2023 Global Leaders in Consulting: Debadrita Choudhury

Debadrita carries over 16 years of immersive consulting experience with deep domain knowledge of CPG, Retail, Banking and Telecom industry, delivering innovative solutions spread across geographies. She has also been responsible for setting up high performing teams across organizations from scratch and leading them successfully over the years, delivering potential impact for clients.

She currently represents the Global Senior Leadership team of Gain Theory (Consulting team of WPP) as a Partner based out of Singapore, reporting to APAC CEO. In this role, she is responsible for leading APAC client engagements, supporting new business efforts and co-leading relevant new products creations for the Global team. She has also held multiple leadership positions at Genpact, Ab Inbev, and Accenture consulting, primarily focusing across Sales and Marketing functions.

A Masters in Statistics from IIT Kanpur, India and an MS in Stochastics from London School of Economics, with a Graduate Merit Award, Debadrita has an extensive Consulting and Data Science experience globally. She has been previously awarded with "Global Women in Tech Award – APAC" and "Indian Achiever's Award -2020 ". She has also been awarded as "International Inspirational Women Award – 2021″ under the category of Women Executive of the Year.

What do you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

Consulting, not only a rewarding but also a fairly demanding work stream and very early in my career I realized it. Since the beginning, I have seen how people have adopted surrogated behaviors which they felt were important to succeed. This behavior, though rewarding at times, created a lot of psychological insecurity among teams which stalled creativity, collaboration and innovation. Over my career, I always strived to create team and environments where psychological safety is present, and everyone performs to the best of their abilities.

What advice would you give a professional just beginning a career in consulting?

Continuous learning and embracing challenges with audacity are two key traits which are even more essential for professionals starting their consulting career. The world is changing faster than we imagined and exposing unique challenges every day. To succeed in this world, extraordinary would be the new normal. So, start learning, continue learning and firmly accept every presented opportunity and challenge with conviction.

What have you loved most about your consulting career?

After spending more than decade and a half in Consulting, diversity of opportunities is something I loved most. Not only does one get an opportunity to work on challenges never heard of but also creates a lifelong learning mindset which is essential to accept the changes. At the beginning, any change can seem quite confusing and frustrating but each time we embrace a change, we move a step closer towards creating a better world and that's the most satisfying part of being in the consulting domain.

What's the best advice—personal or professional—you've ever received

This is a tough question. While there's a lot of wonderful advice, I have received which shaped me as a better individual and professional, one advice which lately is really helping me while leading teams is Emotional Regulation. In this VUCA world, leaders are under a lot of pressure to meet growing demands of business and people, chase pressing timelines and increase profitability. Amongst all this chaos, leaders need to stay grounded, regulate their own emotions and set a tone that fosters collaboration, productivity and engagement.

What does being honored as a Global Leader mean to you?

Over my career, the decision to get into a leadership role is one prominent step which affected my whole life. Not only in your career, becoming a leader affects everything- how do you act as a spouse, as a parent and your relationship with your family and friends. It drives you every day to become a better version of yourself. Then, you can share your best with the world. This recognition is a reminder of all those efforts I put in for years and fills me with a great sense of joy and pride.