Career change A leap of faith or an informed choice

[Music]

hi everyone

i’m mayuri kango i’m a digital

practitioner for the last 16 years

seven years pre i was working as a

managing director for performix which is

a digital ad agency

and for the last two years i’ve been

working as an industry head with google

what does that mean that means i help

agencies figure out how to use google

products

to help their clients business grow and

of course grow their own revenue

so when i talk about all of this you

must be thinking i’m like a seasoned

digital professional right

but the fact is i started my career in a

completely different field

as some of you are looking at me you’re

thinking wait i’ve seen her somewhere

oh yes she’s that girl from garcia

nikalte papa kete right

i get that all the time and i did start

my career

at a very young age at 17 in bollywood

so how did bollywood happen was it a

thought out decision

of course not i was 17 i wasn’t thinking

about much

it was actually just a happenstance or a

chance that happened

so i come from a culture of theater my

mother was a renowned theater actress

she was a teacher she was just

incredibly accomplished the super mom

if you can say that so she had gone to

bombay to pursue

her passion which was acting and i had

gone due just before my 12th birth

during a christmas bake

to meet her and my hidden agenda was if

i can get her

nag her to take me to linking road so i

can buy shoes so while that was

happening she took me for a script

reading for a movie called naseem

uh the director of which was mr sayed

mizar as the script reading was

happening he looks at me and he goes

wait she’s minor same i was like no

that’s not happening

i’m a good student i’m going to be an

engineer i need to study really hard

this is not going to happen for me

so i was like no i can’t do this but

then i thought about it

my family has very deep social and

political roots in this country

we believe passionately about the

freedom of fright about the freedom of

religion

and about securism this movie was about

baby masjid riots which were very

divisive for our country

for the fabric of our country and i felt

i owed it to my family to my

grandparents into my country

to do this movie just that once and i

did it and it was supposed to be a

one-off

and i was supposed to go back to doing

my engineering they say life is what

happens to you when you’re busy making

other plans and that’s basically how

bollywood happened to me

as i was waiting for the results of my

12th board maheshwar wanted to offer me

the lead role in papa kete and rest as

they say

was history and soon i decided to choose

bollywood over engineering my parents

encouraged me they said i must try it

out

with one small caviar saying no matter

what you do you have to continue your

education in one form or the other

so they said you must pursue your degree

in arts if you cannot do engineering

at that and for that i’m really really

grateful but at that point of time i

really resented the hell out of them i

mean imagine you’re a 17 year old

you want the glitz and glamour of

bollywood and your parents are nagging

you to

enroll in to meet ebay and do a degree

so obviously i resented it

at that time but i think that was one of

the smartest choices my parents made for

me

and so that’s what happened um i entered

bollywood and for the next 10 years i

did many different roles

became famous became moderately

successful

i must say that however i was never

really satisfied with what i was doing i

was always looking for something else

looking for something more

i felt like it wasn’t a satisfying

career for me i’m not saying i didn’t

enjoy it of course i enjoyed it i

enjoyed the first few movies a lot

i enjoyed the travel the fame the

success but it always came at a cost

right

and that was the cost for me was my

desire for privacy my desire to be more

than just an antiquated

female in some drama that i really could

not associate with

so at one point of time i thought to

myself instead of just complaining about

the life you have

can you make a life you want or a life

you choose

and it wasn’t an easy decision you can’t

just get up one day and change your life

all over

it takes a lot of courage and you’re

frightened of changed i was

also you don’t really know what you

could do so i continued this way for

about 10 years and i said at one point

of time that you know

if i want to change my life it’s up to

me the only thing stopping me

is me and i need to take charge of my

life and that’s what i decided to do

it really helped me that i had

incredible set of friends

i had a family that really supported me

no matter what i chose

but i didn’t know what the choices were

eventually i went to a career counselor

i looked at everything that was

available to me

and i decided i knew exactly what i had

to do but the first thing i had to do

was quit bollywood so in 2005 that’s

what i did

so while i have really fond memories of

bollywood and everything that i did

there

i remember being different i remember i

was always more interested

in asking about questions about the

business of filmmaking right how are

films made how do you

budget for them i used to ask tons of

questions to producers and directors

sometimes they indulged me sometimes

they answered my questions sometimes

