In Gratitude - S5.2 : Paying my homage through years of my life || My Career || By Anupama Vaidya

Series Part 5.2… towards my big milestone - 2021 - Golden Celebrations.

Published on Facebook: 21-Oct-2021

When I took up Geometric, little did I imagine, that this organization will always bring a spark in eyes and glow to my face whenever I mentioned it. Even today when I am writing, I am so nostalgic with all my fondest memories of my career with Geometric; for the wonderful years with them in two stints….; an organization which I hold so dear to my heart and all my colleagues, should say friends, with whom I grew through my professional career… …

It is THE organization that I owe my Business Leadership Making to, especially with the cross functional roles migrating me from being an HR person to being a Business Leader… be it heading Corporate Marketing and driving the IPO of Geometric, or heading Corporate Support Group and remodelling the backbone enabling functions of the business apart from the HR roles.

And to the lifetime relations that I have been able to build through the years with Geometric, including feeling a sense of deep fulfilment to being able to contribute in a big way.

I owe it to my reporting managers and mentors at Geometric to believe in me and provide me these ample opportunities, abundantly !!! Manu Parpia, Shashank Patkar, Vinda Chitnis…. Who have played and continue to play a vital role in my life professionally as well as personally… who are family to me….

In Manu Parpia, I have been blessed with a business mentor, a believer in young talent, and from whom I learnt how to really entrust responsibilities and give real cross functional movements, a leader with passion and drive, an entrepreneur at heart, who pushed your boundaries, or rather did not believe in boundaries! A leader with whom I could debate, deliberate, learn and grow !!! Even today Manu, every single day I worked with you, is still so fresh in my mind!

Shashank Patkar… you deserve a special along with Manu… … as you continue to be one of my biggest well wishers… every time being there by my side… … … Thank You Shashank, you have been a great senior, colleague, friend, advisor and of course a partner in progress…. Manu’s drive and your patience, amazing combination to work with at Geometric. Your discipline, commitment, vibrancy with an engaging personality and simplicity to look at complex problems and so calmy explaining things, loved all the learning through your association. Your enthusiasm really rubbed on all of us and it always helped me to be so engaged in all my work !

And if it weren’t for your guidance, Shashank, I wouldn’t have got the privilege to work with an amazing leader in my second stint! Vinda Chitnis, the wonderful opportunity of working with an extremely respected and wonderful HR Leader.

Vinda, you are an epitome of what an real HR leader who drives business or should I say a Business Leader who drives HR ! both are synonymous for you. As your team member I feel blessed to have worked with you and should say, all of us who got you as our HR Leader are the luckiest! And if you’ve not worked with Vinda, you have missed the best part of your professional life as an HR person. Thank you Vinda for being such an amazing role model HR Leader …. Your deep thought process, simplicity, understanding, approach towards complex HR matters with the composure… Loved every professional interaction and guidance. Your belief in me, even if we were hadn’t worked, played such a big role in being able to cover the ground… with a wonderful team You, Rajiv Singh, Rishi Agarwal and self with the overall HR team. It was a team to reckon with. Really appreciate Vinda for his brilliant leadership, and yes over the years growing into be a family…. A separate dedication to you and Madhuri vahini!

Loads of memories of Geometric, the first day in Pune Kothrud office as a 50th employee in Pune… To seeing Geometric grow multifold in the years to come… driving a meaningful HR Business Partnership role and educating what HR is really all about... to make an image turnaround to organising fun events – the Blue Diamond annual day which was first time, to the Fariyas Annual Day ! Do have some memorable photos…. To the Alibag picnic where I also transitioned location from Pune to Mumbai, transitioned from HR to Corporate Marketing….

And of course, not sure how many of you remember, we used to have a “heads@gssl” and a "tails@gssl", how the tails had given me this privilege to be a part of this alias where no heads could be part of it!

To being able to swiftly get the pulse on the ground that used to surprise the heads and making HR a partner in progress.

