In this BAGGGEL Member Spotlight, we celebrate the remarkable journey of Vibhuti Agrawal, PhD. Her path from uncertainty to leadership in healthcare analytics is a story of ambition, perseverance, and breaking societal barriers. By sharing her experiences, we aim to inspire and motivate others in their own professional journeys.

"Delve deeper into Vibhuti Agrawal's incredible journey and insights as she shares her responses to our spotlight questions, reflecting on her career milestones, challenges overcome, and aspirations for the future."Written by: Vibhuti Agrawal, PhD

1. Background and Career Path

- Can you share a bit about your background and what led you to your current career path?

- What were your initial goals when you started your career, and how have they evolved?

[Response] : I have had an interesting background, and career path so far!!

Until post 10th standard, I had no idea of what I wanted to be or what would be my career path in future.Until then my mission was very simple – ‘ To stand tall on my two feet and never in my life have to depend on anyone, my father, brother, or husband for any of my financial needs’, since this is a dream that my mother saw for myself.

Never until 10th class in 2004, I had heard about the discipline of engineering or IIT (too naive for me but then I did come from a family of chartered accountants, and so we rarely talked science :) ). One fine day after 10th Boards, I was chatting with one of my school friends and she mentioned that she enrolled into IIT JEE coaching and so, I enquired with her – what is it and how to do it? It all sounded cool, and so, I told Dad that I need to join FIITJEE and I will crack IIT. Anyhow, rest is history – I did get through JEE and joined IIT Delhi for B.Tech & M.Tech in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology.

Somewhere in that 1st year at IIT, I developed a penchant for Biotechnology and solving healthcare problems with technology, and so, even when I had the chance to change departments at the start of second year, I opted out of it. And over time at IIT, I became clearer of my goal further in life – Go for a PhD to find a cure for cancer (might again sound naive now). However, life had something else in store for me, and in my final year, as I applied to the top colleges in the US, I didn’t get through any of the top 5-7. That was a major bummer – not only my confidence shattered, but I also wasn’t sure why and how it happened. All these years, I had been working towards a PhD but here I was about to graduate, with 0 offer letters from any of the programs. In addition, being the department topper with good extra-currics, everyone thought I would land a job on Day 1 at IIT, which again didn’t happen. I had a shortlist from every single consulting company – maybe 5-6, but didn’t land any offers.

However, thankfully, on Day 2 of Placement, Diamond PwC Advisories did decide to take a risk on me and down-selected me even though I told them I will go for a PhD if I get selected and this was my back-up option (so audacious of me!) . And so, as I graduated with 0 offer letters from the admission program, I joined Diamond PwC Advisories – and it was a heck lot of learning! We set up a healthcare team in the India office, understood the workings of pharma companies, and got some great mentors. But, as my heart was always for PhD, I again tried for PhD in 2011 and the luck changed – I got several offers this time from multiple programs and I decided to pursue PhD in Biological Engineering at MIT while leaving a good-pay cheque.

The next set of 5 years at MIT were life-changing and full of self-discovery. Constantly surrounded by the smartest folks, talking about the next big thing to revolutionize the world, and yet being taught that ‘no question is stupid, and anyone can ask any question’, helped me open up quite a bit. From usually being very neutral on topics, I graduated to becoming opinionated, speaking up almost regularly in lab meetings and leading post discussions after a seminar. I still wasn’t comfortable raising my hands in a seminar nor I still am, but at least my shyness disappeared in the smaller group settings. Sometimes I feel like – MIT gave me wings to fly – I definitely didn’t find the cure for cancer, but found my confidence, determination, and self-belief to make things happen. Not being from America did mean that I didn’t fit into many of the discussion topics of my class-mates and would usually mingle with other Indian or international students, but still, those were the best 5 years of my life till date.

Post MIT, I again had the choice of academia vs corporate but decided to get into the corporate world, since academia meant another 4-5 years of postdoc for which I didn’t have patience or energy. And so, in the corporate world, I decided to join Innovaccer in 2017. Back in the day, Innovaccer was an upcoming start-up with plans to revolutionize healthcare in the US using data and technology. The entire mission/vision resonated a lot with me, and so, I decided to join them in India. Now, why India – It's very common in our society to think that people who go abroad will not come back to India, however, I was very clear from Day 1 of my PhD – >> US was never going to be a home for. I had always wanted to be in India, closer to my family and so, moving back to India was a no-brainer.

