Nadhira Ayuningtyas: From Overcoming Challenges to Nurturing Tech Leaders
For her, the fact that she has found when she just graduated from the bachelor’s degree apparently showed the red line towards her passionate career journey.
Meet Nadhira Ayuningtyas, Head of Product at Tokopedia. The journey of her career started when she took an Information Technology (IT) major back when she was in college. However, after spending several years getting deep into the major, it turned out that her background did not resonate with her personal purpose.
Upon graduation, Nadhira landed her first job as a Business Analyst at one of the global business service companies, where she was responsible to bridge the business needs and to translate them into system recruitments.
Seeing from another perspective
Having worked for this role for two years eventually propelled Nadhira to see from another perspective. At that time, she realized that having a good understanding about the business would be beneficial for any industry, as not only that it helps her solve the technical side of the system, but also comprehend about the business as a whole.
Following her first career as a Business Analyst, Nadhira continued her study and took a Master’s degree in Business Analyst and Strategic Management. Right after she graduated, she joined one of the biggest consultant companies and helped businesses create a business plan and strategy. At that time, a lot of companies had the intention to transform their business digitally. Given that she has an IT background, she was given many opportunities to be involved in several projects that required a combination of IT and business strategy.
Along the way, Nadhira also realized that joining a consultant company did not only provide her with decision-making power, but also hands-on experience in terms of building a product. Thus, Nadhira decided to join a start-up company as a VP of Lending Business & Operations. Not long after, another opportunity led her to join Tokopedia.
In the beginning, Nadhira handled the Financial Technology division to oversee the end-to-end product journey for about a year. Afterwards until today, she has been entrusted to be the Head of Product that supervises the merchant platform. In addition, she also focuses on supporting the day-to-day operations in order to make our apps more efficient, as well as to make it easier for sellers to run their businesses on Tokopedia’s platform.
“Being a product manager requires your ability to combine business strategy and technology”.
Managing and overcoming the challenges
As Nadhira is directly in charge on the merchant’s platform, she needs to manage a team of five different departments, namely stock management, orders management, payment process, platform and home page, power merchant and official store, as well as the team’s specific segmentation. Currently, Nadhira has 12 people under her supervision.
Then, how does her day-to-day operations as the Head of Product look like?
Typically, Nadhira always does her weekly planning where she creates a list of things that she needs to focus on. She will dedicate each week for a specific project, so that it helps in making prioritization on the things that need immediate actions. By doing so, it also helps her to manage expectations towards the output, and also allows her to track the progress more easily.
With such big responsibility, she often faces several challenges regarding the needs from many stakeholders. As the merchant’s platform is one of the core focuses of Tokopedia, Nadhira shared how she differentiates between the needs and interests of each stakeholder. For her, creating a clear guideline truly helps her identify and also prioritize anything that should be followed by her stakeholders.
She added that rather than managing projects one by one, having a clear guideline also helps her to manage expectations from each stakeholder. At times where several cases or projects are not following the guideline properly, Nadhira and her team will conduct further discussion to meet the stakeholder’s essential requirements and bring her perspective to achieve win-win solutions.
Considering her day-to-day activities, it is surely not easy for her to manage her tasks. In order to achieve a maximum impact, Nadhira shared that doing prioritization on a daily basis is very crucial. Apart from that, she also added the importance of having a strong principle, so that she can stick to her prioritization well.
The prominent aspect of leadership
According to Nadhira, she usually does the weekly catch up with each of her team members, and oftentimes conduct bi-weekly meetings with her direct report. She told me that she also tries to keep the balance between doing her tasks and mentoring her team members, so that she can help their development and ensure they have the help they need to become a good Product Manager.
When asked about the most important aspect of becoming a leader, Nadhira said that she has three big things that she always applies during her role.
“From my learning experience, there are three big things that I do everyday to help my team achieve their objectives, as well as to help them grow. Those are trust, listening, and understanding”.
Nadhira believes that gaining trust from the leader helps us in doing work, also in having a sense of belonging towards our works and projects. As a leader, Nadhira added that she needs to always be available at any time to give her team advice if necessary.
Apart from trust, Nadhira also believes that one must balance between giving direction and giving guidance. Managing 12 people with a very tight schedule, Nadhira admitted that it can be challenging for her to catch into some details of her team’s projects. However, by actively listening to her team, it allows her to understand each of her team members’ thoughts and opinions, as sometimes they only need to be listened to.
Besides, Nadhira also frequently checks on her team once a month, just to ask and listen to the things that the team is most proud of, things that they want to improve, and to also make them feel listened and understood regarding any issues that they are facing.
Lastly, Nadhira also believes in the importance of understanding. For Nadhira, it is also necessary to understand the motivation from each team member. Based on her experience, people tend to have a different goal in their careers. For instance, some people may want to be a leader, but some other might just want to create an impact, or want to become a problem solver.
By understanding these diverse motivations, she believes that it will help leaders to find and unlock the potentials of each individual. Nadhira added that she usually delivers a different task to each team member, in order to motivate them to pursue their own purposes in the right way.
“People have their own motivations. I believe that understanding what excites them is the best way to guide them properly”.
Nurturing more women leaders in the tech field
For Nadhira, working in a technology company, especially in a field that is still dominated by male, has its own challenges. Despite the insignificant number, she believes that women have the potential to bring a lot of remarkable innovation and contribution.
On the other hand, she is also thrilled to work in a company that enables diversity and provides equal opportunity for everyone to grow. When asked about the achievements that she is most proud of, Nadhira stated that she is proud that she can nurture other women to become a Product leader. Given that Product Managers are filled by 80% male and 20% female, she believes that there is a big chance for women to participate in advancing the future of technology.
Moreover, Nadhira also believes that the balance between woman and man can ultimately bring a very impactful result for our customers.
“As a woman, we have the same rights to grow, learn and voice our perspectives and opinions. Maybe we are less by numbers, but we should not feel unheard.”
Tokopedia START Women in Tech
In order to encourage more women to take part in advancing technology, Tokopedia will be presenting START: Women in Tech! Nadhira will also be speaking about her learning experience in terms of prioritizing and managing the needs from different stakeholders.
See you at START: Women in Tech, and let’s revolutionize technology together!
