5 Minutes With Venkata Bhonagiri

#TeamMindshare believes in Empathy, Energy and Impact. As we adjust to working differently, we're continuing to empower people to challenge the status quo and drive Good Growth for our clients and the industry. Growth isn’t just a flash in the pan, but it’s enduring, diversified, and more sustainable over time. We’re proud to be unmistakably #TeamMindshare, and make it the place where we do the best work of our career, grow and have fun. Hear from Venkata on how he's adapted, what his biggest learning is and how he stays inspired.

Biggest learning from your career?

Having a growth mindset is critical. Growth mindset is what differentiates you from others. Continuous learning should be the goal, efforts make us stronger and smarter, and it helps accomplish everything you do at the workplace for yourself, your team, your organization and your client. Not every day is the same but as long as we enjoy the process with an open and right outlook that’s what helps us deliver quality outcomes where we are trying to bring change and make an impact.

I have been fortunate to pace through my last 12+ years with a growth mindset. This helped me unlock the right solve for every client assignment, project, internal org. challenges and opportunities at every place I worked so far.

Tell us about an exciting project you're currently working on

I am working on this really interesting project (across multiple accounts) that helps map out growth for advertisers. Advertisers care about growth more frequently than often and this project/capability which we refer to as sources of growth helps quantify and contextualize the growth opportunity available on the table, means and ways to harness the growth and investments required to unlock it.  This helps us know the who, they why and the how and fuels a clear strategy. This helps our clients look at some of the blind spots they had in the past especially from growth audiences standpoint. It gives a sense of value and prioritization and enhances the role of media.

One word to describe the last year?

I’d say Resilience. We weathered several external disruptions this past year good, bad and ugly. Accelerated digital transformation to supply chain crisis, inflation to high volatility in markets, re-opening the world to growth in retail footprint, travel, entertainment etc. All these themes have impacted us to varied degrees. Some of us benefitted while the rest were at a disadvantage.

All in all, it was about how do we overcome challenges and be thankful to what we have and most importantly evolve from where we were the year before. We are living in absolutely unprecedented times and now is when we are bound to be resilient than before.     

What is the best advice you can give for hybrid working?

Hybrid working is a golden opportunity for the entire workforce that can actually enjoy it to begin with. Not everyone who works has this opportunity. An opportunity to balance work and life, to focus on health and stay fit, to focus on building a culture outside of work and participate in communities that can help bring a change. Commuting to work every day has its own benefits in terms of running discussions in person, building healthy relationships with clients etc., working hybrid can help absolutely protect those benefits sphere while adding incremental value to your life outside of work that would also have a significant positive influence on your work.

How have you stayed inspired?

Reading, setting achievable milestones at work and in personal life and sometimes time alone keeps me inspired. Sometimes it only takes one sentence to get your mind in gear on what you want to achieve in your day, your business and the bigger picture of your life. Most of our time in our life will be spent in the consistent company of other people on a regular basis. Even when the connections we have are positive, it is could be still taxing on our energy to be constantly giving out. So it is vital to have a certain amount of time alone to detox and re-energize. This helps me stay inspired.

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