And so, now for the last 7 years, I have been at Innovaccer, climbing up the ladder steadily to now be the AVP - Analytics, leading a team of ~50 folks, 4 solutions and 12 product offerings that generate $30M+ in revenue today. While MIT taught me how to be brave and courageous, Innovaccer taught me how to build 0-1 products and scale them at the enterprise level, but more importantly, team-work, stakeholder management, and leadership.

So far, my journey has been very crazy – full of unexpected turns and challenging the standard rules of the society. And most important of all, I did fulfill my mother’s dream – Since my second year at IIT Delhi, I have been financially independent, thanks to all the scholarships that I got + working opportunities that I had over the years. :) :)

2. Challenges and Overcoming Them

- What significant challenges have you faced in your career, especially as a woman in your field?

- Can you share a specific instance where you had to overcome a significant obstacle or setback?

[Response] : Fortunately, all through my school or college days, I never felt like there is something that I can’t do because I am a woman. In fact, on the contrary, my family supported me at all times, and allowed me to do whatever I wanted.

However, more recently, I have definitely felt that certain life events tend to ask for more sacrifices from woman vs man. For instance, during my first maternity leave, my entire team was handed-over to a DR of mine and org structuring was done, such that I no-longer had my team when I came back from the leave, or even during both my maternity leaves, my ratings were defaulted to average which obviously meant delay in promotions etc. Now, none of this would have happened if I was an ambitious male wanting to climb up the ladder. Despite all of this, I did get back my team within 12 months of coming back from maternity leave and also got promoted twice in both the following consecutive years, but in those first 12 months, I did keep questioning – Why did it happen to me?

And just to be clear – The answer can’t be that you don't have kids. We need rules of the game that are equitable for both men and women, while accounting for significant life-events.

Similarly, as a person who doesn’t smoke and doesn’t drink, I truly struggle with decisions made over smoke or drinks.

3. Achievements and Milestones

- What achievements are you most proud of in your career?

- Is there a particular project or initiative that you believe significantly impacted your career or your organization?

[Response]: Achievements

Definitely getting into MIT for my PhD program will be one big one.
Building and scaling 10+ healthcare analytical solutions to 48+ enterprise customers (generating multi-million $ in revenue)
Incubating and scaling the high-performing analytics team at Innovaccer with 90% + roadmap adherence every quarter over the last 3 years, and defect leakages < 10%
Holder of 2 patents with USPTO

4. Work-Life Balance

- How have you managed work-life balance throughout your career, and what advice would you give to others struggling with this?

[Response] : We all keep talking about having a work-life balance and my philosophy around this is:

Don’t try to balance work and personal life at every single moment, or even every day of life. Think of balancing it across several months or years and then it will be easy.
Secondly, build your support system for days when work is your priority. This can be your spouse (which is the case for me), family, or even friends.

Honestly speaking, I have stopped trying to balance work with family on an hourly/daily basis, rather, I just think of it every year. There are days wherein work gets preference for me and I spend days and nights on it, while other days my kids are my priority and I ensure that I am there to get their homework done, tell them bedtime stories, or even dance and play with them.

And in terms of having a support system, for me, that would be my husband – I am able to do what I do just because of him.

5. Mentorship, Sponsorship & Support

- Have you had mentors, sponsors or supporters who significantly influenced your career? How did they help you?

- How important do you think mentorship, sponsorship and support is in career development, especially for women?

[Response] : Yes, I have had 1 mentor, and many supporters through-out my career who have been my champions. In fact, looking back, while my mentor was a female, all of my supporters/sponsors have been male.

My mentor really helped me navigate some of the difficult and stressful personal and professional times in my career, whether it was around work-life balance, or having tough conversations with my managers, or building/aligning team to the bigger vision and goal, my mentor really provided me with some valuable advice, which helped me through the way.

I feel that sponsorship more than mentorship is very important, especially for women, since we rarely speak up for ourselves in the larger setting. I haven’t yet cracked the ‘personal branding’ piece, but I do want to become better as it, since that is almost quintessential to climbing the ladder today.

6. Diversity and Inclusion

- In your experience, how has the landscape for women in your field changed over the years?

- What do you believe companies can do better to support diversity and inclusion in the workplace?

[Response] : I don’t think much has changed – while I was at IIT, we still had a 1:10 ratio between girls: boys and now, in the corporate world, it's the same within our engineering team.

