The ever-rising role of women in the corporate world
Traditionally, the real estate industry was regarded as a male dominated field. However, a closer analysis demonstrates that women play an ever-greater part in the industry's growth”, says Seema Harsha, co-founder of Indiassetz.
Indiassetz is a real estate banking firm, which was founded in 2014. The founders, Seema Harsha and Shivam Sinha, both ex-bankers, started it with the aim of simplifying transparent and technologically driven real estate management for HNIs and NRIs around the world.
“I am a big advocate of diversity and inclusion and also mentoring women in their careers”, Seema says.
“To get more women into the real estate market and give them more opportunities, we started the Women in Real Estate (W.I.R.E) initiative. Though it was launched in 2019, we started our service last year”.
WIRE has around 250 associate partners who work from home.
“The banking and wealth management sectors are often male-dominated. There is an increased perception that women are not good at handling finances”, she added.
According to her, WIRE was started as an initiative to get more women to independently manage their own wealth. WIRE provides appropriate training, helps in setting up contacts and everything in between.
It is also an ideal place for women who are looking for a second career or want to get back into working after a break. “We provide a course to help them get back on their feet, and this was the fundamental idea behind setting WIRE up.”
WIRE provides skillset training and helps helps women establish themselves. “They can sit at the comfort of their homes, the workhours are flexible and there is no dress code as such”, she says.
“So, in brief, we provide not just commercial development but also personality development as well”, she added.
Speaking of the required qualifications for being a partner, she states that no prior experience is needed. And that women inherently have some skills that are useful in the field.
“Women are good at multitasking, so jobs which requires such qualities will be easier for them. Even relationship management as well”.
She also states that women have a good talent for networking, and gave the example of WIRE itself which has about 250 members, all joining without any advertisements and solely through word of mouth.
While talking about how the role of women in such sectors have changed, she said, “a lot of women have been rising to high ranks in their respective field nowadays. They have started investing and taking control of their money”.
“They are starting to make investment decisions by themselves and I think the role of women has been progressing at a drastic rate,” Seema stated.