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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Dr Priya Marajh: You have to be prepared to make a space for yourself

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717 days ago
20230305
Board Director at Touchstone Exploration Inc and TOSL Engineering Ltd, and Vice President at the Energy Chamber of T&T Dr Priya Marajh

Board Director at Touchstone Exploration Inc and TOSL Engineering Ltd, and Vice President at the Energy Chamber of T&T Dr Priya Marajh

The school mot­to for St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School is ‘Per Ar­d­ua ad As­tra’, which is a Latin phrase that means “through ad­ver­si­ty to the stars.”

And it’s a phrase that Dr Priya Mara­jh still us­es as a guid­ing prin­ci­ple in her life to­day.

While Mara­jh said she did not face any sig­nif­i­cant hur­dle in her aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits the same could not be said about her work suc­cess.

“I am grate­ful that I did not face ma­jor chal­lenges in my aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits. I went to St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School where we were al­ways en­cour­aged and taught to ex­cel in what­ev­er we sought to do.

“Even at the uni­ver­si­ty lev­el, I can safe­ly say that I was for­tu­nate to have lec­tur­ers that were very en­cour­ag­ing and sup­port­ive. Al­so, both in high school and uni­ver­si­ty I had the sup­port of my par­ents and friends, which was im­per­a­tive. My one lit­tle chal­lenge was that I was a bit of an in­tro­vert through­out my aca­d­e­m­ic life. I was able to even­tu­al­ly use this to my ben­e­fit though as I was al­ways very fo­cused and was not eas­i­ly dis­tract­ed from my stud­ies.”

Af­ter sec­ondary school, Mara­jh did her law stud­ies through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stafford­shire.

“When I was in high school and even in uni­ver­si­ty, I re­al­ly did not en­vi­sion a ca­reer in the en­er­gy sec­tor. What I did have was a mind­set that I did not want to be pi­geon­holed in­to one par­tic­u­lar area of study and I think that mind­set has af­ford­ed me to have a di­verse ca­reer which in­cludes work­ing in en­er­gy but al­so lec­tur­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in the field of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.”

Mara­jh has been mak­ing waves in the en­er­gy in­dus­try.

She is cur­rent­ly a di­rec­tor at Touch­stone Ex­plo­ration Inc, and at TOSL En­gi­neer­ing Ltd, along with be­ing the vice pres­i­dent at the En­er­gy Cham­ber of T&T.

“Work suc­cess had some hur­dles along the way but none that were in­sur­mount­able. The en­er­gy sec­tor re­mains one of the least gen­der di­verse sec­tors. So as a woman that wants to as­sume lead­er­ship roles with­in the en­er­gy sec­tor you have to some­times be pre­pared to be the on­ly fe­male in the room and you have to be pre­pared to make a space for your­self where that space may not be read­i­ly avail­able.

“What I have found is that you have to en­sure that you are al­ways will­ing to speak up and have your voice and opin­ions heard. You would not ex­cel in any in­dus­try if you sit on the side­lines, but for women in male-dom­i­nat­ed in­dus­tries, it is even more cru­cial to know and say ex­act­ly what you want and to voice your opin­ion.”

Gen­er­al­ly, how­ev­er, Mara­jh does not think about chal­lenges.

“I am al­ways fo­cused on the op­por­tu­ni­ty to suc­ceed. At a young age my fa­ther made it very clear to me that work that was well done will be re­ward­ed. He cul­ti­vat­ed in me from a very young age, the im­por­tance of con­sis­ten­cy and hard work and this has stuck with me through­out my ca­reer. I’ve al­ways worked for what I want­ed, and I am con­fi­dent that this ap­proach, re­gard­less of gen­der, is a gold­en rule. What­ev­er chal­lenges pop up, it’s just an op­por­tu­ni­ty to find strate­gies and so­lu­tions to over­come them.