I still remember Manu’s first visit to Pune on joining in 1996, and taking me the toilet – First Lesson from him – “A Toilet, speaks volumes of how much we care for our employees. While Admin is looking at the cleanliness, he guided me to take on this mindset permanently in my life, and as an HR person, how to drive it to be the best part of an office. It became a measure of the leadership mindset for me”; a life time lesson learnt in the first month at Geometric! Which through the years, many of my colleagues across organizations will express how fussy and finicky I am when it comes to the office toilets! (I still remember my fights with my colleagues in Grindwell to ensure toilets are cleaned....! a lesson for life!)

To moving and taking up the Corporate Marketing, what an eventful 3.5 years to drive the Geometric IPO, lead PR and get wonderful international exposures including the CeBIT exhibition. The exhibition nuances in Germany! The Muncher Halle party of all colleagues at Hannover … … The presentations to media, top mutual funds, preparation of the IPO, every single word captured on Shatabdi express as I travelled only to get your dedicated attention and make notes for the IPO documents, pushing myself to learn and to deliver simultaneously! Learning the nuances of corporate support group while swiftly resolving business challenges… remodelling business, and the functions to deliver value through the years…

Manu, Shashank and Vinda’s belief, along with amazing support by colleagues and team, really pushed me to actually be able to make the difference… …

Presented me with opportunities at a very young age to present to the full Godrej Board on behalf of CEO while Manu and Shashank were away… remember the practice that Bindu got done from me in the Board room in the Vikhroli ! Wow… it’s like a movie reel, the flashbacks are so nostalgic.

Loads of colleagues to express my gratitude at Geometric, and don’t really want to miss anyone, so firstly before I mention a few names, three cheers to all my Geometric colleagues in both my stints 0 1996 to 2001 and then 2005 to 2007 !

Wonderful reminiscences to treasure with Prasad Joshi, Sandeep Kulkarni, Sameer Joshi, Mandar Lele, Vivek Garud, Jyoti Swarup, Rajiv Singh, Santosh, Anushri, Kirtimala Deokar, Prasad Kumbhojkar, Alpana Jayakar, Narendra Pitre, Ajit Joshi, Snehal, Kalpana Jaishankar, Veena Pinto, Anil Risbud, B R Lanka, Vinay Kulkarni, Nitin Tappe, Bhushan Khadpe, Leena, Rishi Agarwal, Nitin Bhide, Sameer Kondejkar, Sudarshan Mogasale, Vijay Khot, Atul Dhakappa, Vishwas Gite, Arvind Prabhu, Basil Almeida, Hemant Shah, Prashant Bagdikar, Parag Kale, Rajesh Jain, Sreekanth Jayanti, Abhijit Deshpande, Nidhi Jang, Anwesa Sen, Milind Shashtri, Prakash Pillai, Sonalika Johri, Hemant Gadgil, Rajiv Salkar, Vaibhavi, Pranali Save (once again!), Anand Joshi, Amit Sawant, Hemant Kamath, Rajkumar Bidwatka, Jayan Nair, Kalidas Suparaneni and many others with special special special mention to my team members across the years…. Bindu, Sunita Fernandes, Nidhi Mittal Segan, Manav Lalotra, Uttam Gujrathi, Manoj Parekh, Late Ashok Sharma, Shantanu Kulkarni, Prashanta Ghoshal, Priscilla, Neeru Singh, Sanjay Gupta, Sanjeev and many more! You built my leadership and prepared me to be a leader… I owe it to each one of you and it is amazing to see each one of you flourish and be in amazing leadership positions yourself!!! Three cheers to our teamwork!

It wonderful that many of you are still so close and in touch, I really look forward to the continued strength of friendship with all of you!!!

Geometric days, really hold a special place in my heart. It is the place that transitioned me to be looking at things with an Entrepreneurial Mindset, prepared me for Board level interactions and today I owe it to this one organization to really fill in my professional exposures to be what I am today and to grow through other organizations in years to come. It is a true representation for me that People make Organizations and as Geometric we lived the motto to the fullest: "People Building Partnerships!!!"

Preserving these memories lifetime … As I moved ahead in my career to a professional phase of growth and development… more on this onward journey tomorrow, as I once again salute everyone from Geometric days to give me my lifetime of memories!!!