Prajay Shrestha, Commercial Operations Director at Clarivate, talks about his rewarding experience mentoring Clarivate colleagues and how Clarivate creates and supports a culture of trailblazers.
Based in the Clarivate Singapore office, Prajay has been a mentor at the company since 2018, assisting colleagues to progress and succeed inside the organization. He has worked for Clarivate for more than 10 years, joining as an intern in 2009 and undertaking a number of roles before recently starting his current role of Commercial Operations Director in February 2020. In this role, Prajay is responsible for supporting the commercial aspects of Clarivate in the Asia-Pacific region, with a focus on China, Japan and South Korea. In this blog, Prajay describes his experience as a mentor to Clarivate colleagues and why he believes mentoring helps great people do great things.
From my first day as an intern at Clarivate I have been constantly learning and still learn new things every single day. Moving into a global role at Clarivate has given me many opportunities to lead large, exciting projects such as building global centers in India and developing business and technology transformation programs. Throughout every project I have undertaken, I’ve been given tremendous support from colleagues, which is why I am so passionate about giving something back.
My role as a mentor at Clarivate happened quite organically in 2018, when I started coaching a colleague based in India on operations and data analytics. A couple of months later another colleague from our London office reached out to me for help and I’ve been mentoring them both ever since.
One of the things that makes Clarivate unique is our focus on supporting the professional development of trailblazers.
If you are passionate about something, then there’s definitely opportunity for you to grow at Clarivate. This is where I believe mentoring plays a crucial role.
Much of the guidance I have given as part of my mentor role has been about how to manage goals and objectives. I feel that mentoring is not about telling colleagues how to do their job, it is more about helping them find direction, simplify challenges and find a path they can take to reach their goals.
The rewards of mentorship
Reflecting on my own challenges and opportunities at Clarivate has been an enlightening experience and has helped me to provide practical guidance to my mentees. I have learned a great deal from the mentoring process, which has really sharpened my problem-solving and leadership skills. Looking back, I realize that I have gained just as much from my experience as the mentees have.
Why should more colleagues get involved in mentoring? When you have been with a company for many years, I think people want to do something more and I‘d advocate mentoring as a wonderful opportunity for everyone who is able. It is truly fulfilling to know your job gives you far more than just a salary.
Colleagues should not be put off from mentoring just because they don’t have formal training. I haven’t taken any classes in mentorship, but because of my strong desire to help I was able to come out of my comfort zone and found that mentoring just came naturally. Clarivate has supported me from the beginning of my mentoring journey through every step I have taken. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how positive the feedback has been from the mentees, which is extremely rewarding in itself.
The key advice I would give for being a mentor is that developing trust is critical. When people come to you with challenges and issues they are facing, they have to be able to put their complete trust in you. As a mentor, some of the main skills you need are listening and giving an unbiased opinion.
Always aim for greatness
One of the values I most admire about Clarivate is our continual drive to empower colleagues to aim for greatness, which helped to inspire me to get involved in mentorship. For me, this is all about keeping an eye on the end result at all times and thinking about what value I can add. What I’ve seen within this company is that people here actually ‘walk the walk’, meaning that colleagues are not just talking, but taking meaningful actions to drive results.
To find out more about working with Clarivate and our current opportunities visit: https://careers.clarivate.com/.
Interested in more stories like this one? Discover #LifeatClarivate with voices from our global colleagues.
