Inspire Someone Today
Inspire Someone Today
E145 | Beyond the Playbook | Roopa Kudva
How will leadership transform in an AI-driven future? Roopa Kudva, whose remarkable journey spans from the hills of Northeast India to the boardrooms of global corporations, offers profound insights into this question and much more.
From her formative years in Meghalaya's matrilineal society, where she observed women in positions of power, to navigating career setbacks that taught her resilience, Roopa's story reveals how leadership fundamentally rests on balancing diverse responsibilities while making thoughtful trade-offs. She draws an essential distinction between mentors and sponsors, highlighting how career advancement often depends more on those willing to give you opportunities than those offering advice.
Delving into board effectiveness, Roopa articulates how great governance requires navigating tensions: supporting management while challenging appropriately, balancing shareholder interests with broader stakeholder responsibilities, and carving out time for long-term strategy amid regulatory demands. Her insights on women in leadership are particularly compelling, identifying how likability bias, self-advocacy challenges, and lack of sponsorship create barriers that persist despite progress.
Looking toward the future, Roopa paints a vision of AI-transformed organizations where leadership evolves dramatically. Tomorrow's leaders will be "AI strategists, ethical guardians, and wider influencers" as technology reshapes companies and entire societies. She emphasizes that leadership has shifted from command-and-control to collaborative-and-co-create, requiring collective wisdom to navigate uncharted territory.
Her perspectives on impact investing reveal a sophisticated approach focused on sector development through innovation, infrastructure, and policy, measuring success through scale, depth of transformation, or catalytic sector change. Most encouraging is her observation that today's entrepreneurs increasingly come from smaller towns with firsthand experience of the problems they're solving.
Connect with Roopa's wisdom and prepare for leadership in rapidly changing times. She advises, "Jump into every new experience with both feet and a sense of adventure. Life will have its ups and downs, but don't let the downs hold you back."
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Learning to handle adversity continues to be a journey for me, as it is for most of us. I therefore, whenever I face difficult times since then, I never get into the question of why me and life is so unfair, because I think I do recognize that this happens to everyone and life has its share of good and bad. Life has its share of ups and downs, great times and hard times. You know, ai is not just going to change companies. It's going to change society, it's going to change communities, it's going to change societies, it's going to change countries in ways that we can only begin to imagine now, and therefore there is no doubt that, even as a corporate leader, you will not be immune to what is happening in the larger society around you. Business leaders therefore have to learn to respond thoughtfully.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Inspire Someone Today podcast, a show where we dive into the stories and insights that has the power to create ripples of inspiration in your life. I'm your host, shrikant, and I'm thrilled to be with you on this journey of inspiration. Welcome back, my dear listeners, for yet another episode of Inspire Someone today. Welcome back, my dear listeners, for yet another episode of Inspire Someone today. Some leaders build businesses, some shape ecosystems, and there are a rare few like Rupa Kuduva, who quietly do both From boardroom to grassroots.
Speaker 2:Rupa's journey has spanned global finance, inclusive innovation and everything in between. She led Crisheel through a massive transformation. Then, at Omidyar Network India, she turned capital into impact, focused on India's next half billion. But behind the accolades and board positions is a leader who has navigated change, challenge and reinvention while staying rooted in purpose. In a world that often confuses noise for progress, rupa shows us what steady, thoughtful leadership looks like. This conversation is about decisions, transitions and quiet confidence it takes to lead with impact. It's an absolute joy and pleasure to have Rupa Kudwa join me on this episode of Inspire Someone today. Rupa, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thank you, shrikant, and it's an equal joy and pleasure for me. I must say that I really admire your persistence in running this podcast so consistently. I believe this is the 145th episode and it's an honor for me to be here.
Speaker 2:Thank you when we have leaders like you endorsing this. This is exactly why this platform is created to create ripples of inspiration Without much further ado. Rupai, if I were to jump right in, let's go back during your early growing up years. Who or what influenced your journey earlier on?
