Growing up, Sungeetha wanted to be like Ally McBeal
Sungeetha Sewpersad, HR executive at Barclays Africa, is not an HR practitioner by qualification. She completed a LLB degree after completing a social science degree, majoring in psychology and law. She says that people often ask her why she didn't end up practising law in South Africa, answering that practising law, in reality, was nothing like what she had imagined it would be like.
"Growing up, many of us young South Africans were exposed to American law shows like Ally McBeal and Private Practice, and I really wanted to be Ally McBeal. After qualifying I found out the South African legal system is in no way correlated to the American legal system hence I deviated from the traditional path and decided to pursue a career in HR," she said.
On Tuesday, CHRO SA executive manager Didi Sehume met Sungeetha, who spoke about how she decided to go into HR because she appreciated it as a vehicle to get the best out of a company's employees. It wasn't about wanting to be a shoulder to cry on for employees dealing with work issues. Rather, it was about lifting communities of practice within a corporate organisation and bringing people into the world of work, given that South Africa was a new democracy at the time.
Said Sungeetha: "For me, it was about helping people grow through the ranks of corporate South Africa so that they could become CEOs and CFOs of the future. That was my vision of how I thought I could change the world."
