Mentorship Works
Leaders who aspire to influence and shape the next generation of leaders look for young minds to share their experience with. ASEI MentorConnect is one such avenue to build connections with leaders, drive meaningful relationships and grow your leadership muscle. The first cohort of this structured program was launched earlier this year and will continue to invest time in those looking to learn from established mentors in the industry. MentorConnect is a benefit that the professional ASEI members can avail of every year getting matched with a mentor from their own industry and is based on an initial screening process at the start of each cohort.
In a way mentoring is a two way street and the ASEI MentorConnect made it possible for both mentors and mentees to gain from this experience as is evident from the success stories shared by participants at the culmination of the cohort last month. Here are a few testimonials from some of our mentees this year:

Muthu Sivanantham (Mentor: Mani Sundarajan) (Profile: People leader with 25 years of experience)

“Thanks to his valuable inputs and simple steps to help me with my goals setting, I was able to set these two leadership goals for this year:

  • Display leadership and make a dent in our Solution Offers for year 2021
  • Promote, lead and make significant contributions in a launch of a Leadership Program that my employer launched this year

In both of the above objectives I am proud to say I had been making significant contributions. Thanks to ASEI’s MentorConnect program which was a catalyst to make this happen. I would be remiss not to mention the ASEI network as a whole which is an excellent platform to network, learn from, and share knowledge with a wide variety of like minded Engineers & Science and Tech folks.”

Saravanan Venkatachalam (Mentor – K V Prasad) Profile: Technical expert with 20 years of experience)

“I have created a draft 30-60-90 day plan for leadership role (Emulation) and walked through with Prasad, with minor correction from Prasad, i have tried to adopt wherever applicable and proactively started leading without title in certain areas and which helped me to build some allies in shared services areas. I got few spirit awards from other shared service partners for value add activities and also this month there was an org announcement that going forward i will be reporting directly to my Domain CIO, which will provide me more face time with the likes of Chief Architect, Digital CTO, Business directors, CTO and CIO to learn and contribute and grow.”

Hemanth Aroumougam (Mentor: Abhiram Iyengar) Profile: Recent Engineering graduate, Purdue University

“I really enjoyed being a part of the MentorConnect Program. My mentor was Mr. Abhiram Iyengar and I had two 1-hour sessions with him. From just the two sessions, it was a great opportunity for me to learn a lot from him. I was able to get tips to improve the structure of my resume, obtained more knowledge about good strategies to tackle the recruitment process in the US, learnt a lot about his experiences and many more.  Thank you so much for giving me the valuable opportunity to be a part of this MentorConnect Program.”

Ranganath Gurram (Mentor Sham Kunjur) Profile: Manufacturing Engineer, early in career

“Though it is the first year, ASEI has succeeded in making sure MentorConnect serves its purpose, ‘To enable professional and personal networking relationships between mentor and mentee in a safe environment to share life experiences and guidance for professional and career development.

As someone like me who is in the initial stages of the career, this program will widen the career outlook. My mentor Sham Kunjur was very welcoming and approachable. I could learn a ton from his years of experience in the industry. I gained valuable insights to shape not only my professional goals but also personal goals. Many thanks to the ASEI team for this wonderful program, my mentor Sham Kunjur for all the time and support over the last few months, and Srinivas Gavini who introduced me to ASEI !! “

In addition to all of these practical tips and mentee experiences, we would like to leave you with 2 reading suggestions from our esteemed mentors on leadership:

Designing your life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

 

Invisible Women 

Sai Gopisetty is an ASEI member based out of Michigan and helps with coordinating  our MentorConnect program.