Speaker 1:So, like most people, you know, I too have been shaped by my family circumstances, the environment that I was in and, equally importantly, the times I grew up in. I grew up in Northeast India, in Meghalaya and Assam. It really is a beautiful part of the country and at that time I was very fortunate that I got to go to what I think were excellent schools where the peer group was diverse and from all over India, so we had people from the armed forces, the PSUs, government etc. And that got me used at a very young age to this whole concept of diversity and also of change, because I must have changed schools some six or seven times. It was, as you can imagine in those days, a slow and very simple life close to nature. On a typical holiday, For example, we just ran across the fields, went to the hills and played in the woods, and folks back home knew that you know, when these children feel hungry they'll come back. So that was all there was to it at that point. We had very limited exposure to city life. That was once in two or three years when we took the long train journey back to Mumbai and Goa to meet the rest of my family, and there was no exposure that I had at that point to the business world.
Speaker 1:However, very early on I do think I imbibed that it was very important for women to work and to be financially independent, and this was something that actually happened quite organically. Very early on, for example, I noticed that my mother, who was till one point a homemaker, trained and became a school teacher and later a school administrator, and when that happened I noticed visibly the attitudes of people towards her change, and I mean this in a positive way. I also noticed the way people around were reacting to some women bureaucrats whom I got to see at fairly close quarters. I grew up in an era where the prime minister of the country was a woman and a pretty dominating force in that time, and also I grew up in Meghalaya, which, interestingly, is a matrilineal society where women play a very significant role not just in their families but also in the community and businesses. So these, I would say, were some of the early influences that have shaped me.
Speaker 2:That was great. That was your early journey on from Meghalaya to what you have seen. One of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes is you can always join the dots backwards and similarly a lot has happened through your life journey career journey, professional journey and I'm sure some of this would have happened in a hard way. Thinking back, what was the lesson learned and what are you grateful for it today.
Speaker 1:When I look back at my early years, or indeed I would say, if I look back at my life, I think I've been blessed, because I wouldn't say, shrikant, that I've had particularly hard knocks compared to what I've seen many, many other people face. I consider myself therefore very fortunate and very privileged, but I did face a couple of setbacks early, and not very major, but let me describe them. The first was once I finished my school, I came to study in Mumbai to do my graduation and, having grown up in small towns, I found that I just could not adjust to the big city life, and so I decided, after a year of trying, that this was not for me and went back to Assam and started my graduation all over again over there. Secondly, when I was finishing my graduation, I decided to ride the cat and try for the IIMs, and I did get into the IIMs in 1983. But what happened then was that my college exams were not held on time because of the Assam anti-foreigner agitation that was going on at that point, as a result of which I was not able to graduate by the time the joining date for IIM and the BAD had arrived. And, unfortunately, in those days IIM did not have a system of deferring admissions, so I had actually to drop out and take the CAT all over again one year later.
Speaker 1:I did not have a plan B and I taught in a nursery school, a kindergarten school, during that interim, which was a very, very enjoyable experience, I must say. But I think facing some of these setbacks early on in life, I think hopefully it has helped me to see better that these are a part and parcel of life. Everybody will go through ups and downs and while learning to handle adversity continues to be a journey for me, as it is for most of us, I therefore, whenever I face difficult times since then, I never get into the question of why me and life is so unfair, because I think I do recognize that this happens to everyone and life has its share of good and bad. Life has a share of ups and downs, great times and hard times that's a beautiful way of looking at it.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's not because of age, it's just the experience that you have had. And talking about experience, it's just not about a girl moving from a small town, or you also mentioned about moving different schools, but it can happen to anybody, whether it's a boy or a girl moving from small cities to bigger cities, moving from smaller institutions to larger institutions. How did you manage this particular change? Who were the individuals who mentored you along the way, and how did it help you or benefit you?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that by the time I actually arrived and started living in bigger cities, that was once I graduated from IIM and Dabab and started working. So it was much later in life and if I look at my working career, I would say, more than mentors, my career has actually benefited a lot from what I would call sponsors, and by sponsors I'm referring to people who actually gave me the brakes and actually helped me accelerate my journey and whatever little success I've had and there are so many of them that I can name, beginning with someone in Assam who actually had graduated from the IIMs and was posted in Assam for a stint in one of the Tata companies there, and he actually helped me to prepare for my CAT exams, because there was no such thing as coaching classes, et cetera in the Northeast at that point in time, or later in my career, I would say Pradeep Shah, who gave me a break in Crystal. I just walked into the Crystal office at that point in time without even an appointment, and he was gracious enough to come out and meet me and interview me on the spot, something which he really did not have done considering that I did not have an appointment. But you know, that's a very important break that I got and I consider it an important marker of what I call sponsorship and support.
