Spirit W | I don't wish to be praised as a super-woman: DDB Mudra's Mitali Srivastav

The Indian woman has taken a big leap to lead her generation. She is exploring her full potential in the field she chooses to excel. This is especially true of the urban woman whose aspirations and ambitions make her a truly evolved person.
 
Now with gender barriers not being an issue we see creative agencies, television, newspapers, magazines, and of late digital agencies run by women and they are on par with their male counterpart. They are the emerging talent in the industry today and most of them are on the fast lane, reaching the top steadily.
 
Mitali Srivastav, Associate Vice President, Planning, at DDB Mudra belongs to the above  genre of these women who love to face challenges in life and their career. She started her career as a journalist before moving on to TBWA in 2006 and O&M in 2008. She is presently with DDB Mudra. Her journalistic  background gives her an insight into PR and social media that adds a totally different perspective on brands’ communications challenges. She could be considered ‘a planner for the future.’. Her experience, insight and enthusiasm is her forte. She has also handled luxury brands in the past and has an understanding of luxury consumers in India.
 
Adgully caught up with Mitali Srivastav to learn more about her aims, aspirations, the challenges she has faced in life, her views on the woman of today etc. This is what the vivacious Mitali had to say:
 
When asked about her early days and how her career took off Mitali said, “I started my career as a TV journalist in Zee News as I was an idealist and wanted to do something meaningful and challenging in life. I wanted to get into political journalism and soon got an offer to work as a principal correspondent for Congress Seva Dal. My tryst with journalism and politics had a huge impact on my ideologies, and I discovered various dimensions of my personality. I discovered that diving into human behavior fascinates me. I also realized that politics and journalism would not give me a limited opportunity to explore, so I started getting restless with my career choice. My friends in advertising recommended strategic planning to me. I was a deputy editor when I quit journalism and it was a tough call as I had no clue about advertising or brand planning. I was older than most of the trainees around me when I joined a small agency in Delhi. It inspired me move faster in my growth and with my learning curve so I submerged myself into learning the craft.” She has worked under some brilliant planners like Vivek Dev Sharma and Gaurav Tulsi who taught her the nuances of research and planning. She is all praise for her stint at TBWA, Ogilvy and DDB Mudra which has exposed her to different styles of planning culture and the varied experiences and cultures  have helped her immensely in her career.   
 
Every industry poses challenges and Mitali too has faced her share of challenges in her field. With regard to this is what she had to say. “Media is an industry that lives on the edge all the time. That’s what makes it addictive, and challenging. We face a new challenge with each brief. However, one of the key challenges in advertising is that lot of specialists are emerging in the industry. A creative director often lacks perspective on business and an account management often lacks the insight and vision for a great idea. I think the best work comes out when a group of generalists with different core skills get together. My constant challenge is to break the various working silos and build a culture around me that believes in working together as a successful team.”
Commenting on the kinds of projects she is looking to work on presently she said that at DDB Mudra, strategic planning is a shared resource across various business verticals. It’s a unique way of working in an agency, and at DDB Mudra Group they believe that all their planners should be exposed to different aspects of marketing, consumer groups and mediums. She went on to say, “Besides working on some key brands like J&J’s Clean & Clear, Neutrogena, Lipton, Big Bazaar and Godrej, I also work closely with our digital agency, Tribal DDB, our health and wellness agency, DDB Health and Lifestyle and our data marketing agency, Rapp.”
 
Sharing her views on the standards she has set for herself to accomplish her goals Mitali said, “I don’t know anyone who has a fixed standard for accomplishing goals. As you get older your goals move from money to various other things and it changes at every life stage. I evaluate my work and my life on the basis of what it makes me feel on a daily basis. I love coming to work, I love working on my brands and I love being a part of my client’s success. If an idea or an insight excites me then my objective is met and if it translates into successful business and creative solution then my goal is accomplished.”
 
Today’s woman leads a professional life alongside her personal one. When asked in what spirit one should do so she opined, ‘Patience and intuition’ She goes on to add,“It’s a unique ability that most women possess and it usually helps them take the right decisions in their personal and professional life. Women need to rely more on this ability as besides the obvious skill sets we possess, there is a huge potential for us to be even more successful if we tap into the softer side of our personalities.”
 
