A Dublin-based woman has spoken of her delight after being featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 for her incredible work in diversity and inclusion spanning two countries.
Rochita Dua moved to Dublin four years ago to work at Google Ireland where she has carved a name for herself in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Speaking of her latest achievement, she told Dublin Live: "I didn’t see it coming so there was a lot of excitement when it happened.
Read more: Indian musician reveals the biggest change she experienced moving to Dublin
"It was humbling and exciting at the same time. I’m honoured. It also feels like a lot of responsibility.
"I want to make sure I talk about what I was able to do to get here and support people like me who are trying to build a career for themselves away from their own home country."
In 2018, Rochita who worked in Google India took the brave step of leaving her hometown of Delhi behind to start a new life thousands of miles away from everything and everyone she had ever known.
She said: "It was definitely a culture shock for me about how the office used to operate. It was so different from the working culture I experienced in the Indian office despite it being the same company.
"The working hours, communicating with clients, building relationships, and focusing on mental health - everything’s done very differently. There’s no right or wrong. It was just a big change."
But the determined 29-year-old didn't back down. Instead, she pulled herself up and found an area she wanted to excel in.
She said: "I got into the team of my choice. I was a big advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion which is something I’m passionate about.
"Everyone who, like me, moved countries, territories, continents and feels like they’re struggling with their sense of belonging.
"I want to encourage them to look outside the box, see what they really want to achieve and explore what it is that they’re passionate about instead of going with what the country’s asking of you."
Rochita said that the conversations about diversity were very different in the Irish office compared to their Indian counterparts.
She said: "They were more about gender balance and women in leadership positions [in India].
"Whereas in Ireland, there is a massive number of women in leadership positions which was great. But Ireland, being a multicultural country, we had other challenges to talk about like how to include Black Lives Matter in our conversations, violence against women, and how men can be allies."
Back in India, Rochita volunteered with Women Will which is a Google program that supports female economic empowerment.
She said: "We helped Tier 2 and Tier 3 city women engage with the internet and understand how they could use it to their advantage and bridge that digital divide. That’s where my passion for DEI stems from."
Read more: Dublin man is singlehandedly bringing Pakistani community in Ireland together
Speaking about her move to Dublin, Rochita said that initially she struggled with the change and had to do a lot of unlearning and relearning.
And before she knew it, Rochita found herself in a tight-knit group of friends and even a loving partner. Suddenly Dublin began to feel like home.
"I’ve been grateful for how the last four years turned out. I'm also grateful to my parents for encouraging me, giving the opportunities that brought me here and letting me live my dream."
She added: "I may not be an entrepreneur by title, but building teams from scratch, thriving in ambiguous environments and proving sustainability and impact for our customers and teams is my passion and through resilience and hard work, I want to continue inspiring my peers.
"I have never let a job at big-tech stop me from being entrepreneurial. I have leveraged the opportunity of being a part of this organisation in providing my clients first-mover advantage, launching programs and curriculums that gave Google the first-mover advantage and completely revamped what diversity, equity and inclusion means to me and my team of 150 people at Google."
Read more: Famed restauranteur Asheesh Dewan opens up on moving to Ireland in the 90s
Read more: Dublin's Sikh community hand out free food twice a week
Sign up to the Dublin Live Newsletter to get all the latest Dublin news straight to your inbox.