they told me

i asked too many questions and maybe

they mocked me but none of them really

deterred me from the fact that i wanted

to know more about the things

related to business and that was

actually something that kept coming

coming back to me so as i thought about

what i wanted to do next i knew that

i had to take a path that was of real

interest to me

and being a business leader or leading a

business was something that i always

wanted to do

so with the help of my friend and a

career counselor i decided to pursue my

mba in 2005. so i worked really really

hard i gave my gmat and my friends and

my family really supported me they

proofread my essays

helped me shortlist colleges in the us i

could be applying to

and the best part was when i did get

that admission along with the

scholarship they acted like i’d landed

on the moon like that was the first

woman to have ever done that and that

was

that gave me confidence because at that

point of time i really did lack that

because i had not been in a college for

many many years

so with that i decided after many years

of bollywood to quit everything

got on a flight to new york and decided

to start the next phase of my life

so was the transition difficult from

being an actress to a student it was

incredibly difficult i was intimidated i

i was i was really really petrified i

remember for the first

six to eight weeks of the my mba term

sitting in my class really being quiet

because i was surrounded with people

with tremendous amount of work

experience

they had so much to contribute and i

felt i didn’t and it took a toll on my

on my self-confidence for a little bit

till i started realizing that instead of

being petrified of change and thinking

about how much other people know

i can actually learn from them so i paid

attention i learned from what everybody

else was talking about and then

as time went by and i started getting

really good grades

my confidence came back i also decided

to take active steps to build my

portfolio as this as you say i took up

internships i

worked full time i also made sure that i

was doing my studies really well

so that kind of helped me gain a little

bit of confidence in myself

and so when i landed my first job in a

digital advertising agency i was super

thrilled

that was something that i really wanted

to do so my dream

has always been to be a ceo of a company

and you know when somebody asked me

a little while ago where did this dream

come from i didn’t really have a clear

answer but i do remember

as a child my father who was a doctor

but also a union leader

used to talk about you know all the

things that he used to do for workers

rights

and i remember think asking him who

makes this decision that

and he said he introduced me the concept

of boards and ceos

and the kind of influence and the power

they can have in the lives of different

people

and i felt that that’s what i wanted to

do that’s the kind of person i wanted to

become

that was one incident and the second

incident i remember was

actually really funny because this has

got to do with advertising i was really

young and there used to be this ad that

used to come on bonds where there was a

girl

who used to walk with full confidence

into a room which was a board room full

of men she’s the only woman in that room

and she takes her seat at the head of

the table that was a woman i admired

her self-confidence her voice and that’s

what who i wanted to be

i just didn’t know how by when i started

doing my mba i started seeing a path

to that dream that i had as a child

sometimes in life you can see those

glimpses of

the future you really want you have to

grab onto them you have to hold on to

them

and that’s what i did so i knew i had to

work twice as hard as everybody else

if i wanted to get ahead in my chosen

career and i did that

and was it hard were their biases being

in a different country of course it was

a i did not have the same background as

everybody else i couldn’t have the

banter about

what college life was like because i

didn’t have that

i came from a completely different

society a different culture

different skin color so you do stick out

like a sore thumb

but i don’t believe i i ever that let

that get to me i believe that if i

worked extra hard and tried to find

something that nobody else found

i’d make a niche for myself and that’s

what happened eventually

i managed to make a niche for myself and

i grew in my profession i gained the

confidence of my colleagues my manager

and i started doing really really well

in new york and grew through the ranks

so after eight years in new york i

became a mom i had a baby

and it was really tough being a mom and

working in an advertising agency the

long commute

no support system and i felt i wasn’t

doing justice to either of the roles

right

i wasn’t able to be a good mom i wasn’t

able to be a great

advertising professional i felt i was

struggling but i really didn’t know what

are the options i had

and i knew i could cut back on my work i

could work four days a week or three

days a week but it would come at the

cost of my career aspiration which is a

reality for a lot of women

and i wasn’t willing to make that

sacrifice at the same time i didn’t want

to

give up on the quality time i was having

with my child so i didn’t know what to

