The formal launch was addressed by Arathi Krishna, Managing Director, Sundram Fasteners.
Talking about mentorship, Arathi said “Mentoring is very important and its played a major role in my growth – both professionally and personally. Right from school till now ive always had great mentors that I could look upto all my life.
At Sundram Fasteners, the formal mentoring programme was launched in 2004 although right from 1966 we had stared mentoring at Sundram Fasteners where the founder always took time to address his employees. We started off with one mentor and twelve mentees who were all new graduates and were new to the company. We wanted the new comers to under the culture and legacy and working of the company. At Fasteners, the mentoring we do has many goals but our main focus is on (1) Dissemination of knowledge (2) cultural assimilation which is very important to us (3) leadership development and (4) career path counselling.”
Arathi further went to congratulate Rinku on the mentorship cell and wished FLO Chennai chapter the best.
This was followed by a candid panel discussion with three leading entrepreneurs from Chennai: (1) Hemu Ramaiah: Managing Director, Shop4 Solutions / Founder and Ex-CEO Landmark (2) Lakshmi Potluri: Chief Executive Officer, DCF Ventures / Co-founder Jabong.com and (3) Nirmala Sankaran: Co-founder, Hey Math. The panel discussion was led by Priya Goutham, Project Head – FLO Mentorship Cell. This panel took questions and discussed everything from navigating business through Covid Times, the importance of Customer Relation Management, Businesses going digital and the importance of the digital age, seed funding for new entrepreneurs and much more.
“FICCI FLO Chennai is committed to empowering women economically and supporting our members through mentorship and guidance. FLO has been promoting entrepreneurship and professional excellence among women through workshops, seminars, conferences, training and capacity building programmes in the past. In our vision of inclusive economic growth, the Mentorship Cell will provide our members with support from expert leaders across industry sectors and in various stages of their career, to share their secret to success and advise them”, said Rinku Mecheri, Chairperson, FICCI FLO Chennai Chapter 2020 -21.
