Defining lives
‘Building a Positive Mindset’ is the key to living a good life.
A successful corporate woman from Information technology industry, Coach, Motivational speaker, career coach and a model; introducing Meenal Drockz to Corporate Impact magazine. Meenal did her Masters’s degree in New York and established a corporate career in the USA. Meenal was born and brought up in Mumbai, India, and currently lives in Vancouver, Canada. In an interview with Corporate Impact, Meenal mentioned that From working with the corporate sector to the world of coaching and modeling, Meenal Drockz tells her story of failure, rejection, inspiration, and above all, success.
Meenal Drockz
Coach
Motivational Speaker
Career Coach
Model
Meenal Drockz is an internationally recognized Coach running Drockz Coaching online Program (www.drockz.com) in USA, Canada, United Kingdom, UAE, Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, India and Australia. Coach Drockz expertise is in training individuals for Pageants, Runway, World of Influencers and Business Analysis (Informational Technology). With such a diversified portfolio of service offerings, it gives her immense pleasure and excitement to meet clients from various fields such as Fashion, Corporate and Branding. Through her coaching, she has produced winners that won in several pageants like Ms Universe, Miss World, Miss International America, Ms Canada Regency International and Mrs Asia International.
Currently, she is the Brand ambassador, Coach and Choreographer for My Dream Ms Universe USA. She has served as a judge and celebrity coach in several pageant judging panels like Miss Mr Africa, Miss Mr Asia, Miss Canada, Miss India and Miss International America. Students enrolled in her pageant & runway school get trained into various aspects like Catwalk, Poses, Smile makeovers, Personality development, Confidence, Q&A prep, Runway neutral expressions. She works with internationally recognized prop and evening gown vendors that source the best outfits in the best price from different parts of the world
Worklife and educational background
Apart from working as an I.T Portfolio Manager in Govt of Canada healthcare and managing a team of developers & analysts, Meenal Drockz makes sure that she is able to hustle between her work life, coach life and modeling world. Meenal is a part time weekend model (only available for weekend gigs) and is an internationally recognized Coach who running an Online one-one coaching program called ‘Drockz Coaching’ for influencers, pageant candidates, and business analysts.
Meenal aces the art of juggling between her work life and her professional hobbies since it not only creates excitement in her life, but also allows her to learn what different industries have to offer.
Coach Drockz’s educational background is very strong. She is an MBA, B.COM, M.COM, C.S, PMIBA and Exim Scrum Master. She studied in USA and worked in several global Fortune 50 I.T companies. She currently works as a Portfolio manager in Information Technology in Canada. Coaching is her side hustle and Drockz says that one of the reasons she has been able to achieve success as a Coach is due to her own wealth of experiences in the field of Corporate and Fashion. She has been show director of over 540 fashion shows and 230 events and currently she gets to Coach/Choreograph in the best international pageants and fashion weeks across the globe. Coach Meenal Drockz has won several awards in the field of coaching and she wishes to continue excelling in this field. She finds happiness in seeing her students smile and finds it very satisfying that she is able to change personalities by guiding these students in the right direction that is their path to success and fame. Coach Drockz says that she is very blessed that today she is one of the preferred Coaches by clients and feels fortunate that she gets the opportunity to work with various ethnicities that allows her to learn about their country and culture.
As a manager, what skillset does Meenal look into potential candidates for getting hired as a business analyst in the foeld of IT that youngsters can keep in mind?
When she interview candidates for a role such as business analyst or project manager, I look into their past experience in requirement gathering, analytical and logical ability, problem solving skills, clear communication and if they are able to showcase solution mindset to case studies presented in the interview. It is always an add on if candidates are experts in excel macros, presentations and writing documents but she believes that applications can be learned anytime but work ethics comes with years of experience. She looks for individuals with the right work ethics, passionate to grow in the career and who have great experience working in various technological projects. She advises the youth to focus on continuous learning and knowledge building as information technology is changing faster than ever. With artifical intelligence taking over and new systemd like chat gpt and anthropic being used across the globe for faster and efficient work, every individual passionate in IT field should be able to leverage it and use it for being productive.it is very important to stay up to date with latest improvements in technology for a steady career growth.
What students learn from her Pageant/Runway/Influencer coaching program?
Before being a Coach, Meenal has herself bagged titles like Ms International America and Ms Canada Regency international ambassador 2022-2023, Miss Asia BC Canada 20-21 and former Miss India Seattle. Meenal’s name made it in King Book of World records for being the first ever woman to take the initiative to stop height criteria in the world of modeling as well as dating industry through her campaign ‘Say No To Heightism’.
With her coaching, a student understand the A to Z of Pageant/Runway/Influencer world and are able to set themselves up for success. Most of the students from her school have been winners of prestigious titles and have competed in pageants like Ms Universe, Miss World, Miss Asia, Miss India. Her application process in her school is a bit different than other schools as Coach Drockz prefers to work with unique profiles that have never ever experience pageantry or runway but she thinks she can shape them into a winning star. Her student testimonials and reviews are exceptional and she gives credit to her own coaches ‘Hemant Trivedi’, ‘Yatin Gandhi’ , ‘Liza Verma’as she learned from the best.
