Page 28 - MMI _ MayJune2021 (single-pages)

BIG INTERVIEW

UNLEASHING THE WOMAN POWER

Rashmi Urdhwareshe, President, Society of Automotive Engineers India (SAE
India), in this free-wheeling interview with Soumi Mitra, Editor-in-Chief,
MMI, talks about how is it being a woman leader in a primarily male-occupied
industry, the challenges encountered and overcome with uncommon élan,
SAE India’s vision, the future of green mobility in India and our machine tool
players’ readiness towards catering to it…

You carry a rich legacy of over and international leadership ural choice. Getting a degree in
37 years in automotive research Engineering from an extreme-
and development and are a positions as a woman in the ly male-dominated college was
recipient of the prestigious Nari a challenge in itself.
Shakthi Puruskar 2019 at the areas of automotive safety and With the humble beginning as a
hands of Honorable President Trainee Engineer in 1983, I rose
of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind. emission regulations? through the ranks to become
How has been your experience I love challenges! As a student, in 2014 the first Woman Di-
in handling various national I always dreamt of carving out rector (CEO) of ARAI, the pres-
a place for myself in the tigious National Institute. The
Research and Development journey was eventful, exciting,
field. Engineering came as a nat- and highly fulfiling. During my
career, I had the opportunity to
SOUMI MITRA Source: Rashmi Urdhwareshe work with some excellent boss-
Editor-in-Chief es, motivated teams and world-
Modern Manufacturing class technologies. I was also
India fortunate to receive national
soumi.mitra@ and international assignments/
magicwandmedia.in projects right from the start
of my career. It helped in wid-
Rashmi Urdhwareshe, President, Society of Automotive Engineers India ening my horizon, vision and
(SAE India) at Rashtrapati Bhavan receiving the Nari Shakti Award also aspirations.
During the course of career, I
handled technical, management
and subsequently leadership
roles within the organization as
well as at national/international
level. I quickly learnt to over-
come gender issues, biases and
hurdles with my strong commit-
ment to the organization and the
roles that I handled from time
to time. In troubled waters, my
family became my strong an-
chor and my ethics and values,
the beacon light.
I must also highlight that I
never did allow my profession-
al goals and direction to drift
away from organizational and
national goals. When I started
taking technical leadership role,
I influenced, to a large extent,
the strategic goals of the orga-

28 | May-June 2021 Modern Manufacturing India