Women innovative leaders have been breaking
barriers and inspiring change across various
industries. These trailblazers are known for their
vision, creativity, and determination to disrupt
traditional norms and drive progress. They lead
with empathy and strength, often championing
diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Women
leaders are strong examples of courage and
dedication. Even after facing many difficulties,
women leaders shine like diamonds. Their stories
are a testament to true resilience, discipline, and
sheer will.
"Every step you take
brings you closer to
the life you’ve always As Vice President of Operations at AgnoShin
dreamed of!" Technologies, she has not only driven the
company's success but has also championed
gender diversity and empowerment in the
workplace. Her efforts have resulted in over
60% of AgnoShin's workforce being women,
Gomathi Perumal stands as a beacon of many of whom have successfully transitioned
inspiration both as a woman and a business back into their professional lives after extended
leader in the tech industry. maternity breaks.
Gomathi's leadership is marked by her
commitment to fostering an inclusive
environment where innovation and
collaboration are paramount.
With over two decades of experience in the IT
industry, Gomathi has been instrumental in
fostering a culture of trust and empowerment
within the organization. Her leadership style is
deeply inspired by those who challenge the
status quo and strive for excellence, making
her one of the most influential leaders in the
tech industry today.
I was blessed to work under leaders who
molded my early days in an empowerment
model, investing a lot of trust, breaking my
"Breaking Barriers: inhibitions, and encouraging my risk-taking
The Inspiring Journey ability or implementing in my way.
We are trying to recreate the culture we have
of a Trailblazing learned and acquired. In our line of business,
it’s our associates' problem-solving skills and
Woman Leader" ability to deliver solutions to customers that
will ensure stickiness and growth. We invest in
our key leadership team to work
When I started my professional life in IT 20 independently.
years ago, I didn’t have a plan to be an
entrepreneur. I was lucky to be part of some of
the greenfield initiatives by the company and I
got a 360-degree view of the ecosystem. Over
the years, while on the job, these initiatives
grew, and so did our confidence that we could
build something. I was fortunate to have co-
founders who have worked with me for a long
time.
Somewhere in our work life, we envisaged a
work life that is fun and responsible, with a
small number of people addressing niche
requirements for the customer. Large
corporations need scale for every idea, and we
as a team decided to do what we are good at:
building a business. Ensuring agility and innovation
AgnoShin is six years old. If you ask me if we
in business
should have grown a little more, I would say
yes. If you ask me if our numbers should be Yes, true. Change is the only constant, and the
higher by now, I would probably respond yes. rate of change is increasing, while the response
We missed all this but built a company with time to change is decreasing. Our generation
over 60% women, most of whom re-entered has seen tremendous advancements over the
professional life after a long maternity break, last 20 years, from landline telephones and
and an overall workforce from Tier-2 and Tier- client-server systems to WordStar, dot matrix
3 towns. printers, pagers, digital diaries, large cellular
phones, expensive SMS, and call rates, to now
Key principles behind your doing all transactions on mobile. It's been
leadership success incredibly fast.
As a service provider offering strategic Aligning vision with operational
consulting to our customers, we have gained
visibility into the changing landscapes around
excellence outcomes
us, whether it's hardware platforms,
implementation ecosystems, or user There is no set formula, and these two cannot
requirements. No change is going to come and be independent objectives and vectors in
affect your business in a fraction of a second. different directions, which drag one another.
One needs to observe trends closely and Simply put, doing it right the first time, every
constantly evolve in sync with emerging time, and delivering through a structured
changes. This is possible only if you are agile, process helps us meet customer objectives,
nimble, and able to launch smaller teams to which in turn meets other KPIs. If you build
track and adapt to changes. the customer objective as the core, then all
other objectives are derived from it.
Inspiring and empowering team
to excel
I only micromanage in crisis situations, and
that too only if my involvement is required.
Otherwise, I tend to set strategic objectives and
facilitate the team to work on their plan. From
the early days, we have encouraged our senior
leaders to run business units independently.
Leaders need to play more of a
facilitation/enabling role rather than a
transactional role in the consulting business.
Driving innovation with human-
centric tech adoption
Listen to the customer, listen to the customer's
customer, and listen to the
technology/platform developers' view of the
customer's business. Form small teams to track
key technology areas that will impact our
customers and engage proactively.
Gomathi
Redefining Leadership in India's Tech Landscape
Perumal
Gomathi
Perumal
Gomathi Perumal
Vice President
Agnoshin Techologies
Showcasing Groundbreaking , and we have been using and implementing
them. With the availability of processing
Innovation or Sustainability
power and massive storage, these technologies
Unlike in large companies, startups provide are more visible. Our business revolves around
more growth opportunities for one's work. We these frameworks only, and we align our
try to drive our culture to be happy, fun- solution delivery with the customer's choice of
loving, respectful, mutually supportive, and platforms.
proactive in helping and supporting the
adoption of technology first, followed by
domain expertise. In a nutshell, it’s a team that
adapts and can deliver projects without
escalations and as per their storyboard. This
wheel won’t stop, and it embraces new recruits
quickly.
Overcoming obstacles with resilience
and creativity
COVID period was a testing time. Our pipeline
drained, our costs went up, revenue and
margins suffered massively, and our employees
were getting infected and some lost their
members. We took a business call to support
our core team and customers, taking a hit on
top line, bottom line, and reserves. But we
ensured no payment delays and no salary
withholding for any of our team members.
When normalcy returned, we were in business
with the same team to support customers.
Advice for aspiring women leaders in
Creating future-ready solutions with male-dominated fields
advanced technologies
I will rephrase this. Domination in any
I would say these technologies were in the segment, space, or territory is possible only if
industry under different names and avatars someone has deep domain strength.
Incidentally, the cover goes to men because
they were there. They ventured out, forged
alliances, traveled, worked long hours with
their team, and achieved it.
Be someone who inherited or started, that
gentleman has been running this race for 30 to
40 years to reach somewhere. I am not taking
credit away from them—they ran non-stop.
Women didn’t have such opportunities to run
long races—two maternity breaks, aged
parents, and in-laws; the first casualties for
women are career and health.
New-age women leaders are balancing this,
and I see vast improvement in their partners
playing a support role. Give us another 30
years, and we will be on every cover.
Future vision: shaping industry,
inspiring generations
What started as a small startup today has
grown to 200+ people in global locations, and
nearly 50% of our employees who started with
us are still with us. We created a supportive
work ecosystem. I am happy with what we
have done, and I would like to spend 50% of
my time with my customer and 50% with
young recruits.
Enable and empower are two large objectives
for my role, and I am slowly dissolving track
and control in my function.