Speaker 1:Or further on in my career, when someone like Ravi Mohan, who was then the CEO of Priscilla, actually stepped in to give me breaks, to give me global exposure, for example sending me to Europe to work in Standard Poor's in Paris, france. Or when I raised my hand and asked for the top job in the ratings business, he listened with a patient ear and actually discussed with the board and I got the position of the chief rating officer of Brazil. So, more than mentors, there have been many people who have given advice, many people who have been the source of inspiration, but what I think makes the biggest difference in life are people who give, given advice, many people who have been the source of inspiration, but what I think makes the biggest difference in life are people who give you the breaks and people who are your sponsors.
Speaker 2:That's a superb call out Just not having those mentors, but also having those sponsors. And having had those sponsors and quite a lot of our listeners are also either sponsors or can have the potential to be one what would be your two or three call-outs for them to be effective sponsors?
Speaker 1:You know, I think it's having an eye for talent. I think in this day and age, the biggest competitive advantage that, whether you're a corporate or whether you're a startup, the biggest competitive advantage you have are your people and therefore, if you're a leader, it is almost an imperative to have talent identification, talent promotion, talent development on your radar at every point in time. So I think having that mindset that I am here to help others succeed is very important for all leaders to have. Secondly, I think, actually recognizing that you got there because people helped you along the way. You may not realize it, you may not acknowledge it.
Speaker 1:Most of us tend to attribute our successes to ourselves and our failures to others. But if you just step back and recognize your own privilege and indeed if you reached a leadership position, there would have been many privileges that you've enjoyed, whether it be in terms of your background, whether it be in terms of your education, your networks, whatever it be and you reach where you are, or the success you had that has taken you to a leadership position, has been because others have helped you along the way and therefore it's an imperative for you to support others, pay it back in a sense, or even pay it forward. So I would say that these two things recognizing your own privilege and two, always having your talent development mindset on are key to becoming a good sponsor.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Those are definitely great attributes to have. And along the way, look at your career trajectory from Criswell to Omidyar to what you've been doing on the boards. Were there inner questions of self-doubt at any point of time, and how did you deal with those transitions?
Speaker 1:Well, I think everybody, no matter how successful they are, deals with constant self-doubt, and to a certain extent it's not a bad thing, because it kind of motivates you, it spurs you on. I think some of my early experiences have shaped me in a manner that I'm relatively more comfortable with ambiguity. It's also my nature, I think. Secondly, I think a little bit of action orientation helps during periods of ambiguity, because if you jump into things saying let me try, something may work, something may not work, but just sitting and thinking about it is not going to help. So let me try figuring it out, let me try different approaches, different solutions. So that's something which I'm attuned to. And thirdly, I would say preparation, preparation, preparation. So there's a lot of prep that goes into everything I do, particularly when stepping into uncharted territory.
Speaker 2:And talking about your varied roles, one piece that I would definitely want to touch upon, given the fact that there's so much unfolding in our markets, particularly in the startup world, is about governance corporate governance, since you are on either side of the board. What makes a board truly effective? Just not from a structure standpoint, but also from a culture standpoint. What's your take on that, rupa?
