Smitha Pawar   

My professional journey has never followed a straight line, and perhaps that is what makes it meaningful to me. I have always believed that a career is not just about reaching the next designation or achieving a certain level of success; it is also about having the courage to ask yourself, “What more can I do, and where can I create greater value?” I began my career in Finance and spent 11 years working across different domains within the function. It was a phase that gave me a strong foundation in business, numbers, decision-making and organizational realities. I eventually reached a point where I had built a successful career in Finance, but I felt a growing curiosity to understand the other side of organizations, the people who made the business happen. That led me to make a significant career shift into Human Resources. For the next 10 years, I worked across diverse areas of HR, including HR Business Partnering, Employee Experience, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and CSR, with leadership responsibilities across India and APAC. This chapter shaped my understanding of people far beyond policies and processes. I learnt that organizations may be driven by strategy and numbers, but their real strength lies in how they engage, develop, include and empower their people. After 21 years in the corporate world, I made another unconventional choice – I moved into academics. Today, I am in my first year as an academic, teaching HR and management subjects while also working extensively with students on communication, experiential learning, employability and workplace readiness. This transition has allowed me to bring together everything I have learnt over two decades of corporate life and use it in a completely different setting. I now have the opportunity to tell students not just what a textbook says about HR or management, but what those concepts look like in the real world. Through classroom discussions, case studies, experiential activities, communication exercises, group discussions and corporate-oriented learning, I try to help students become more confident, curious and prepared for the world they are about to enter. What connects all three chapters of my career is people development. Finance taught me how businesses work. HR taught me how people influence those businesses. Academics is now giving me the opportunity to pass those experiences on to the next generation. I do not see my career transitions as starting over. Every transition has added another layer to who I am and what I can contribute. Moving from Finance to HR, and later from a 21-year corporate career into academics, required me to step away from familiarity and be willing to learn again. For me, leadership is not only about a position, a title or the number of people reporting to you. It is about being willing to evolve, creating opportunities for others and leaving people a little more confident and capable than when you found them. My journey is still evolving. I am not applying because I believe I have reached the end of it. I am applying because I believe that continuously choosing growth, reinvention and meaningful contribution is itself a journey worth recognizing.