‘I focus on the human part of a success story’: Author and entrepreneur Sonia Golani

Sonia Golani writes stories of famous people. But these aren't just inspirational stories, they bring about the person's struggles in rising up. However, Sonia wasn't a writer from the start. At the mid of her career after working in corporations, Sonia Golani founded Management Consultants Group in 1998 to help with recruiting for MBAs, CAs and other qualified professionals for Banking, Financial Services, Insurance and FMCG sectors. But entrepreneurship wasn't her only calling. Sonia wanted to be a writer. And putting her business acumen to words seems like a perfect idea.

Sonia is now four books old. She had the quest to know about the people she writes about and to get inspired. I am catching up with her on the sidelines of a discussion with Jayanta Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation. Her first book was out in 2011, Corporate Divas: Stories of 18 Indian women business leaders. Next came 'What After Money And Fame’ published last year. ‘My Life, My Rules: Stories of 18 Unconventional Careers’ and ‘Decoding Bollywood: Stories of 15 Film Directors’ are the other two.

"We have a large pool of resources in women passing out from universities and colleges across the world but the moment you get married and you become a mother, after that we don’t have much in terms of childcare or elder care"- Sonia Golani

WRITING ABOUT PEOPLE

“I strongly believe in people from within a milieu. They have great way to influence a thought-process. Most of my books are conversational in style and I also focus on the human part of the story and not just on success. I concentrate on what it takes for that success to come forth. And I realized that it takes a lot of toiling and consistent effort that finally shows brilliance,” Sonia told SheThePeople.TV.

She added, “I also found that there is a void of books written in Indian context on several themes and Corporate Divas was the first one to begin with. It also became my calling being a woman professional myself. I wanted to meet these women who have excelled and reached the top particularly in banking and financial services because these were also the sectors we were recruiting for.”

HER BOOKS

Corporate Divas is divided in two parts between the 18 women achievers wherein one part has women who have professionally risen up to head organisations and the other contain nine women from family business backgrounds.

Sonia Golani (Extreme Left) at SheThePeople Women's Writer's Fest

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“All of the women including the ones from family businesses, they have made substantial contributions and are not at that position just for namesake. For me, it was important that the person I am going to include in the book is meritorious and brings something to the table which is going to be a huge amount of inspiration to the readers,” Sonia opened up about choosing the right people for her books.

INSIDE THE PAGES

About the common challenges women, including who have achieved excellence, faced in their careers, she evoked, “We have a large pool of resources in women passing out from universities and colleges across the world but the moment you get married and you become a mother, after that we don’t have much in terms of childcare or elder care. So that setup is lacking in the country and mostly families pitch in to help women.”

“And it has often been seen that wherever the spouse has supported, a lot of challenges are already won over from that fact,” says Sonia about what helps women in moving forward in their career graph.

She also shed some light on the socio-cultural mindset around us which becomes a challenge and if it changes then it will only help in expanding space for women in the workplace. “There are not many emancipated men and families. The very same challenges occur at every stage that your in-laws or extended families start talking in that conventionally regressive tone which hold women back from entering leadership positions.”

Sonia sums up her views by stating that if we have more professional healthcare facilities, reservations, and if more and more corporate pitch in by having women-friendly policies that will help women in keeping their careers and rising up.

Picture credit- Humara

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