Speaker 1:So I think what makes a board truly effective is two things. First of all, it's about effectively discharging a very diverse set of responsibilities. I'll come to what I mean by that. And secondly, I think a good board perfects the art of balancing and making trade-offs and I'll come to that also and expand upon it in a moment. And let me begin with this whole diverse set of responsibilities.
Speaker 1:So I think the role of a board is not to manage a company but to provide strategic oversight over the organization, and its responsibilities are very diverse. So first of all, of course, you have the fiduciary responsibilities, which is the reporting, the transparency, the disclosures, the financial controls and all of that. The second is the board needs to approve strategy. The board needs to approve capital allocation. Another key responsibility of the board is hiring and firing the CEO, if I may put it that way, and also ensuring talent development at the senior level to ensure succession planning. And finally, I think the board has to concern itself with board replenishment and board education, because times are changing very fast and boards also need to constantly evolve to reflect and position the company well for the future. So I think the first attribute is how do you effectively manage the entire gamut of this diverse set of responsibilities.
Speaker 1:And the second thing for an effective board is it's all about balancing and making trade-offs, and there are many ways or many things that board members must navigate and achieve a delicate balance in. For example, how do you basically support the management team, but also how do you challenge them whenever it's necessary? How do you balance short-term pressures, short-term targets, with long-term vision? How do you align the interests of the equity shareholders with the broader stakeholder responsibilities?
Speaker 1:50 years ago, the theory was that the company's primary responsibility is to its shareholders, but today the concept of corporate responsibility has broadened considerably to include employees, customers, vendors, suppliers and society at large. So how do you really balance all these interests? How do you ensure that you exercise authority as a board but, at the same time, don't get into micromanagement and ensure that the management is responsible? And how do you, amidst all the regulatory work, the compliance work that the board has to do in terms of approvals, in terms of reporting, and all of that, how do you ensure you also carve out adequate time for issues relating to long-term vision and strategy? I think that an effective board culture is one which achieves what I might call the right equilibrium between all these tensions or conflicting priorities.
Speaker 2:So it's a constant push and pull. So the board role is not a straightforward role, that it is just there to meet some obligation. It's definitely to kind of drive that strategy of the organization. It's definitely to kind of drive that strategy of the organization Somewhere. What I also read was up until early 2000, the average tenure of a CEO was about seven and a half years, and now it is kind of coming down. So from seven and a half years it came down to about 5.7. And now the latest number that is doing the rounds is about 3.8 years. The tenure of a CEO is kind of shrinking every decade. What do you attribute it to? Is it because of the pressure of the quarterly results? Or is it unable to manage this equilibrium that you stated? I?
Speaker 1:think it's a combination of many factors, the pressure of short-term results being only one of them. I think it's also a combination of the challenges and opportunities that we see around us. The world is changing very rapidly and so, therefore, it's hard for someone to. There are exceptions, of course, but you know, if you are going to remain a CEO for 10 years, 15 years, etc. You have to be extraordinarily nimble to navigate all the churn and all the change that is happening around you, whether it be in terms of technology, whether it be in terms of talent, whether it be in terms of workplace culture all of that. And thirdly, I think it's the opportunities for the CEOs themselves. You know, the last two decades have opened up tremendous opportunities for talented people, and the CEOs themselves find other opportunities which perhaps may be more attractive, more challenging, open up new vistas for them. So it's a combination of all these three factors which has led to higher churn and shorter tenures over time.
Speaker 2:And Rukhoy. In your stint as a board member and since I've seen a lot of these things up close, have you seen or seen of situations where governance has basically made or broken an organization?