Winners from her coaching school that she is proud of?
Her Coaching program has produced winners who have interesting profiles in the field of corporate, healthcare and service industry. Her program accepts homemakers too and has no age, weight, height barrier. Her last few student winners that she is proud of have been Janhavi Rane-First ever dentist who won Ms Universe East Coast America, Mina Kalyan-First ever curvy woman who won Mrs Universe West Coast USA, Deepa Marok-Mrs Universe Asia USA and the first ever Indian to make it to the top 25 of Mrs Universe, Varsha Paul-Robotic engineer working in Fortune 50 global company who won Miss Asia Regency International and appeared on Times Square,Haper Bazaar magazine. Diksha Vinayak – Homemaker who now appears as a showstopper in New York Fashion Week & other fashion events, Birjees Ali- Healthcare professional who won 3 crown titles in Classic category in International America and now is an ambassador in Los Angeles Fashion Week, Liana- Esthetician and first Armenian to win International America, Sindhu Raghavan- Corporate woman working as a Program Manager who won Miss India USA World.
This year from her coaching program, she is excited and rooting for Inesse Manucharyan (first Ms Universe Armenian USA) and Rutvi (Current Mrs Universe USA) to win titles in the upcoming Universe pageant 2024 in Korea.
Coach Drockz stated that her heart fills with gratitude and she feels very achieving when students from her school are soaring high and make their name in the industry using the techniques taught in her one on one sessions. She loves enrolling challenging profiles in her school as it creates more excitement for her to work harder on them to take them from Lesson 101 of the program to becoming a field expert.
Why does Meenal promote being a multi tasker?
One of the reasons she continued with modeling/acting with her corporate career was so that she could set an example for everyone that you can do everything you want if you know how to prioritize your time. She added that the corporate lifestyle puts people in a loop of the 9 – 5 am job, giving them less or no time for other skills. She says that time management is a skill that we all are born with but we don’t use it. We need to prioritize our work lifetime, our family time, and our me time, and that me-time should be dedicated to living our dream. The world we live in is to be jack of all trades and master of ALL. And once you have mastered it all, you can narrow it down to the niche that suits you the best but it is very explore to gain knowledge of various fields than sticking to one.
About her Scholarship program for the underpriveleged.
Her coaching school charges no fee to students who have no source of income but have the potential to participate in a pageant or grow as a model or influencer. Drockz coaching accepts students in her program irrelevant of their age, height or body. Her school trains girls of all sizes and she also places them on the runway or various events thus changing the perception of the people around them. Coach Meenal believes that personality makeovers makes a huge difference and through her coaching, she is able to build confidence in women of all ages. She believes that every woman has a different journey and they all want to pursue their passion at their own pace. In her opinion, some women give up on their career and passion to raise kids and pursue their passion later in life while some prefer to pursue their passion and career first while delaying on their family growth timeline. Meenal’s mantra is that eventually what matters for every woman is to not lose their own identity and aspirations for anyone. Students of all ages can apply for scholarship in all of her program offerings that include Influencer, Business Analysis as well as Career Building programs as far as they can show evidence of having low income.
What are other programs in ‘Drockz Coaching’ academy?
Meenal takes pride in her influencer students who work with successful brands that pay them for social media content. Coach Drockz very soon recognized that youtube influencers do not give away the hidden secret on how to find paying brands and how to attract these brands to come after you. And that’s when Coach Drockz launched Influencer program to train students the practical way of getting paid brands and making powerful content. A lot of models benefit from influencer program as they can model products at their homes instead of auditioning in studios or spending in travel for auditions. Coach Drockz versatility in program offerings is what makes her a very unique coach in this space.
When Corporate Impact magazine asked her which program of hers is her favorite?
She mentioned that her favorite is Business Analysis program and she enjoys coaching analysts because she loves to see when individuals land a good 6 figures salary job after learning the course from her school. In her opinion, modeling world takes time as portfolio building of a model takes several years before they start making income but with business analysis, the results are right away. She added humor by saying that she likes the balance of working with models and corporate individuals because too much working wirh just models or just geeks may get mundane easily. Meeting versatile people with versatile personalities just keeps Coach Drockz’s life exciting and she gets to learn more about people.
Driving force and breaking the stigma around height in modeling. What inspired Meenal to run the campaign ‘Say No to Heightism’.
Meenal was known as a geek in school and was bullied for not being fashionable. She was determined to break the perception that nerds and beauty don’t go together and prove it otherwise. Hence, after completing her studies, she focused on self-grooming and auditioned for several international runway shows. That is when she realized that being tall was one of the most important key factors in the world of modeling. But she wanted to break that convention, so she auditioned for shows in spite of having an average height. Her amazing catwalk skills paved her way for the New York Fashion Week, LA fashion week & North American Fashion week.
She also shed light on how due to the height criteria in the world of Pageant and modeling, many get into depression or go through surgeries. Through her campaign, she urges all international level pageants and runway shows to do away with this criterion of having a certain height to be able to model. She also insists that rejecting potential matches in the dating world due to the height factor should stop and rather more weightage should be given to their personality and nature.
