Note to readers: Storyboard18’s Share The Spotlight aims to highlight inspirational stories of women who continue breaking barriers and setting the precedent for other women marketers, entrepreneurs and communication specialists.
The initiative aims to kick off a movement where people from across these communities step up and share their spotlight with other women. They could be women in their team or any other team, a new group or previous one, from a past workplace or the current one.
Share The Spotlight calls on us all to come out and share words of praise and encouragement for each other, appreciating and acknowledging the contributions of so many people who make businesses, brands and workplaces better. Learn and understand how to face challenges and seize opportunities while bringing along others on the path to progress.
This is just the beginning of a long journey to spotlight individuals who are empowering others and bringing change and growth for all. Together we rise.
Samarpita Samaddar, communications director, India and Southeast Asia at dating app Bumble has found purpose in her work through strategic and meaningful campaigns towards empowering women to make the first move in all aspects of their lives and creating a safer and kinder Internet.
“In a country like India, equal opportunities for women are so far and few even today given societal norms and antiquated traditions,” says Samaddar, adding that she is proud to be working towards empowering women to exercise their agency and take charge of their dating journeys, “in the hope that every first move that they make on Bumble has a rippling effect, and they are encouraged to make the first move in all aspects of their lives.”
For Samaddar, who has spent a little over 6 years working in the film industry and given its high-paced and high-intensity atmosphere, there have been many times when she had to deal with extremely difficult situations. “You are on a deadline every minute of your life,” she says. “At moments of crisis, working with celebrities who can be intimidating, can be really difficult. However, I made it a point to stand my ground, in fact more times than I thought I would be able to. I am quite proud of how I have handled a few of those situations while promoting some big-ticket marquee projects.”
“In a country like India, equal opportunities for women are so far and few even today given societal norms and antiquated traditions,” Samarpita Samaddar, communications director, India and Southeast Asia, Bumble
Samaddar’s biggest professional challenge and heartbreak was promoting Manoj Bajpayee’s Aligarh, a film based on the life of Dr Siras, a professor on whom a sting operation was carried out to determine his sexual orientation. After she promoted the film for over three months, ensuring the film was talked about in all national prime time news channel debates, the film didn’t do well at the box office.
“I took it as my failure at the time but it gave me one of the biggest learnings that once a film has been released, it’s not in your hands anymore. I taught myself to detach from a movie campaign,” says Samaddar
Samaddar nominated Menaka Rodriguez who heads the Resource Mobilisation and Outreach initiatives at India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) and will take over as the Executive Director from June 1, 2023. According to Samaddar, Rodriguez is a brave, fierce and fabulous woman who has been instrumental in building and developing the Individual Donors initiative at IFA and has been a compassionate collaborator and colleague at IFA.
“Her kindness and moral support was invaluable and I have learnt so much about leadership from her! Her dedication towards the arts and philanthropy in India is unparalleled, kudos to her for such incredible work she has been doing in the arts in India which is more than often overlooked and underrepresented especially in the mainstream landscape in this country,” says Samaddar.
Read More: #ShareThe Spotlight: Leap Club’s Ragini Das on making money and an impact, and leaders to spotlight
Know anyone you’d like to share the spotlight with? Join the movement, give them a shout-out on LinkedIn and tag Storyboard18 so we can take it forward.