With International Women’s Day, it’s an important time to celebrate the achievements of the women around us and the path that was forged by the women before us. It’s about challenging the status quo within the industry and bringing awareness to important issues faced by women around the world.
In honor of International Women’s Day (March 8), we are celebrating some of the remarkable women in electronics technology industry. We are honored to highlight Mitu Misha, Regional Sales Manager (Technical) at Texas Instruments India.
● Why do you think it is important to celebrate International Women’s Day?
Days like these are certainly important since they allow women to share their stories, especially if they have entered fields such as hardware engineering which have been conventionally viewed as the domain of men. This can inspire many other young girls who are still identifying their career goals. While we discuss it every day, it is good to take out time to reflect on the key challenges women face and collectively seek to resolve them. It also helps to identify emerging issues to better our approach towards inclusivity and work towards it during the rest of the year.
● Have you faced any barriers in your career due to being a woman? If so, how did you overcome them?
Being a Sales professional, I interact with people from various industries and I have noticed that the women in those sectors do sometimes grapple with bias in the workplace. I believe what worked for me is to talk to other women leaders during my early career phase, this helped me to navigate the situation and emerge stronger. I have been fortunate to have a great workplace like TI and have a supportive family. Therefore, there haven’t been many major barriers as such.
● What is the most important piece of advice you have been given?
Over the years, I have received a lot of good advice. On IWD, I would like to highlight one of them which I received from a great woman leader. As a woman, whenever you climb up the ladder, ensure that you are uplifting at least 10 more women who need support to climb up further. It is our responsibility to support other women and create more successful role models.
● What is the most important message you want to send out to young women thinking about their careers?
It’s critical for women engineers working in a specialized field like ours to stay up to date on advancements in fields such as Semiconductors. For example, it is a great time to be in technology owing to trends such asautonomous vehicles, IoT, 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learningamong others.I urge women who are still identifying their goals to consider opportunities in every STEM field that they may be interested in,even if there are only a few women in it.
At TI, is ‘our passion to create a better world by making electronics more affordable through semiconductors’. I feel this is an extremely powerful statement and would advise young women in STEM to think about this.
● Why do you think diversity in the workplace is so important?
Diversity is important everywhere including in the workplace. It allows organizations to create a transparent environment and gives employees a sense of belonging. It also helps companies to attract great talent, allow the best ideas to win, and ultimately build a sustainable business. Adiverse cultureis important as it allows everybody to bring the best version of themselves to work and helps the company meet its objectives.