do

and then again as they say sometimes

things happen i came to india for a

visit

uh when my son was about 11 months old

and

i got offered a job to actually start a

digital agency for the same company i

was working in new york

uh for in gurgaon it was

an incredible opportunity this was

something that i’ve always wanted to do

this was something that i was looking

for but it just was

so intimidating and so scary at this

point of time in my life

i had made a name for myself in new york

i had a network of professions that knew

me

in india i’d have to start from scratch

i’d have to build my credibility all

over again and not to mention the fact

that i was a new mom

and this role would be even more

demanding but sometimes you just have to

trust your gut

you have to take that chance on yourself

and take that risk because you know that

it’s

taking you to the path that you always

wanted to go and so that’s what i did

i packed up back baggage dog baby

everything and i arrived in india

my colleagues my friends back in new

york thought i was insane to take a risk

as big as this

but that risk was worth it for me so

coming back to india

my second pivot in 16 years that

transition was

actually even tougher right really

really difficult actually

because at this point of time i was

joining a company as a leader

and i really didn’t have any credentials

in india every meeting i walked into for

everybody

i was that once famous bollywood actress

and they had no context of what i had

done in the last 10 years i had no

credibility as a

as a digital professional i had to walk

into every meeting i had to walk into

office every single day

to prove to everybody that i deserved

where i was and i

actually could do this role and i could

do it well and it took

took me a lot of time it took me two

years to build that credibility all over

again and i’ve had many sleepless nights

and cried over it and

it it was worth it because i really

think that if you

if you believe in yourself if you give

yourself a chance and if you kind of

take those risks and take big bets and

stand by them you’ll lose some but

you’ll definitely win more

and that’s what happened to me so i

spent about eight years leading this

company in publicis and those were the

eight

most amazing years of my life the

learning curve was incredible

i worked with some really really

interesting people

challenging people i learned so much and

like i said i made so many bets as

as a leader of this company and some of

them failed of course

but a lot more actually paid off and

they got me to where i am today

and i wouldn’t trade that for anything

now i’m at google and i enjoy this other

side of advertising

where i’m again learning a lot of new

things and i think that’s the most

important part uh for be for you to

enjoy your career

you have to be at a point where you’re

constantly learning

and that’s what i feel makes you good at

your job

and so that’s what i’m doing today and

i’m really enjoying myself so you must

be wondering why i’m sharing this really

deeply personal story with you

that’s because i know change can be

intimidating it can be frightening

but sometimes you just have to take a

risk you have to take a chance on

yourself

and you have to plow ahead if you want

to pursue your dreams

i’m sure some of you are at similar

crossroads right now it could be in your

personal life or in professional life

and you don’t really know if you should

take that chance and take that path

because you don’t know where it’s going

to lead you next

and the reality of it is most of us make

some of our most

important life choices between the ages

of 17 to 25

and we don’t really know the complexity

of the choices that we are making

we also don’t know what doors they will

open for us we really don’t know a lot

about the choices that we are making so

what should we do

we should talk to people we should seek

out mentors we should absolutely get

advice from people

in fields that we’re interested in we

should read a lot because there really

is no substitute for knowledge

but after you have done all of that

you’ve read you’ve talked to people

dig deep down within yourself and see if

this

feels right to you but also be brutally

honest about yourself and your

capability

because you know there’s always going to

be failure no matter what choice you

take

you should be okay to work with the

failures to learn from that failures to

be brave

and continue on that path you should

have that determination to want that

path that badly

once you have made that choice i don’t

think you’re always going to get it

right

you will fail sometimes you might get

questioned by other people in fact

you’ll get a question a lot by a lot of

other people

but don’t worry about what other people

think about you or what they think you

should be doing

because they don’t have to live your

life you do my advice to you and myself

always it’s okay to be terrified of

change we all feel that

but we have to learn to trust that inner

voice we have to

believe in our gut and we have to do

what we think is right for us

keep asking questions keep learning

pursue what you really really love

and don’t be afraid of taking a chance

on yourself you will be amazed at what

you can achieve

if you only learn to say yes to yourself

you