses is considerably low. Even in the present context, women face a lot of challenges to climb to leadership positions as well as to successfully retain those positions. Occupational segregation is one of the key challenges faced by women even in this modern era. This segregation is largely stemming out of the factors that are connected with workforce such as expertise, responsibilities, wage and status and power offered by the occupation. The occupations where females are prevalent extend to less advantaged work than employment opportunities in which men prevail. Lesser pay, absence of annuities, limited advantageous job profiles, working hours and fewer doors opened for career advancement predominantly segregates the occupational benefits offered to women from that of men”.
There is a school of thought whereby some organizations, knowingly or unknowingly confine the women to specific work roles within an organization. Jani shared her views on this, “Surprisingly, even some organizations give priority to a woman’s domestic role in the society. When the employers expect less contribution and discontinuous cooperation from women when contrasted with men due to their conflicting household duties, companies would confine female admittance to specific employment tools. In this way, women end up in impasse positions with restricted mobility which is a major challenge”.
Further when explaining how perception on gender roles leads to the biggest challenge, Jani commented “Perception on gender roles is another crucial challenge faced by women for decades. Women have been portrayed as a gender that does not embrace paid work due to the norm of them being positioned as better homemakers. It is the general belief that women’s domestic role in the society would provide the ultimate satisfaction in life and most are not inspired to build up a job for themselves out of the home. The pressure and the expectations on gender roles imposed on women makes their journey to the top of the career ladder harder and challengeable where still the success of a woman is measured by the state of her personal life. This is an inevitable challenge faced by any working woman”.
Jani, based on her experience imparts salient advice to enable young women in reaching their full potential “Don’t wait for an invisible power to help you overcome your struggles, struggles are common to each and every woman. However, how you would face the struggle and how you would decide to overcome the struggle would determine your journey. It’s important to understand that it requires significant effort from you to break the barriers to reach your dreams. Know your worth and love yourself”.
In sharing her views on whether women in a leadership role add more variant to the traditional concept of leadership, Jani says “Women are considered to be better than men when it comes to certain categories of occupation due to their deftness and their capabilities of multi-tasking and also for doing continuous monotonous work with commitment. Better communication skills and accountability also make women capable of performing certain managerial roles. However, at leadership, it has always been a question whether women possess the necessary skills to perform the duties at a leadership level. Their contribution to strategic level decision making with a holistic approach, has not been noteworthy all around the world whilst Sri Lanka has not been an exception to this. Females are mostly concentrated at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy, whilst the access of professionally qualified women to the top positions continue to be impeded by the “glass ceiling” created by the gender norms”.
Jani says, “As per latest researches, I understand a minimum of 30% women in leadership positions increases the net profit margins of the company by 15% which evinces that women in top positions play an active role in adding value to the table”.
Jani further added, “Women also contribute in inclusive decision making, increasing collaboration and bringing broader market perspective to board room discussions. Holistic approach and the dynamic variants brought in by women while creating harmony at the workplace has been a reason for the increase in demand for females at leadership positions in recent past”.
In facing any challenge that comes your way, Jani comments based on her experience, “Never give up! A perceptional change in the society is possible only if us as women come out of the traditional gender roles that we have accepted for ages. The moment that we give up the courage to stand stronger against all invisible barriers it would be much easier for the community to portray us as the less determined and poorly contributing gender to the workforce. Having equal work opportunities and sources of income would definitely lead the way to harmonized families as it would help to take away the male dominated image portrayed in our culture. We should no longer be confined to the roles of a mother or a wife as we are capable of doing much more. Never give up, no matter how hard the situation is”.
The views expressed in this interview is in her personal capacity.
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Interviewed and compiled by Rifka Ziyard MBA, FCMA, CGMA, FTII, B Com
Rifka is the Director – Tax and Regulatory at KPMG.