Speaker 1:Well, I think, in terms of governance making an organization, let's start with that first. There has been a huge amount of research which has conclusively shown with data that companies which are better governed, or which are perceived to be better governed, do get a valuation premium. You see that across the board. So I think that the case on that is fairly well established. Can governance make a company well established? Can governance break a company? I think we have all seen enough examples of it during our working careers, starting with well-known examples like Satyam to some of the more recent examples in startups today, where entire businesses have collapsed because of governance failures, particularly relating to financial controls and revenue recognition.
Speaker 2:Yes. So no amount of governance is not enough if we have to have a very strong ecosystem and strong governance around it. But I'm picking on mid-management leadership. That is an area where he has seen corporate India thriving. Corporate India needs to kind of have more and more mid-managers and above From that lens. Why do many women stall making that progress or that elevation?
Speaker 1:I'm glad we are having this conversation because I think that it's not talked about enough terms of the number of women, particularly at junior levels. In corporate India. That number has steadily gone up as the proportion of women in the pipeline, whether it be professional colleges or whether it be MBA institutes, et cetera, has grown. So I think we have a happy story there. There's a growing acceptance of the need for women to be in the workforce. So there are many positive things that have happened. And yet I think this issue of there not enough women at the top is a persistent and a serious one. Why does that happen? There are a few things that hold women back in the mid-management stage, and the first, I think, is I think women struggle to figure out how they are expected to behave, and that's because of what I call the likability factor.
Speaker 1:It is well proven that successful women are less liked than successful men. There are the same qualities which, if a man exhibits are viewed much more positively and if a woman exhibits are viewed much more positively and if a woman exhibits are viewed not so positively. There's this famous case study in Harvard, I think it was, where they divided the class into two, gave them exactly the same case study of a CEO. In one instance, however, the CEO was called Harry. In the other instance the CEO was called Harriet and the rest of the case was exactly the same. And it was really interesting that the descriptions of the CEO in the group where the CEO was named was a woman were far more negative than compared to the description of traits in the group which had the man as the CEO. So I think that's very telling. So I think women struggle with what are the expected behaviors of us and it's a real issue.
Speaker 1:The second thing I've seen women struggle with at the mid-management level is the whole issue of self-belief and self-advocacy. You know, if there is an advertisement for a job and a woman looks at the requirements and sees that four things out of 10 are missing, chances are she will not apply for a job, but the chances are that a man with exactly those four attributes missing will still go ahead and apply. So it's somewhere the self-belief is holding them back. Also, the reticence and advocating and asking for the top jobs is something I've seen. And finally, I think there's this whole issue, shrikant, of sponsors that we talked about. You know it's not enough to keep talking about having mentorship programs for women. We actually need everyone, women as well as male leaders to actively sponsor women for the top jobs, and that is what I think will make the difference.
Speaker 2:And you very succinctly elicited what it takes for somebody to kind of break that ceiling wall into the top ladders and at the same time we as a country are also striving to be the ecosystem, the startup system of the world, the startup country, so to say. So that standpoint, what it needs is also just not mid-management leaders, it also needs those kind of founders out there. So again, an insider's view of that what does it take for us to have more and more of women founders at that helm?
Speaker 1:You're right Again, with women startup founders, a lot of progress has been made, but nowhere near what is needed. And I think the starting point for that, shrikant, is we need more women in investing. We have a lot of senior women in financial services in general, but if we look at the early stage investing, the venture capital or the private equity sub-segment, you hardly see women at the top, and I think that is something that needs to change. And why does it need to change? Because in early stage funding, the deal pipeline that you generate as a firm, the investment opportunities that you look at, are very significantly based on your network gag are very significantly based on your network. So if you have a system that is dominated by men, they will tend to be the pipeline will tend to be dominated by your networks, which is predominantly male.
Speaker 1:Secondly, I think in investment firms we need to actually start having non-judgmental but open conversations about the biases, and these biases really were very visible even during my time in the sector.
