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