Tech Leader: Women Must Own the Room, Not Just Fill It

Shalvi Chitkara sat in a corporate meeting early in her career, knowing the answer to the question on the table, and said nothing. Days later, she watched a mentor deliver that same answer to applause.

That moment changed everything. "I was just being in the room versus really owning it," she told the audience at SheSparks 2026. "That was the point I decided: enough."

Chitkara, now Global Tech and Agentic AI Leader at Genpact, has spent 27 years at the same company. But that doesn't mean she's stayed still.

Around year 13, she hit a wall and asked herself what value she was creating. She pivoted from finance into strategy and technology, then reinvented herself every two to three years after that. Each leap built the range that now allows her to lead AI at global scale.

Her biggest message to women in tech? Investing in yourself is nobody else's job. "You don't invest, you don't pivot, no one else will do it for you," she said. "They'll all be nice to you, but it's your responsibility."

Chitkara identified the real barrier keeping women out of AI leadership, and it isn't opportunity. It's confidence. When new technology arrives, she's watched women say they need one more course before raising their hand. Their male counterparts, often knowing less, simply step forward.

"Technology moves so fast," she explained. "By the time you feel ready, the moment is gone."

Why This Inspires

Chitkara's path from silence to leadership took deliberate effort. She spent four to five years reading daily, forming independent views, and training herself to speak before feeling certain. That work paid off, not just for her but for the women she now pulls up behind her.

She drew a sharp line between mentors and sponsors. Mentors offer advice, but sponsors fight for you in rooms you'll never enter. She described four sponsors who argued for her at CEO level in conversations she never witnessed. That invisible advocacy, she believes, is what senior women owe others now.

Her challenge to the room was practical, not inspirational. "Be a sponsor. Sponsor one woman. The 25% can become 50% very, very easily."

On AI itself, Chitkara pushed beyond the usual talk of empathy. If women aren't building the models, those models will only reflect whoever is in the room. Representation isn't about inclusion for its own sake. It's about building technology that actually works for everyone.

Twenty-seven years in, Chitkara's message is clear: stop waiting for permission and start owning the space you're already in.