Speaker 1:And research has also shown that during a pitch presentation say, a founder is making a pitch presentation to an investment firm or an investment committee women founders are more likely to be asked what I recall prevention-focused questions, that is, questions that focus on what are the risks, what are the challenges, whereas main founders tend to receive a lot more about potential, and therefore, what this leads to is that this disparity often puts women on the defensive during pitches, making it a little harder for them to sell their vision confidently.
Speaker 1:So these are unconscious biases. Nobody is doing it intentionally, because you know you all want the best deals. Everyone, as an investor, would like to get the best founder, but this is something that comes through years and years and years and generations of social conditioning. So I think it's important to have these conversations, not in a blameworthy way, but certainly with the lens of saying, hey, what do we need to do to make sure we get the best founders to the table? The conversation is not about how do we get more women founders, but the conversation is how do we expand the funnel so that we make sure that we have the best founders in our portfolio, whether they are male or whether they are female?
Speaker 2:I like where you're going with this. This is just not about women founders, but also identifying those biases. So what is Rupa or her ecosystem doing in order to fight these biases?
Speaker 1:I think there's a lot that is happening. For instance, when I worked at ONI, we had an actually external firm come in to help us uncover unconscious biases. For example, we had live congress, and I know a lot of firms are doing that. There are a lot of organizations that are creating women's networks, whether it's women founders or women senior professionals. You see those networks growing tremendously and I think there's an increasing consciousness it's a consciousness which, I must admit, came to me later in life that as a woman, I have an obligation to help other women.
Speaker 1:That was not something I acknowledged early in my career.
Speaker 1:In fact, I almost rebelled against it. My mindset was one of saying that, you know, it's all about merit. Of course it's all about merit, but it's also about giving people a helping hand, something that I did not appreciate enough, I would say, in the early part of my career, but I have come to appreciate a lot more at this point, and so I personally also spend a lot of time talking to women, mentoring women mid-career, mid to senior level women, and I find my conversations are typically about two things it's about this whole area of self-belief, instilling self-belief, and secondly, it is encouraging people to raise their aspiration, encouraging women. I remember one woman I was having a conversation with and I'd come to know about a particular opening and I told her that I thought that she would be a great person to apply for that position and she said oh, I never thought of myself as that senior. So I think just raising, helping women think more of themselves and helping them to aim higher than some of them do at this point is also very useful.
Speaker 2:This is all about leadership that we are talking. Taking your broad experiences in this field, when do you see the leadership attributes to be 2035?
Speaker 1:So you know it's always tough to predict. So you know it's always tough to predict, but we are to be living in a world where we all agree that the future is going to be an AI-driven world. So if we start thinking about what leadership might look like, let's begin by looking at what organizations might look like, and I think in an AI world. Ai, I feel, is reshaping organizations in a few ways. First of all, clearly we will move towards much flatter organizations than we have today, much less higher. And why is that? Because with AI, you can now have AI-enabled data decisions at multiple levels and therefore routine data-heavy tasks, say, whether it be scenario building or financial forecasting, or customer segmentation all these are increasingly AI-driven, which means you do not anymore need the multiple levels in the hierarchy that you needed in the past. Secondly, I think the nature of decision making is transforming, so leaders are moving away now from making operational decisions and instead they are focusing on ensuring that AI actually supports human goals. Technology should actually support human goals and not dictate human goals, and that's the job of a leader. So evaluate the output of the AI recommendations and then make strategic judgment calls that machines simply cannot, and also provide the ethical stewardship. And thirdly, as we all know, ai is already disrupting and is going to disrupt entire business models, including in creative industries like journalism or, let's say, marketing or design, for example. So, you know, organizations will have to adapt new business models. So, against this context, what does a leader need to lead in this era? I mean, first of all, the ability to envision the future. What might the future look like? And that involves a very different level of creativity and imagination. Secondly, I think, change management, because AI is going to disrupt established workflows. Ai creates a lot of uncertainty, so this involves very clear communication from the leader. It involves thoughtful skilling programs or upskilling, retraining programs for staff and also, when necessary, it requires an empathetic approach, because workforce transitions or workforce separations might be required. So I think that entire change management is an important quality.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, I think this whole question of ethical oversight and judgment is critical. You know, and what are the key ethical issues that AI creates? I think the first one is algorithmic bias and second is data privacy. You might have heard about that Amazon case a few years ago where they actually discontinued the AI-based hiring algorithm because the AI was trained only using mail resumes. So the AI just didn't work, so they actually announced that they were going to discontinue using that. And finally, I think, risk management. You know how do you ensure that you're not over-dependent on AI and it leads to bad decisions? So, for example, you know you had the case of Zillow in the US, which had this program called Zillow Offers, where the algorithm actually made significant errors about estimation of future property prices, resulting in huge losses right down of inventory and huge losses and layoffs for the company. So I think these are some of the risks.
