Parna Dasgupta, Director-Regulatory Affairs, Kellogg’s India, earlier, had rendered her services to FICCI for 13 long years. She managed to climb the ladder more friskily in FICCI and went to head the organization within five years for her job.
“Working with a large number of big and small food companies on their advocacy programmes enriched me and endowed me with deep knowledge and understanding of the food sector and its policy and regulatory nuances. I started liking the policy advocacy platform and I soon learnt that if the intent was honest and the issue was of larger interest, then success was guaranteed,” Dasgupta said.
Sharing her views on male dominance in the business, she said, “I believe that no industry today remains male dominated though there may be differences within individual companies. Almost everywhere there are equal number of women and at every level. Quite frankly, I never felt any male dominance in my whole career.”
However, she feels there is broad difference between men and women when it comes to planning the career goal. “Men can and do chalk out a definite career goal either at their graduation level or at least at the very start of their work life because they are confident that it is their decision which will prevail and the family will move along. However, women generally start planning career only after they get settled in their married life and have chalked out a plan for their family. Hence women lag behind men by almost 6-8 years if not more in the career planning and in most cases do not even pursue that plan with much rigour till children are grown up,” she opined.
She has set up and led the policy division for food sector in one of the largest corporate law firms of the country and has worked for FSSAI as their legal consultant. This gave her a 360 understanding of the food policy and regulatory field especially of the global happenings and emerging issues.
Speaking about the success mantra, she told, “What I learnt from my experience is that there is no alternative to compassionate and empathetic behaviour coupled with genuine unconditional hard work. These I feel are sure to draw the right people and success.”