A firm believer in that delicate alliance of tenacity and fortuity, Savita Iyer arrived in Shanghai for a ten-week stint that turned into six years. Now Executive Director of Finance, Media and Games for The Walt Disney Company, she talks advice she hopes will soon be obsolete and preparing for her next adventure: motherhood.
Who’d you look up to getting started in your career?
In my first career [in chemical engineering] – there was no model for how to be a woman and not sacrifice your femininity and still advance. So, at that time I emulated men; dressed like a man, talked like a man. What I love now is that the generation that’s coming up behind me – they have enough people like me that they see, that they can realise, ‘I can still be myself and I don’t have to “think like a man, act like a lady” – I can genuinely be me.’
'Change happens incrementally – you think it happens overnight – but the lead up to that moment is in slices'
What’s the most memorable advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice was given to me by multiple people in different terms. One mentor said ‘You’re going to hear a lot of stupid comments from male executives, and sometimes you just have to brush it off your shoulder, suck it up, and move on – because it’s not the time and place to call them out.’ I was like ‘What do you mean? I want to fight this’.
So even though we’ve made a lot of progress in my time, and in my boss' time when she told me I needed to brush it off... change happens incrementally – you think it happens overnight – but the lead up to that moment is in slices, and sometimes if you shock the system too much by taking a quantum giant leap, it doesn’t work, and while sometimes people may think a quantum leap is happening, what’s really happening is the result of years of slicing away at what you need – at progress.
So, you need to be good at what you do, but the other thing is that people are going to make stupid comments, and if you let those comments get to you, it can influence your level of work so at times you do have to just brush it off.
I’m hoping that ‘brush it aside’ was the advice for my generation and this generation doesn’t need to brush it aside. But sometimes if you hit people over the head and say you need to change tomorrow, they’ll dig their heels in even more, so you need to scrape away until one day they look around and say, ‘Wait a minute, we have 80 percent women in executive positions.’
Has pregnancy adjusted your perspective on work or work-life balance?
I have gone out of my way to be like ‘nope, not sick, not tired, I don’t need special help’ and luckily, I haven’t been sick or needed special help. But I’ve made this point because I don’t want to help anyone think ‘women get pregnant and then they don’t work as hard.’ So, it’s kind of like I’m still stuck in that old way of thinking because of the environment I grew up in.
How can we work to change that?
Women in roles like mine make a lot of hiring decisions. When I hear something [that feels discriminatory], I shut it down. That’s where I’m not brushing it off. I’m hiring for the long term. If you treat people with respect, the loyalty you get back from them is one hundred times more than what you put in.
We also need have to frank conversations with the men in our lives. I was talking to my husband about Disney’s lactation room – a worldwide policy – and he was like “What’s a lactation room? Don’t you just come home and do that?" So, why would a 43-year-old single man know that information unless he’s had that discussion with someone? He then went and checked with his own workplace.
'One of the biggest ways we can help women is to not force our opinion of what a woman should be onto each other'
Tell me about the Shanghai work-life balance.
I think I have more of a balance here – I have an ayi and I have Taobao! For the baby, you have access to resources that reduce some of the pressure around that choice: do I stay at home or go back to work? I’m not advocating that you can have it all – because you can’t. It’s life, there are only 24 hours in a day and you have to prioritise what you want – but it gives you flexibility.
How should we as bosses and leaders help other women?
One of the biggest ways we can help women is to not force our opinion of what a woman should be onto each other. Be the best version of whatever works for you, and let other people see that.
The other way we can help women is when someone is thinking about applying for a job, and there are ten things this job requires and they say, "But I can only do eight so I’m not going to apply." I try to advocate: but you can do eight, so go for it. In general, we should encourage women to try for things. Sometimes we wait for the absolute square hole for our square peg – and it doesn’t exist, you have to weasel your way in and make your own way.
What’s surprised you most over the course of your career?
How much of your career path is due to luck. Of course you need to be prepared and know what you are doing in order to make the ‘luck’ work for you, but there is so much of ‘right time, right place.’
