Also read: 'Women in India have made their mark'

With Women's Day coming up on March 8, rediff.com decided to speak to career women at the top of their game -- corporate hotshots in positions of professional power.

Yesterday Chitra Sood, staffing director at Microsoft India Development Centre gave her views on the position of career women in today's India.

In the second part of this series Preeti Vyas Giannetti of Vyas Giannnetti Creative says that there is always a glass ceiling for women at the top level.

What do you feel makes you a successful career woman? What is your advice to young women poised to start their careers?

I think that passion, dedication and having an attitude of a karmayogi are what make me a successful career woman.

Young women should believe in themselves; listen to your inner voice -- there are enough people around who may either want to distract you or put you down. But the biggest voice which may want to pull you down is you yourself. If you won't believe in yourself you won't get anywhere. But if you truly feel passionately about something then don't give up on it.

Don't do it in a dilettante fashion -- that you want to do this today and forget about it tomorrow and a day after that take on something else. Search within yourself what is the right thing to do and importantly don't give up on that even if you have to face numerous difficulties.

Enjoy the journey. You are doing it because you are really enjoying it; that's the only reason to be passionate about something. Frankly, this message is for everybody preparing to start their career path.  

How are working women in India, across all sectors, faring, compared to women in other countries?

I think in India you will find a lot of women accepted in lower and middle management role. However, if you go up the triangle you will find that there are not many women there. There is a glass ceiling and I have myself experienced it.

To overcome such difficulties women have to be dogged and dedicated. Women need to demand their rights if they think they deserve it at their workplace. However, it's not always easy. Eventually, I have to start my own business and create my own rules.

Even still I have to prove myself to my clients or to a detractor the right kind of employee mindset. Nobody had a doubt of my creative skills but they might want to question my strategic skills, my thinking skills, my business acumen, my ability to understand their business. I think I've always had to go that extra mile and perhaps I wouldn't have had to do that were I a man.  

Are women in India getting the right kind of jobs, salaries, promotions and status?

That's a difficult question because I think in certain organisations it really depends on the people you work with. People who do your assessment and reward you with the kind of increment: if you are doing it on merit then it's ok.

On the other hand if there's a men's club then it may not happen. So I think the more a woman shows confident, the more she demands what is rightfully hers, she will always kind of make an impact within the organisation.

Of course, there will always be male voices that will try to put women down. Not to mention cultural conditioning which tells a woman that she must always be second to a man. Then even if a woman has leadership qualities she may not actually take the lead.

Is the men-women ratio skewed in favour of men in corporate India? Will it continue to be skewed and why? What can be done to augment the women workforce?

Yes, it is. What often happens in a woman's career path is that around the time we get married and have a child we have to drop out of the treadmill a bit. I think that is really one big reason why companies tend to have more men in their workforce. That's the way businesses have been structured for the male gender and not the female gender.  

There are no real allowances made for these situations. However, if the men also have to take time off for such reasons then I think times will change. If the man also has to go home and look after a child as the woman, then there surely will be a change. However, the culture doesn't expect that of a man.

I have had similar situations like that myself. If I had listened to those voices or if I had given up on my career I would have ended up in the same place. I think if women are dogged, dedicated and disciplined the skew in men-women ratio in favour of the former will definitely change.

At the end of the day this will be so much in the woman's hand and not in the man's hand.

For many potential career women striking a balance between home and work is often too challenging and they are lost to the workforce. What is your advice to women planning to attempt the balancing act?

There is no way anybody can ignore the work-life balance. For any woman having a child and a home, the child will always come before her work. I can vouch for that. I have a child and had been in situations where I have to completely stop looking at work.

However, the work-life balance can be done successfully if your partner is empathetic towards you.

Your 2020 vision for India and how can women help shape that vision?

I think the most amazing opportunity for India is that we are at a vantage point where, in some ways, we know what our future is in terms of economic growth. We also know very much that the trajectory is like a western economical model.

Yet we have an incredible amount of wealth of our spiritual and traditional insights. And I think an amalgamation of these two can help to preempt situations so that you don't repeat the mistake the West has made.

Specifically to women, I think women are great carriers of value systems. It comes to them very naturally and I think women could play a key role if they expand their role beyond traditional ones like child-rearing, being a home caring person which is not to say that they have to be in a professional role. They need not be; but if their vision is expanded -- no matter what role they choose for themselves -- they will be great influence in shaping tomorrow's world and vision.

Women are the one who nurture the next generation, isn't it? In whatever role they chose to be as a home maker, a professional, if their vision is broader, their insights are deep then I think women can do a great job.

Also read: 'Women in India have made their mark'