Manjuri Sinha
Global Head of Talent Acquisition (Technology), OLX
1. Do you remember a time when you were happiest as a child? Where were you, who were you with and what were you doing?
Yes, I remember this time when we visited Agra from Delhi for the first time! My dad is a sailor by profession, as a merchant navy officer he would sail the international waters, for at least 8 months in a year, his time at home, with mom and me was super short…. I still call him my Popeye the Sailor!! I remember receiving and collecting postcard from all over the world from Dad, I call him ‘Baba’ ( Dad in Bengali, my mother tongue ). This trip was precious, because this is my earliest memory of a family holiday, with my mom and dad. We went to the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, heard stories about the Mughal Empire from the tour guides…. all that simply formed a backdrop for the lovely time spent with my parents. After this we had many more roadtrip, and holidays to Rajasthan, Singapore, San Francisco…. and my parents ‘wanderlust’…. somehow… trickled down to me…. and made me a crazy traveller…
2. Did you have a favourite teacher at school? Who was that person and what did they teach you?
Yes, my favorite teacher in school was Mala Kohli ma’am!
She was our English teacher. She gave me the courage to be creative. I still remember this one time, she asked us to write a play, and be creative, she also also asked to direct the play too. I gathered my courage and wrote an English Drama play with Aliens & humanoids in it… I thought, on reading she will scrap it.. But she didn’t she said this was super creative, and actually asked me to direct the play for the class. That one incident, gave me so much courage to be myself, and not be afraid ever to share my crazy ideas. I will forever be indebted to my lovely classmate and friend Sherry who played the role of the humanoid… 🙂
3. What habit or behaviour or belief have you recently acquired? Why is it now in your life?
In the last year or so, I have noticed myself being more calm and composed. I have received feedback from my team, directs, stakeholders that nothing ‘deters Manjuri’, even in the most crisis situation I don’t lose my cool. This is fairly new for me, when I started out in my career, I used to get upset, agitated very early on, also react on an impulse many times. I owe a lot of this new behaviour to two things, one is having led small to big teams, and worked with people, I did realize that, my stress is trickled down to my reports direct and indirects, and I hate seeing them stressed, so I made a conscious effort to stop doing this. Secondly, feedback from one of the best leads I have worked with, who is still a mentor to me Soeren Winter, he would call out my impulsive behaviour in a very objective manner, he was very patient with me on this, and actually coached me on making a switch. Today.. as my present team also says …nothing….simply nothing… scares me…or makes me react on an impulse.
“I have received feedback …that ‘nothing deters Manjuri!'”