Namitha Muthukrishnan: modern career woman’s guide

I am Namitha Muthukrishnan, a Luxury Hospitality professional and I am currently an MBA student at the University of Salford’s Business School.

Let me begin by saying that I am extremely impressed with women at the University of Salford and here is why. It is only my first week at Salford Business School and the first thing that I noticed during the process of admissions is that our Dean – Professor Amanda Broderick is a woman.

Once classes began I found out that the Associate Dean (Academic) and the new director of the Salford MBA program are also women.

Even the Salford Business School’s building is named after a woman!

The building is named after Lady Hale who is the first Lady Law Lord in the UK. All impressive titles held by leaders in their field.

Image: Lady Hale Building at night: Salford Business School

I realised that empowered women in the previous generations are an inspiration to ours. We need to adapt their methods to our times.

So my question was, “What did they do to be where they are today.  How do I apply that to my area of interest in Luxury Marketing or in any other field?”

I found the answer in a conversation with Ms. Debra Leighton, the Associate Dean (Academic) at Salford Business School.

An enlightening afternoon with an inspirational figure left me with these thoughts of what I must do to make “Namitha Muthukrishnan” a leader within an organization.

The modern career woman’s guide as told to Namitha Muthukrishnan

1. Actively network. 

Create a strong professional network. Your network could be established on LinkedIn, Twitter and other such Social Media Sites. A good profile will make your name come up in the top 10 searches on google.

However, let’s not forget conferences, lectures and meetings. People get to meet you here and get a better, more real understanding of you.

Networking

Ask yourself:

• ‘Am I a part of a professional network?’
• ‘Have I had a chance to speak at a seminar, conference or delivered a lecture?’
• ‘If I google my name, will my LinkedIn profile be the first one on the search results page?’

Please google Namitha Muthukrishnan and all my profiles will come up. However, I don’t have any lectures or seminars that I have been a part of. This is something I now know I should participate in.

2. Get involved

Join projects other than your core area. This gives people a chance to get to know you, work with you and then recommend you. Let me give you an example. The Associate Dean, Debra Leighton is collaborating with a university in Tasmania on a research project based on Museum of old and new art(MONA).

Ask yourself ‘When was the last time I was involved in a project in a team that involved human resources (HR) or accounting?’

3. Publish your opinions

For academia this could be articles in academic journals and in today’s digital age, for non academics it includes blogs, SlideShare and Google+. This gives potential recruiters or business partners the opportunity to know who you are even before they meet you in person.

Did you know that 54% bloggers tweet everyday? Their opinions, however relevant are being heard.

4. Maintain ambition

Don’t get tired or bored of what you do. Achieve your targets by wanting to do better than expected. Ask the ‘why not’s’ and ‘what if’s’ to improve yourself and your organization.  Ideas, I’ve noticed are a great way to deliver better results. But where do good ideas come from?

Where do good ideas come from?

Ask you self: ‘Am I really pushing myself hard in my current project?’

5. Keep up with latest information

Market intelligence, sector knowledge, personal competitors, organizational competitors etc are a lot of words. All this means is that you need to know what everyone else is doing. This helps you make better decisions. After all, knowledge is power.

‘Hmmm, do I read the business section of the paper regularly?’

6. Gain professional qualifications

Do a certification course. It could be something that adds value to your resume, like a course in Revenue Management which I recently completed.

‘Hmmm…. Have I got into a routine with my Job and have I gained more skills/qualifications than last year?’

I hope these points above will be of help to you since they have given me a direction towards achieving my goals of becoming a Luxury Marketing Manager.

At the end of this conversation with Debra Leighton, the answer was quiet clear. Invest in yourself. Invest in knowledge. Invest in yourself as a brand and invest in making yourself an asset.

I am very happy with my choice of Salford Business school and Salford University for my MBA because I am surrounded by Inspiration.

Was this useful for you?

To know more about my experience here or any advice on branding yourself digitally, please do contact me on:

• Email
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Remember, build your professional network. Do you have  feel free to add your comments below

P.S when I started my exercise on personal digital branding, the Google search page for my name was a mess.  Now I have all my accounts only on the first page! Within two days of starting my assignment I received offers on digital branding for a marketing internship!