Fortune favours the fittest! Fate is a conglomerate of passion, compassion, courage, daring, entrepreneurship, leadership, and a never-to-die attitude. All the attributes one needs to survive and thrive in the game. The game where leading corporate communications means relying more on your expertise rather than on fate or fortune.
Yet, championing this game of Brand Strategy and Management with elan, Swati Bala, the Lead – Corporate Communications humbly says that she was fortunate enough to break the glass ceiling as she took the helm of a large business.
Swati continues, “I say fortunate because my journey has been a confluence of coincidences coupled with clarity of purpose, a lot of hard work, and a healthy dose of good luck.”
A Roller Coaster Ride
The journey from an executive to leading communications was a roller coaster ride. The inspiration to get into the business of Communication came to her during the last year of her graduation.
Swati had been good at Communication since childhood, and she realized if not this, then what? She discovered that PR and Comms is a booming industry, and she could do quite well in this domain.
This was when Swati took multiple examinations, pursued her Master’s in Business Administration degree in Public Relations and Communications from the International School of Business and Media, Pune, and was recruited to one of the leading PR agencies of India. She is an English Hons graduate from Delhi University, completed her MA, and plans to pursue her Ph.D.
Critical Crisis Communications Management
Throughout a large part of her career, she took challenging roles and scaled multiple brands/businesses. She was blessed to handle PR for leading Indian and Global brands. During her initial career phase, she had cracked some out-of-the-box stories for her clientele and managed critical crisis communications. With every new client and crisis, she challenged herself to do better.
She was now ready to move to lead communications on the client side and joined a small, medium-sized company. During this phase of her career, she was given the opportunity to handle public relations for the entire APAC region. Within a span of two years, she got the breakthrough role to manage and strategize communications of the whole India domain.
Swati Bala currently Leads India Communications for, one of the top US-based multinational companies.
Transforming Reality by Dreaming Big
Coming from one of the most beautiful towns of India–Jamshedpur, which is predominantly known as the ‘Steel City of India.’ Swati has always dreamt of achieving big. Her sheer patience and perseverance have made her what she is today.
She defines herself as a fortunate combination of a right-brained creative, big picture thinker, an ideator who zooms in and becomes a left-brained analytical, detail-oriented perfectionist.
Investing more than a decade in the Public Relations and Communications business, she says if she wasn’t a Communications professional, she does not know what she would have landed into.
She thanks the early days of her career when she had hands to learn the nitty-gritty of working with multiple brands. This was when she got in-depth insights into this business, and with every new client on board, she gained a lot of confidence. As a very naïve, she was at the forefront of leading a full-fledged team and was unstoppable.
Learning the Art of Multitasking
There were a series of turns and twists when she started handling PR mandates for big brands. The experience was phenomenal but came with a great deal of stress and anxiety to fulfill clients’ requirements. Swati recollects, “There were days when I ended up handling two-three press conferences in one day. This was when I learned the art of multi-tasking and micro-management, which even today helps me in my day-to-day work.”
Swati reiterates that she has been fortunate enough to handle the crisis of major telecom and retail chain in India. There were critical and involved a lot of patience and attention to detail. Misquoting a statement could have led to a series of unwanted repercussions.
She mentions, “I owe a lot to my mentor for holistically grooming me in the initial days of my career. And tutoring me on the importance of how and when with every conference and crisis management. Notwithstanding the fact that challenging assignments teach you the best lessons in life.”
When it comes to professional values and qualities clients admire in Swati, one of the primaries is…
Breaking out of her comfort zone
She has liked doing things others have not tried from a young age. She enjoys challenges and risks that are thought through. While there is a lot of analytics available, her choices are also driven by a gut feel, what comes from the heart, and her passion. The faith and belief in her team also help her make bold moves and step out of her comfort zone.
Core Values:
#Passion–“I do not give up easily! I’m passionate about making things happen and pursuing dreams relentlessly. Focus and determination to get things done are also an inherent part of me,” states Swati.
#Collaborativeness–Swati’s take is, “I believe in working with a team of professionals who have a mind of their own and are as stubborn as me – it is a very potent combination.”
#Ownership–“In whatever I do, I drive each work with a lot of love and integrity!” says Swati.
Making Challenges a Catalyst in Growth
Today leading the communications team in India for the gaming and technology giants Swati is solely responsible for creating strategies and working for their internal and external communications. Swati finds it exciting and, at the same time, pretty challenging to drive communications for a brand with close to 2000 employees.
Swati firmly believes that without challenges, there cannot be any feathers on your cap! She says, “Challenges are a catalyst in my career graph; I certainly wouldn’t have been here without them.”
She accepts that post-campus recruitment; when she joined her very first organization, she only had bookish knowledge of public relations and corporate communications. She remembers handling one of the PR assignments on day two of her joining. It was for one of the fashion retail giants. “I had zero knowledge of what I had to do and whom to address. The best and worst parts of the PR industry are incredibly high expectations, and we can’t even imagine going wrong as the stakes are pretty high,” expresses Swati.
A Reflective Wisdom
As an experienced professional, Swati’s advice to the budding aspirants willing to enter the business world is reflective. She says that everyone defines their own path to successful career growth. She continues, “Also, growth differs from individual to individual, so my first suggestion would be don’t get lured or swayed by any other career ladder. Each of us has our successes and failures and different ways to deal with them.” What works well with you might not work with someone else.
Discipline goes hand in hand–with personal and professional growth, so define that well for yourselves.
In her message to upcoming women leaders, Swati says that she has seen many women losing great opportunities due to a lack of confidence. If you’re confident you’re half of the work is already done. Kill self-doubt and create your own space. In her experience, women have repeatedly proved themselves when given an opportunity.
In her message to budding men leaders, Swati accepts that she had been extremely fortunate to have been surrounded by supporting men on her professional and personal front. She is against gender bias and vigorously advocates diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. “At the same time, we should give men the opportunity to voice and stand with their thoughts. We need to trust their intent when they want to support us and make our journey easier,” she feels.
Everyone has a superpower, so learn about it and be grateful. “Well! Mine is humility- it makes success worthwhile. I feel we should never let the power and money get to our heads,” conveys Swati adding, “Last but not least, practice gratitude!”
On the personal front, while not working, Swati loves writing! She loves to spend her recreational hours’ deliberating on life mysteries, self–studying psychology, reading, and catching up with the rest of the world.
