6 ways women can move up in their career: The executive vice president of DHL shares her tips
She weathered a career setback after becoming a mother, and faced job discrimination when she came to Singapore in the 90s. Now leading a team of 5,800 IT professionals in DHL, Supriya Rao Patwardhan tells CNA Women about her journey to the top, and her best career tips in this instalment of the Women Leaders series.
Supriya Rao Patwardhan is executive vice president at DHL, one of the world’s most recognisable logistics companies offering express delivery, freight transport, e-commerce solutions and other supply chain solutions.
Leading a team of 5,800 information technology (IT) professionals from 87 different countries, her team provides the technology behind the company’s speed and reliability.
It wasn’t an easy road to get there. Born in India, Patwardhan experienced the motherhood penalty, struggled with childcare support, overcame racism and discrimination when first starting her career in Singapore, and weathered a major company setback and massive layoffs at DHL in the noughties.
A grandmother today, the first-generation Singaporean, who became a citizen 24 years ago, tells CNA Women about the numerous glass ceilings she has had to break, and shares her best career and leadership insights for career women and mothers.
1. TO NURTURE MORE WOMEN LEADERS, WE FIRST NEED TO SUPPORT MOTHERS
Women make up less than one-third of senior leaders, according to a 2024 World Economic Forum report. Patwardhan believes that one big reason for this is because many drop out of the workforce after becoming mothers, especially if they do not have adequate support.
As a young mother based in New Delhi, India, in 1989, Patwardhan remembers hitting her first career roadblock because she could not find childcare. Then an IT consultant, she settled for part-time work.
“It was the hardest thing because the career I had built up pretty much went down the drain. And I could see all my peers moving ahead,” she recalled.
Three decades later, Patwardhan’s daughter, her only child, faced a similar struggle after giving birth to her firstborn in 2020. This was during the pandemic and London, where her daughter is based, was in lockdown.
“After maternity leave, she had to go back to work, otherwise she’d get a lower salary. She started to get frantic because she couldn’t get any childcare support. She said, ‘Mum, what do I do? I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to work’.
“I thought, it can’t be! So much time has passed, and we’re still struggling with this,” the 60-year-old said.
“Today, there are companies and legislation saying you have to have female leaders and women on the board. This is an artificial step. You can’t promote women just because they are women.
“Instead, you should support women who are juggling motherhood, and make sure they don’t leave the workforce. Then you will get enough women leaders,” she said.
This is why at DHL, Patwardhan launched the She’s Back programme to support high-performing women coming back into the workforce after maternity leave by offering flexible work arrangements, upskilling, coaching and a buddy system to help them navigate the transition.
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2. IT’S TIME WE TALKED ABOUT MUM GUILT
Patwardhan said that beyond the lack of good childcare, another struggle new mothers have is mum guilt.
“The concerns of women haven’t changed. Whether it’s in London, Singapore or India, for a mother, the feeling of wanting to care for and provide the best environment for her child is a very universal thing.
“The guilt that comes when you say I’m stepping away from this to satisfy my personal ambition – that is universal as well,” she added.
It does not have to be the case. Speaking from personal experience, Patwardhan urged career-driven women to take a more balanced perspective.
“I was quite a devoted mother. But I need to exercise my brain. Otherwise, I won’t be a happy mother. Motherhood is a wonderful experience, but I don’t want to be defined only by it. I wanted something to call my own, otherwise I would lose my identity,” she said.
She added that having a stable setup at home is incredibly important for women to progress. For her, the availability of childcare centres and domestic helpers when she moved to Singapore in 1992 enabled her to return to work.
Her daughter was also able to return from maternity leave because Patwardhan’s husband, who is retired, helped her with baby care in London for several months.
3. THE POWER OF BEING DIVERSE
It was not easy for her to get her first job in Singapore in the 90s.
“Those days, I’d see an ad and call to say I’m interested. They’d ask where I was from. I’d say ‘India’. And they’d say, ‘Sorry, this job is for Chinese.’
“There weren’t many Indians. There weren’t many women in tech. And Indian women in tech who had come from India – it was like a strange thing. You’re not even given a chance,” she recalled.
It was a while before Patwardhan finally landed her first job in a tech company. And from there, she was able to move to her next job at DHL, where she began a 30-year career.
“DHL is super international,” she said.
This is important, she added. “We are not islands, we are communities. Diversity is about diversity of experience and thought so that when you make a decision, you think through all perspectives.
“It is also more fun. It’s very boring if everybody thinks the same way. Diversity makes each of us much richer in terms of our learning, awareness and our ability to adapt and interact.”
4. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU START, IT’S WHAT YOU DO AFTER
Patwardhan had to start over at the bottom as an analyst programmer at DHL but she was undeterred.
She worked hard and was promoted within a year. And from there, she progressed to job postings in Kuala Lumpur and subsequently Germany, where she survived a massive layoff in 2009.
“The company was doing really badly. They were trying to survive and had a major restructuring. The operations head asked me who I would keep. I stuck my neck out and compiled a list of 15 people [from 50] in global IT who were critical to the business. It was a very hard thing. I remember the guilt,” she said.
“They then asked me to lead it. That’s how I got my CIO (Chief Information Officer) job at DHL Express,” she said.
Patwardhan spearheaded a major transformation. At that point, DHL Express had 4,000 different systems for processes such as booking, pickup and aviation across over 200 countries.
Patwardhan led her team to standardising the system globally, and streamlining it to 120 global systems. This ensured service consistency, full visibility of the shipment at every stage of the process, and cost efficiency.
Her team of 15 grew to 120. And during this time the company bounced back. In 2020, Patwardhan was appointed to her current role, managing global IT for the entire DHL group.
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5. FEMALE LEADERS NEED TO STEP INTO THEIR POWER
That is how, in her mid-fifties, Patwardhan found herself in the biggest tech role for the group. “Now it’s about what my legacy is going to be. I’m not looking for that next career, the next step,” she said.
“I realised that being one of the boys was how I got ahead. Because I’m the only woman at the table, I couldn’t be vulnerable or weak. I was focused on tasks. But the softer side of me as a woman was not brought to the fore.
“So I made a conscious choice to bring my whole self to work. I can be emotional at times, stressed at times, and off my game at other times. It's not a sign of weakness. We can talk about family and kids,” she said.
This created a culture change in her unit, and a closer-knit community.
“Today, leaders need to be much more in touch, leading from front, back or side, not from up there on a pedestal,” she said.
6. RAISE YOUR HAND AND OWN YOUR IDEAS
One of the core ingredients for her success: “I have always put up my hand for things that others did not,” she said
Once a sickly child, Patwardhan was homeschooled for many years for health reasons, and developed a lifelong FOMO (fear of missing out). As she grew up, she seized every opportunity she could.
This is also her biggest advice to women. “As women, we always believe that if we do the right thing, and we work hard, somebody will come and give us a reward or promotion. It doesn’t happen that way. Sometimes, you have to ask for it and say I own this idea.”
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.