“With that be­ing said I can tell you what ac­tu­al­ly worked well for me dur­ing both aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits and my ca­reer ad­vance­ment, and that was hav­ing ex­cel­lent men­tors who were al­ways will­ing to lis­ten and of­fer ad­vice when need­ed. I think we un­der­es­ti­mate the pow­er of men­tor­ship and the val­ue that it can bring in ad­vanc­ing your ca­reer. I have had the sup­port of strong women who cheer on and give ad­vice and I have al­so had strong male men­tors who had a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence who were al­ways will­ing to share knowl­edge and to en­cour­age me on my jour­ney.”

Grow­ing up as a teen, Mara­jh said she was very in­tro­vert­ed.

“Back then I did not re­al­ly know what an in­tro­vert was. I just knew I was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent and did not fit the role of be­ing the tra­di­tion­al out­go­ing high school teenag­er. Most oth­er teenagers and adults I in­ter­act­ed with could not un­der­stand why I was hap­pi­est alone read­ing a book or why I could on­ly bring my­self to hang out with one or two friends at a time. But I al­ways had this need to recharge and re­flect. At some point, I won­dered if some­thing was wrong with me!

“It took me a while to re­alise that I was sim­ply an in­tro­vert, and there is ab­solute­ly noth­ing wrong with that. How­ev­er, there are a few things I wish I could tell my teenaged self one of them be­ing that you will find your way with­out com­pro­mis­ing what you be­lieve in or chang­ing who you are. As you get old­er you will find ways to use your in­tro­vert­ed na­ture to en­rich your ca­reer and re­la­tion­ships. Al­so be­ing in­tro­vert­ed does not mean that you are shy or in­se­cure in who you are, in­stead, it al­lows you to de­vel­op qui­et con­fi­dence, which in my opin­ion ex­udes self-as­sur­ance and strength in a way that is re­spect­ful but im­pact­ful.”

Mara­jh said find­ing bal­ance in life is re­al­ly about know­ing what you want and know­ing what your pri­or­i­ties are.

“I don’t think bal­ance re­quires sac­ri­fice and I think that bal­ance means dif­fer­ent things to dif­fer­ent peo­ple, and the mean­ing of bal­ance would al­so change de­pend­ing on where you are in life. What I do have is a re­al­ly strong sup­port sys­tem in my friends and fam­i­ly and that has af­ford­ed me the op­por­tu­ni­ties to find bal­ance. I think hav­ing a strong sup­port sys­tem at home is cru­cial in achiev­ing bal­ance, we have to move away from think­ing that there are pre­scribed roles for men and women, it re­al­ly is about do­ing what you can to sup­port each oth­er.”

Mara­jh said her goal is to get more in­volved in giv­ing back in mean­ing­ful ways.

“As such I have been look­ing at get­ting in­volved in work­ing with NGOs that are fo­cused on get­ting young women more in­volved in the en­er­gy sec­tor through ed­u­ca­tion and pro­vid­ing them with the nec­es­sary skills and knowl­edge to suc­ceed in the en­er­gy sec­tor. I am fo­cused on do­ing this through men­tor­ship, ca­reer guid­ance, and pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for train­ing and de­vel­op­ment. I would like to en­sure that the work I do now and in the fu­ture re­sults in greater aware­ness of the role that women can play in bring­ing new ideas and dif­fer­ent so­lu­tions in an en­er­gy sec­tor that is un­der­go­ing a sig­nif­i­cant amount of change.

“I want to in­flu­ence changes that will trans­form the en­er­gy sec­tor so that women in lead­er­ship po­si­tions are seen as the norm and nev­er as the ex­cep­tion.”

Mara­jh said for her In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is a day for the cel­e­bra­tion of the ac­com­plish­ments of women and a re­minder to us all that we need to pro­mote women at all lev­els.

“It af­fords us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to raise aware­ness around dis­crim­i­na­tion and to pro­mote gen­der par­i­ty. It serves as an an­nu­al re­minder of the women that have blazed a trail for us all, which em­pow­ers our gen­er­a­tion to take up a place of lead­er­ship and en­cour­age those that will come af­ter us.”


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