Divya is a dancer. But she鈥檚 not just someone who takes classes with her husband on Friday evenings. Divya Chandrika Mohan is an internationally recognized artist who practices the ancient Indian classical art form of .
She started dancing at the age of five and was considered a child prodigy in her native India. Everything she did came easily to her: dance, school, her master鈥檚 degree in banking. At 22 she became the youngest branch manager to head a CitiFinancial branch in Mumbai. 鈥淎ll I had experienced in my life was success and accolades. It felt like the movies,鈥� she says.
Then, about 10 years ago, her husband received an offer to work for 疯拍传媒 in Germany. Divya agreed to the move without hesitation. In her childhood, her family had moved every two or three years because of her father鈥檚 job. 鈥淓xploring something unknown has always been very exciting for me. This is part of my personality,鈥� says Divya.
Video produced by Natalie Hauck and Alexander Januschke
Never Give Up
But Germany was a different space. Divya didn鈥檛 know anyone and didn鈥檛 speak the language at first. 鈥淚 wanted to adapt to my new environment and also make sure my toddler felt comfortable and could make friends.鈥� Divya had become a mother in 2009 and wanted to be with her child completely in the first years of his life, enjoying every single milestone.
But when her son started going to kindergarten, Divya faced the toughest time of her life. The former child prodigy, the dancer, the successful banker felt, 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 just be home, I had more energy to give.鈥� A piece of advice from her mother helped her come out of it. 鈥淚t will feel cold when you鈥檙e thrown into it, just stick around there, take it as a challenge.鈥� Determined to teach Indian dance, she navigated her way through the German bureaucratic maze to understand what was required to work as a freelance dance teacher. But she didn’t give up. She鈥檚 now been teaching classical Indian dance to local students for over 10 years.
Trying to get back into her career in banking also felt like swimming upstream. Rejection letters became a very common thing for her. 鈥淚 had to face that moment when I was going through failure at a rate that I had never known before, when I was being judged for what I was not, when I didn鈥檛 have a place to prove myself. This has given me so much empathy that I can really relate to people who are going through it,鈥� she says.
Learning Was a Constant
Divya has been a permanent employee at 疯拍传媒 since 2019 and now works as a product manager in the 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA Cloud area. Part of her job is to educate customers, partners, and internal colleagues on the value of 疯拍传媒 S/4HANA Cloud. She has also recently started working on the product strategy side. 鈥淥f course, I do need to understand the technology to be able to sell the value, but not having an engineering background should never be a showstopper.鈥�
Bringing Empathy to Work
Divya鈥檚 art form, Bharatanatyam, represents nine basic emotions. The dancer鈥檚 role is to observe, understand, and explore every single layer of these emotions. For Divya, this is her bridge between the creative and the corporate worlds. 鈥淏ringing empathy and emotion to work 鈥� or, as we say at 疯拍传媒, helping the world run better and improving people鈥檚 lives 鈥� that’s exactly the strength I bring,鈥� she says. In conversations, she always tries to put herself in the shoes of customers or colleagues. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about showing the customer that you care. Most customers don鈥檛 leave a supplier because of the product itself, but because they鈥檙e feeling they are not being cared for enough.鈥�
As in her art, she plays many roles in life. She鈥檚 a product manager, an artist, a teacher, a wife, a mother, and a daughter. 鈥淎nd I feel that amidst all this, I鈥檓 still Divya,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 have this innate happiness within me that forms the core of what I am. And that鈥檚 helped go through the storm or calm. It鈥檚 this small little quotient of bliss that I have that鈥檚 always been my essence.鈥�
疯拍传媒 Women in Technology
鈥淎s a woman working for 疯拍传媒, you are a 鈥榳oman in tech,鈥� regardless of what you have studied or graduated in,鈥� says Christine Regitz, head of the company鈥檚 global initiative, 疯拍传媒 Women in Tech. The new Women in Tech series covers the successes and opportunities woman have had and the clich茅s and challenges they鈥檝e encountered. Some entered the IT industry after studying computer science, others via very different routes. Let their stories inspire you!