Touching on the topic of research work involved in her projects she believes that research is the starting point for any project. According to her successful ideas are often intuitive and sustainable success comes only if there is rigour and research behind an idea.
 
Mitali Srivastava’s present portfolio gives her job satisfaction in her career. “I always wanted to be a journalist. But, after associating closely with it for a few years, I realised that I wasn’t in awe of the industry, but more in awe of discovering insights and truism behind human behavior. As a strategic planner, I believe I am doing exactly what I ventured out to do more than a decade ago and I am glad I am doing what I wanted to do in life, she exclaimed.
 
Women in power meet deadlines and have hectic schedules . When asked how she plans her day she simply states “There is no fixed template to tackle a day. My days are sometimes absolutely chaotic and sometimes well scheduled.”
 
Her views on the belief that women professionals in media have some inherent characteristics which make them excel in business. She has a very rational explanation for this. She says, “I think women are excelling in many industries now. From technology to arts, they seem to be scoring better than many men around them. I think one of the reasons could be that a woman’s ability to excel outside the domain of her house has been questioned for decades in our country. So they feel the need to work harder, be more resilient which is helping them excel in business.  
 
With regard to her own journey in the media industry she exclaims, “It’s been a roller coaster ride so far and makes my head spin sometimes. But it’s the reason why I am addicted to my work!”
 
Mitali does not refer to anyone in particular when asked about a mentor in her life. On the contrary she says, “I think I learn something new every day. I have learnt a lot from my seniors. The young planners around me teach me a lot. I don’t think I can give credit to anyone in particular.” With a touch of humour she adds, “You will run out of pages if I start naming everyone who had made an impression on my life.”
 
She disagrees that women are from Venus & men are from Mars. Elaborating on this she says, “It’s a great name for a book but it just doesn’t make sense to me. I think men and women are different in many ways, yet they are similar in essence. We complement each other as species and one without the other will be incomplete. So how is it possible that we are from venus and men are from mars?”
 
Mitali is very ambitious and aspires for the best in life. She said that her aims and ambitions constantly evolve and once she has met her objective she looks for something new and more challenging. “At the moment I aspire to do more meaningful business solution workshops in partnership with clients as such workshops ensure that decisions are taken quickly and ideas are implemented immediately as there is more ownership of ideas from the agency and client side.” she said.
Being very independent and determined to succeed in life Mitali says, “I don’t think I have ever emulated anyone in the past and I see no reason why I would want to do that in future as I am my own person.”  
 
Elaborating on the fact that women today especially those who live in metros and big cities have evolved rapidly and are seen as key decision makers, Mitali attributes this change to various reasons but says the prime reason  is education. She opines, “There are many reasons for this change. Education is probably the main reason for it. Our mothers are educated in metros, and therefore, their daughters are able to take a leap from just being a support system in the house to being the core pillar in many households. We are just experiencing the tip of this change in our society. I think in few years, the actual changes will really emerge.
 
Commenting on the widely believed notion that a  woman is expected to be a superwoman and is judged more harshly compared to men she shared her views saying, “ For decades we have been fed the idea of the multi tasking, super efficient Indian woman. I think expecting women to excel in everything is unfair. The whole idea stems from a man’s need to have a wife who can cook for him, take care of the kids and be a successful career woman as well. Why should we have such high expectationsfrom a woman? She gets the same 24 hours in a day, but she is expected to work more. And if she is not able to manage her personal and professional life then she is judged as an unsuccessful woman. If she chooses to pursue only one aspect of her life then she is judged as a selfish or a lazy woman.”  She goes on to say that she has often  met women who lament about not working and feel that they have wasted their education. She is of the firm belief that a woman need not feel guilty of her position as a housewife on the other hand she has also interviewed women who are task masters in their work space and are judged as selfish because they choose to pursue their career at the expense of everything else?
 
In conclusion Mitali vehemently adds, “Why can’t a woman be respected and appreciated for making a choice? Why does it need to fit into the stereotype of the perfect multi tasking woman? I am happy being just another woman. I don’t wish to be praised as a super woman. It’s a trap that most women fall into and its sad.”
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