To support D&E, companies will really need to build policies that support women as much as men. In my opinion, the entry funnel is anyways skewed towards the men, and so, it's important to ensure that bucket is not leaky i.e. we minimize the # of women dropping out of the workforce to ensure that ratio doesn’t get more skewed at senior leadership levels. In addition,

For instance, organizations should -

Ensure that a woman's ratings or stature or promotions in the organization is not compromised when she has to go for maternity leave.
Provide equal childcare and elderly caregiving leaves for both genders so that they can equally share the caregiving responsibilities
Have flexible and well defined ‘Return to Work’ programs.
Flexible schedules
Educate all managers to dispel unconscious gender related biases

7. Advice and Insights

- What advice would you give to young women starting their careers in your field?

- Are there any resources (books, courses, networks) you recommend to professionals aspiring to grow in your industry?

[Response] :

Advice

You can become whatever you want to be! :)
Marketing and promotions are as important as completing a given task, and so, build that discipline from day 1.

8. Future legacy & Sisterhood

- Looking forward, what goals or objectives do you have for the next phase of your career?

- How do you hope to influence or inspire the next generation of women in your field?

[Response] :

For the next phase of my career, I really want to drive digital transformations in the Indian healthcare space. While I have been working in healthcare for the large part of the last 13 years, 90% of it has focussed on improving US healthcare, which is a great learning opportunity. But, moving forward, I really want to do something for my country.

On the second one, honestly, I don’t know much there but I am hoping that by being a good role model for my team, I will hopefully inspire some women. Would love to get suggestions from peer leaders in this group.

9. Personal Growth and Learning

- Can you share a lesson or piece of wisdom you've learned that has significantly influenced your personal or professional life?

- How do you approach continuous learning and staying updated in your field?

[Response] :

Never give-up and Get things done, have been the 2 motto of my life that have made me really successful so far, but more recently, I have learnt that self-promotions and creating a brand for yourself are equally important. And so, that’s an area of focus for me next.
Since I joined Innovaccer, I gave up reading books and I always had the excuse of having 12-14h work-day for it. But, after the Being CEO Ready conference on April 6th this year, I have pledged to myself – I will take out 2h/week towards reading books and doing courses that align with my self-growth.

10. Impact and Contribution

- What impact do you hope to leave on your industry or community?

[Response] : Create a better healthcare experience for everyone!

11. Being CEO Ready

- What are the top 3 skills or experiences that you believe are important for women to be CEO Ready?

- What is the next big step in your life to being CEO Ready?

[Response] : 3 skills –

Leadership and Team management
Ambitious and strategic risk-taker
Clear and effective communication, straight from heart

The next big step in my life to be CxO Ready will be following –

Create a personal brand for myself
Complete professional development courses in leadership to become a better leader

12. Experience with BAGGGEL

- How has being a member of BAGGGEL impacted or added value to your career or personal growth

-Can you share a specific experience or aspect of BAGGGEL membership that has been particularly influential for you?

[Response] : Being in the company of such amazing women has been a very humbling experience. Last year in March, when I got to know about BAGGGEL from LinkedIn, I chatted with Supria and while I loved the mission/vision and completely resonated with me, I was very hesitant on enrolling since I had a 2 month old kid with me. But, then Supria told me, that it's okay, and while the final decision would be mine, life events don’t need us to necessarily procrastinate or take a pause of our careers. And that was it – I decided to join BAGGGEL and it was that day and today – I have never had even an iota of doubt on my decision.

Even though I couldn’t participate in many events last year, the Being CEO Ready conference just taught me so much that it made up for the entire year. When Prof. Vasanthi said that ‘stop being a cry-baby and ask for what you feel is right’ and that got supplemented by Pankajam relating story wherein she told herself that “7 is good enough for her to be CEO and she is the best”, I couldn’t stop but self-reflect on my journey so far. And with all the power and self-belief that I got, for the first time I stood up, and asked questions around my path forward with my manager and explained to him my ambitions.

As Vibhuti continues to break barriers and drive innovations in the healthcare industry, her story serves as an inspiration to many. Her journey underscores the importance of resilience, continuous learning, and the courage to ask for what is right. For young women stepping into their careers, Vibhuti's advice is simple yet profound: "You can become whatever you want to be."

Thank you.

- Vibhuti Agrawal