In Candid Conservation with Sonica Aron is the Founder and Managing Partner of Marching Sheep, an HR advisory firm specializing in Strategic HR advisory, Diversity and inclusion interventions, employee health and wellness and capability building.
- Being a successful business leader, what difficulties and challenges do you face? What keeps you motivated?
Being an HR professional turned entrepreneur, Sonica entered the world of entrepreneurship with little knowledge of running her own business. She knew her craft, which was HR, but little about the statutory requirements associated with having your own setup. Whether it should be an LLP, LLC or a company or a proprietorship. Making her own website from scratch was a challenge, being bootstrapped. She was in a vicious cycle, to hire a team member or to wait for revenues to reach a certain level. She was doing everything from BD to delivery to invoicing to client management to paying taxes herself. Being an introvert, and shy, doing Business development, that is sales did not come naturally to her. She was hesitant about singing her own praises as a consultant, but that was needed. She was hesitant to network. It took her time to learn this art. Then came the issue of managing cash flows.
Slowly and steadily, she learnt, she hired, and grew. The client base grew, Revenues stabilized. However, there were environmental challenges that came time and again. Demonetization, GST implementation and more recently the pandemic.
Each time, the industry got destabilized and the client focus shifted from HR interventions to business continuity. The firm had to evolve each time to meet the needs of the clients to stay relevant. That taught the team flexibility and adaptability.
Marching Sheep has been blessed to forge strong partnerships with our clients who have trusted us and given us repeated work, partners like FICCI and transformance forums who helped us carry our message and passion on building inclusive workplaces, and inclusive world.
- Brief us about the CEO/Founder of the company
An XLRI post graduate, Sonica has worked with companies like Pepsico, Vodafone, Roche Diagnostics and ICI paints. She started her career with a sound understanding of business where she went route-riding with Pepsico and was part of the team that launched Pepsi 200 ml at Rs 5. She was the first lady HR Manager stationed at a factory in Upcountry UP and there the seeds to her diversity practice were born.
Sonica Aron, is the most respected and sought after facilitator and trainer not just in India but globally today. Seen as a thought leader and trusted advisor, her opinions and work are frequently published in leading publications like TOI, HT, Hindu, Live Mint, Statemen, Pioneer, Business World etc.
An alumnus of XLRI, Jamshedpur, a certified Coach, certified in psychometric instruments, she has a unique style of facilitation wherein she engages with her audience and draws out deep reflections and participation. She has over 20 years of experience at leadership roles in companies like Philips, AkzoNobel, Roche Diagnostics, Vodafone and Pepsi. She started Marching Sheep in 2013 with a vision of delivering interventions that truly move the needle.
She has engaged with several organizations and has helped build long term capability, diversity and leadership strategy. She has helped client organizations systemically achieve desirable behavioral outcome by streamlining relevant people management processes and delivering bespoke training programs. Diversity interventions are her forte. Women @work and Unleash, the two programs focusing on life stage transition and gender bias have been very well received by the industry. She frequently speaks at forums like FICCI, Transformance, UBS conferences. She is considered a thought leader in progressive HR practices and She has been listed among the top 10 women entrepreneurs in 2020 by Forbes India, Among India’s Most Valued Leaders by Forbes India 2021, among Inspirational Leadership Icons by Fortune India, among the top 100 digital influencers by YourStory, as the Women Entrepreneur of the year at the 62nd National Summit on Atma Nirbhar Bharat: Vision of New India 2022, organized by Indian Achievers Forum, among India’s Dynamic Achievers 2022 by Business World.
In the past 10 years, Marching Sheep has gone from strength to strength under the leadership of Sonica. It boasts of a healthy roster of Indian and global clients, including Uber, Concentrix, Mercedez Benz, UPL, HSBC, Orix, Reckitt Benckiser, Abbott, SBI cards, Indigrid, Sterlite Power, PepsiCo, JCB India, Continental Tyres, Diageo, Takeda, Lupin, Avery Dennison, Sony Music to name a few.
Sonica is a passionate advocator of diversity, employee experience and emotional wellness. Having been a woman professional, Sonica has both experienced and observed gender-based bias closely. Every woman in the workspace experiences this at some time or the other. This prompted her to launch her diversity practice. ‘Organizations need to move ahead of the curve and drive inclusive teams and mindsets, gender sensitive processes and mentor and coach women’, she believes and advocates. She works on board of ‘Gender at Work India Trust’ actively delivering to the society. Sonica loves her little patch of the garden and is an avid reader.
- What are the different products and services offered by the Company?
The 4 main services are:
- Diversity & Inclusion Strategies and interventions
We truly believe that inclusive organizations are more productive and we enable our client organizations to arrive at their Inclusion and diversity charter and strategy through a diversity diagnostic, executable plans, and also partner with the execution, drive mindset change, and culture building.
- Human Resource Consulting
Organizations need their HR strategy, process, and policies to enable employees to deliver on the business strategy and goals. We work closely with client organizations to streamline the Vision, mission, values, behavioural frameworks, HR strategy, policies, and practices, drive communication and socialization, the internal Leadership, managerial capability to enable the same.
- Bespoke learning interventions
The last two years of the pandemic, the world has changed significantly. As the socio-economic fabric is evolving, the competencies needed to succeed at work are evolving. We work with clients to enable individual contributors, managers, and leaders to succeed by building the right competencies. We curate each intervention to drive the right behaviors through facilitation of insights, reflection, and practice.
- Health & Wellness Portfolio
Wellness today includes emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing. While policies and insurances can take care of the physical aspect, there still needs to awareness and life skill-building around dealing with issues like anxiety, stress, burnout. With programs curated after research and with the help of clinical psychologists, we enable individuals to become emotionally resilient by identifying their own stress triggers, their own stress responses and coping mechanisms and hence more productive, personally, and professionally.
4.Tell us about the notable milestones in the company’s journey.
Over the last 10 years we have gone from strength to strength. From being a one-woman army, to today a team of committed HR professionals. From 1 client to a healthy roster of clients across industries and geographies, with Pan India presence to global presence. We are seen as thought leaders and trusted partners.
- How do you motivate your team to be innovative and productive at work?
As a consulting organization that offers customized solutions, problem solving and innovation are an intrinsic part of our day to day work. I really do not need to any thing special to make my team think out of the box. Once faced with a problem or need statement, they will automatically look different approaches that can help arrive at most appropriate solution. They collaborate with each other and leverage each others’ strengths. We have a very flat and non-hierarchical structure that allows for sharing of ideas and thoughts freely.
- How do you maintain a productive work culture at a company while motivating your employees?
Being a small close-knit team, with a flat non- hierarchical structure, each team member is empowered and enabled. Since we all work remotely, they are held accountable for deliverables and not micro-managed for timings. Decision making is shared. There is transparency and openness. Every team member has an equal opportunity to learn and grow as per their appetite and interest. And most importantly, all of us believe in the purpose of the firm and are passionate about truly making a difference to peoples’ lives and careers and driving respect and equality for all.
- What are your future plans for the company? Where do you see the company in the years to come?
We are already a leading D&I firm in India. We would like to expand and make our mark globally. Our journey of acquiring international clients began in 2021, and we need to press the accelerate the pedal on this in coming years.
- What is your advice to the budding and aspiring entrepreneurs?
Follow your heart, and be persistent. There will be obstacles, there will be naysayers, but you need to be confident about what you are doing and keep at it. Nothing succeeds like success.
