Shell "Women's Leadership Series" Mapping Your Future by Dr. Latha Ramchand


Dean Latha Ramchand of the C. T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston conducted a follow up session for her talk “Mapping Your Future” originally delivered on November 13, 2013 at the Hess Club. The Chamber also opened it up to women who had missed the previous session and wanted to be part of thisĀ “mentoring circle” event sponsored by Shell.

The Dean’s talk centered on the topic of taking a strategic approach to planning your career. She emphasized the following points

Follow your heart:
While things change and plans must be flexible, we must start by allowing our strengths to inform our career choices. A personal SWOT analysis provides a good starting point. Our passions must ultimately speak to our ‘jobs’.

The power of strategic networks:
Networks are critical and rather than letting the event in our life dictate our networks, we must cultivate networks based on our passions and goals.

List your challenges:
Finally we must be clear about our challenges and tackle them head on, whether they are personal habits we need to get rid of, or education and credentials we need to acquire so we achieve our goals.

Track your progress:
Like the way we depend on GPS systems anymore to track our destinations and road maps, we must think about career goals in an analytical manner and map out steps to get there, recognizing that there might be traffic jams not to mention ‘detour’ signs we may have to allow for.

IACCGH President Sanjay Ramabhadran welcomed the guests and the men left the room before the session began. Board member Joya Shukla chaired the event and can be contacted at joya.shukla@shell.com for more information on future events.

See the report below written by an attendee Srimoyee Bhattacharya

Mapping Your Future- Report