She also talks about the fact that designers showcase clothing on taller models which are misleading as target customers could be shorter too. She recommends that designers should showcase garments on models of all shapes and sizes so that customers get a fair idea of how the clothing would look on them.
Apart from heightism, which other cause/platform is near to her heart?
One of the social entrepreneurship causes Meenal is working on is to ensure that youth enjoys social media to a limited extent to gain knowledge and rejuvenate for few hours but as soon as it hits 1.5 hours of continuous watching, their connection is terminated. She encourages youngsters to not go after the numbers game in terms of followers on instagram or facebook but to go after content building as this could add to additional stress in their lives and distract them from their main goal which is to gain as much knowledge as they can in their growing years. She is sad to see numbers rising on younger folks struggling with depression due to lack of self confidence and self love mainly due to social media distraction. In her youth motivation speeches, she highlights on the fact how it is important to stop focussing on what others are doing or showcasing on social media and start focussing on what they have the potential to do. She adds humor by stating most social media sites are like Fake books or stories since most of the times people over exaggerate or just highlight the surreal things in life and rarely do they highlight their real side. So she insists that social media is not supposed to be taken seriously and only consumed for light entertainment rather than impacting your mindset.
Building a Positive Mindset’ is the key to living a good life. One of the global issues in society that Meenal thinks needs attention is ‘Working towards just not a healthy body but a healthy mind.’ She noticed that most of us go through similar issues in life which can cause stress and impact our mental health. To make a difference, Meenal posts daily inspirations on social media through her own life experiences on how to live life with a positive mindset and how to let go of experiences that cause negativity so that everyone can balance their body, soul and mind.
A word for the budding or upcoming models
I would like to advise all artists and models to not give up just because they have faced too many failures as this world is competitive. In fact, the more failures we get, the more lessons we learn and we are then prepared to get massive success. She says that if you think you are talented, you can convince anyone.
Her struggle with height restrictions in the modeling industry has led her to fight the battle for the rest of the tribe, she added that she would like to get support for her campaign from people all over the world so that we all can stop asking height-related questions and let every talented individual showcase their true potential.
How does Meenal Drockz feel about competition?
Meenal Drockz loves healthy competition and she believes it makes the quality of your work or service better. With monopoly, there is no room for further growth but healthy competition leads to better and innovative ideas. When Meenal started coaching, she was the very first Indian Woman in USA to have launched an international level of coaching program and now she is proud that more indian women are venturing in this area getting inspired from her. She has a program called ‘Coaching out of the box’ where she trains and supports upcoming and emerging coaches that are new in the industry by giving them practical experience. She agrees on the saying that ‘Competition Happens at the Bottom, Collaboration Happens at the Top’.
What does collaboration mean to her?
At work, Meenal collaborates with different teams for the success of a technology sector project. She states that collaborations are done in a professional manner in worklife, so it is easy to collaborate. But in the field of fashion, collaborations are tough since there is no professional body monitoring it. Things have to be evaluated and researched in depth before collaborating with other entrepreneurs. The only thing in common between technology and fashion industry is that risks need to be precalculated and mitigation steps need to be in place before any collab project takes off. One of her best collaborations has been with MyDream CEO’s Janak & Rashmi Bedi and together they bring exceptional productions to various cities. Drockz and MyDream’s last collab project ‘International America’ pageant in Seattle had the presence of esteemed judges like Diana Hayden, former Miss World, Shree Saini, current Miss World 1st RUP and their latest collab project has been Mrs Universe USA held in Seattle that were judged by influencers of Seattle like Nandini Gupta, Ekta Saini, Amrita Banerjee, Buboi from MGI, Nerice, Zeynab and other crown winners that flew from various cities in USA.
Coach Drockz also mentioned that one of the reasons her program is successful is because she collaborates with the best in the business. Her students evening gowns, national costumes, props etc are designed by best vendors across the globe and she is proud of her partner vendors. She showcases gratitude on her partnership and working experience with designers like Kelly (Vietnam, USA), USA designers Rossario George, DDC by Anjali, Ambizz Flair, Pashm, COR, Divazz, Label by NehaBafna, Grandiose by Shagun, Arma Fashions by Ankita, Lil Simsun photography, Adiish designs, Alejandro & Santiago, Jai Parivesh Canada, Medha art New York, and multiple other vendors that have allowed her students to look glam and shine on the pageant stages with flying colors. Meenal Drockz choreography collaboration with designer Priyanka Signature Couture by Priyanka Chopra in Vancouver Fashion Week, Canada made headlines in Vogue magazine showcasing unique fusion collection that attracted Asian, Canadian and European buyers on the runway.
What advice Meenal gives to Corporate impact viewers?
Meenal believes in the power of manifestation and that every dream that is pursued can become true. She wishes Corporate impact viewers to be able to manifest this year and be able to turn their dreams into reality. When positive energy is put in any thought through powerful affirmations, a lot of positive changes are seen in life. She urges everyone to always take care of their physical, mental and spiritual health in order to polish their inner energies. She encourages everyone to keep their vibes high to ignite their passion. She is blessed to embrace motherhood this year and blushes by saying that earlier she thought she had some experie
