Saying “No”, “Okay”, “Fine” and settling for something that is being burdened over us for years is the easiest task that we can do. But that one “No” and the followed uncertain decision can cost our entire lifetime and the endless effort that we have given to build our career, leading to the construction of another foundation stone for the next generation to carry that weight. These are the people whose names are still unknown to us, whose face we don’t recognize, nor will we be able to know them ever as these are those millions of people who don’t have the courage to step out of those closed doors or move out of their comfort zone. People, particularly Indian women, who’ve have sacrificed their dreams for their loved ones. These women could have been successful scientists, renowned sportswomen or extraordinary entrepreneurs, but they have already settled their extraordinary desires to live an ordinary life.
But there exists women who are erasing this line of distinction between men and women. Here comes the astonishing story of one such successful entrepreneur, Kanika Tekriwal, who is breaking all the odds and defeating conventionalities, without settling for what has being offered, going against what was easy and eradicating the gender biased inequalities. Even after receiving far too many backhanded compliments and prejudiced comments that implied that she doesn’t belong to the entrepreneurial space, Kanika stood firm to her commitment and took quick steps towards success. Immediately after realizing that her silence would be an injustice to herself as well as other women whose dreams were waiting to be turned into reality, she spoke for those millions of voiceless people without worrying for the fear of being intimidated.
Kanika, Founder and CEO at JetSetGo, region’s most innovative and tech-savvy private aviation company, defined her journey to be always about recognizing and learning more about the sexism that exists in every industry all around the nation and creating strategies to mitigate those archaic ideologies. While defining the concept of empowerment, she said, “I can honestly say that I only feel truly empowered when I’m able to help others, so developing equitable hiring practices and maintaining safe working environments at JetSetGo has been a very important goal to me. As a country, we’ve got to put more women in top-level positions and recognize the impact that they can have on our economy. That won’t happen unless the decision-makers in our country’s biggest firms put effective bias-abating procedures into place.”
Kanika: Redefining Women Empowerment and Standing as a figure of Inspiration
While having a word with the CEO of JetSetGo, Kanika said that she has been asked the question of women empowerment a plenty of times, yet every time she was being asked about her view on the matter, she answered the question with sheer joy and a face of full of smile. She said that most successful women often ignore such an interesting question and though the question remains almost identical, answers vary from one another and every one of those answers open up a dimension of the phrase. According to her, empowered woman is someone who is able to make her own choices and determine her own journey in life without the fear of judgment or harm.
Being the CEO of a successful aviation company, Kanika takes every fundamental decision after proper assessment of its long and short term plans, ensuring they are achieving their mission and monitoring standards as a business. Being in the private aviation field, the last facet to her is always important since client satisfaction is one of the company’s top objectives. She says, “However, some of the imperative decisions I make that are rather unique to my position in the field are the ones that relate to women in business and India’s private aviation market. Since we are India’s leading private aviation company, our decisions do have a direct impact on the market’s development.”
What made Kanika a Successful Businesswoman?
While talking about the most exciting decisions Kanika took during her journey towards building JetSetGo, she said, “Whether it’s choosing to mentor young businesswomen or building a strategy to bridge the national supply and demand gaps in private aviation or working with policy makers and the government to put together a conducive private aviation policy, these are the decisions that are most exciting to me.”
She asserted that being born to a Marwari family where everyone is in business is something for which she feels lucky but her personal development has come from hands-on experiences. She further said, “Tackling real-life problems as a young, enthusiastic businesswoman was honestly the best way to learn about my own leadership style. There are many things that you can read about, but effective leadership is not one of them.” Even after establishing the company at a successful position, she spends most of her time in the office as she feels it’s the thing that maintains her balance in life.
JetSetGo: Leading the Private Aviation Industry in South East Asia
JetSetGo tapped into the private aviation industry in South East Asia during its more nascent stages. Under Kanika’s guidance and with JetSetGo’s offerings, booking a private jet fleet that has undergone 29 stages of safety and security inspection, is possible in only 25 minutes. To make a mark in this sector, JSG operates and manages privately-owned aircrafts that double up as their fleet. By downloading their smart app, private flyers and jet owners have been able to form an alliance that upholds the three paradigms upon which JetSetGo was founded: Service, Quality and Transparency.
For the first time in Indian skies, JSG has introduced the concept of Pay as you fly, where customers only pay for sectors flown by them thereby reducing costs substantially. Most interestingly, it offers private flyers a competitive price which has led to an unprecedented shift in demand: Business class travellers now prefer JSG over commercial airlines.
Kanika’s Future plans and Vision for Future Working Women
Seeing their dominating power in the Indian private aviation sector, the company is probably looking for worldwide targets. For the women working in the corporate world, Kanika says that they must come out of those typical roles of being secretaries or interns and instead be the decision makers to put on a façade of gender equality in the name of brand tangible, measurable ways. The task may seem impossible at a certain point, but she says that it’s always fun to do the impossible and she adds, “Don’t give up!”
Source :- Inspiring Stories of Indian Women Leaders in Business
