Dare to be: Sairee Chahal

Dare To Be! Stories of successful women who decided to go with their gut and goals and make a real living off their passions against all odds. Rinku Paul and Puja Singhal have put together narratives of 15 such trailblazers in a book. SheThePeople.TV in partnership with Penguin-Random House presents excerpts of this upcoming showcase. Here’s an excerpt on entrepreneur Sairee Chahal, founder of Sheroes

Sairee Chahal 

The urge to earn her way through college took her barging into the office of the editor of an advertising magazine to ‘demand a part time job’. Her logic, impeccable—that her college is right across the road! ‘Bending rules has always been in my DNA, it didn’t even strike me at that time that this is not the norm and these people are big shots,’ she says with her characteristic confidence. One can only imagine what the editor’s thoughts must have been, agree as he did to appoint her, impressed by her self-assurance. From writing for a magazine to working for the CII and even working with a blue-chip consulting firm, Sairee has never been one to stick to the conventional path to success.

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When quizzed on her own journey as a woman entrepreneur, she admits, ‘In the start-up space you are expected to be young, male and an engineer and since I didn’t fall into any of these categories I wasn’t so easily accepted.’ She recalls how often she found herself the only woman in all-male gatherings. Not one to cower down when it comes to asserting herself in a male-dominated set-up, she remembers attending a conference where someone brought up the question of what her husband thought of her entrepreneurial venture. Her instantaneous reply was ‘When was the last time you asked a man what his wife thought of his career choices,’ to the shock of the audience.

Author Insights

That a book on women daring to follow their passion should feature Sairee Chahal, the founder of Sheroes.in, was a no brainer. Meet Sairee and what really stands out is that helping women reconnect with their careers isn’t just what she does professionally it is something that she feels extremely strongly about. In her own growing up years, she admits she rued the lack of professional female role models as aspirations of women around her were very “different”. Clearly she is set to change this. Her advice to women is to follow their “inner voice” as it is never wrong, only we let it drown, too often. Little surprise then that listening to her own inner voice, she has been able to turn around not just her own life but also that of countless other women.

Feature Image Credit: businesstoday.in