Someone famous once said, ‘when women support each other, incredible things happen’. Rightly so, creating an empowered atmosphere for women is need of the hour. Shraddha Sheth, VP marketing, sales & operations of Gold’s Gym, is implementing this by letting women in her team be.

“With my HR team, I make a conscious effort to create a warm environment for women working with us, whether in the gyms or at the office. In our administration office, we insist all female employees attend group activities. Our Bollywood dance classes are a big hit!”, says Shraddha.

Shraddha also understands how mothers don’t often have time to indulge in other activities, one of them being fitness. To counter such an issue at office, she says they have a treadmill in their conference room so that whoever wants to include 10 minutes of workout in their day are able to do so.

“For new mothers, I have our in-house nutritionist meet them to understand mood swings, changes in their bodies and how to get back into shape,” says Shraddha.

The office also has a small studio set-up where people can find resistance bands and thera bands to reduce their stress post 6 pm.

Born and brought up in Mumbai, Shraddha worked as a part-time nutritionist with Gold’s Gym. “This helped me invest a lot of time in relationship management. Especially because there are times when nutritionists or counsellors often end up becoming confidants. And I realised that I liked being in this space, to be able to help a person achieve their goals,” she says.

Shraddha reiterates that nutritionists today are also psychotherapists since they are meant to psychologically breakdown why a person is underweight or overweight. Owing to her complete knowledge about nutrition and fitness, Shraddha is also responsible for the education of fitness experts that work with the gym.

Working her way up, Shraddha also understood along the way that creating a long-lasting experience for a customer is extremely necessary in the fitness industry. “Because of this, 45% of our members have never left us,” she says.

A long stigma with female instructors is that men don’t wish to be trained by them. Shraddha shares that while group classes are often dominated by women instructors, personal training still lacks women. But this has nothing to do with their gender but more to do with remuneration, “A group class will obviously be quicker money than a personal training session where you’re on the floor for eight hours.”

Many students, mothers, professionals, tend to take up group training because of the money associated with it.
But getting to the top of the ladder does not come without consistency, passion and perseverance. To be able to maintain and handle different departments can be tricky, and more so in the ever- changing fitness industry.

For this Shraddha spills the beans on her love for the work she does, “there’s no need for work-life balance when you enjoy what you do. My work has become my second skin. If I consider work as just work, then I will always wait for 8 hours to get over. And when that pressure is off you, you tend to perform better.”

A typical day for Shraddha begins at 6 am. Workout followed by a long journey to office and multitasking various responsibilities in one day. Because of the nature of her work, more often than not she’s travelling as well.

But none of this seems like a struggle when you get to do what you want. Identifying your core interests can lead you to excel. “It’s not about getting to the office at 10 am and waiting for the day to get over for me,” she says.

According to Shraddha, the one thing that women now need to keep in mind is that passion should come before their CTC. While she does say it’s okay to differentiate life and work, what is more important is the hunger to learn. “If I was not curious to learn and grow, I would not have been where I am today. Marketing, education, sales, these are portfolios I grasped on the job, nobody taught me.”

In conclusion, Shraddha adds that comprehending from the opportunity in hand can go a long way. Hunger to travel, to learn, participating in healthy competition can shape the life you want.