Speaker 1:And so if you look at a CEO, say 20 years or so down the line, you know you are not talking about an operational leader anymore. You are talking about someone who's an AI strategist. You're talking someone who's an ethical steward or an ethical guardian, and we're talking someone who's an influencer. And why do I say influencer?
Speaker 1:Because you know AI is not just going to change companies, it's going to change society, it's going to change communities, it's going to change societies, it's going to change countries in ways that we can only begin to imagine now. And therefore there is no doubt that, even as a corporate leader, you will not be immune to what is happening in the larger society around you. Business leaders therefore have to learn to respond thoughtfully. It's not going to be possible to say I'm only running my business. You know you are part of a larger ecosystem and you have to thoughtfully respond to the developments that are happening there. So it's not just about what were the traditional hard skills of a CEO. I think the machines will take over, but where the leadership will evolve to is towards becoming this AI strategist, ethical guardian and a wider influencer, if I may use that term.
Speaker 2:I think you stated it very well the ecosystem. You're no longer insulated from what you're doing. You are subject to what's happening around you as well, and these are great call-outs in terms of the traits that the future leader needs to build. What would be your go-to strategy if somebody were to be listening to this and say, okay, I know these are the stuff, but I don't know how do I go about building this. So what would be your go-to strategy?
Speaker 1:First of all, it's uncharted territory for everyone and the pace of change is so extraordinarily high. I would say tap into the collective wisdom of your teams. You know, nobody has the knowledge, nobody has all the answers, but if you enable or create an environment where everyone in the organization becomes a part of the solution, form task forces, bring in multi-unit task forces, for example, to think about a problem, have scenario visioning workshops, for example. Whatever be the technique, whatever be the approach, depending on your organization, leadership has not been for a long time about individual brilliance, unlike it was, say, 50 years ago, where it was a much more command and control style. It was a much more stable environment as well. But today you have to tap into the collective power of the larger organization and even people beyond the organization to envision, to come up with different possibilities and different solutions, to experiment, to fail, to succeed all of that. So I think it is a process of collaboration, it's a process of communication, it's a process of bringing human empathy to the fore in envisioning and solutioning for the future.
Speaker 2:So the future of leadership is not command and control, but it is collaborate and co-create.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and has been for some time now.
Speaker 2:That's true. And if I were to ask you, Rupa, what with the amount of change that is happening, how do you stay connected with emerging technologies?
Speaker 1:I was very fortunate, you know, when I turned 50, I moved from the corporate world to the world of early stage investing tech-based impact investing and that really opened up a whole new world for me, working with the entrepreneurs and leaders of the future, as compared to corporate leaders who were leaders who had arrived, and I think that opened my eyes and tuned me much better to the power of technology to create opportunities for everyone, but particularly in the power of tech to create opportunities for inclusive development. To me, that was the most exciting aspect of what technology can do in terms of spurring inclusive development, so that helped. Working with young people helps a lot. Reading trying out new technologies oneself. I think all these are essential today for trying to stay current in an environment that is literally evolving by the day. We had barely started talking about generative AI when agentic AI came along, so that's how fast things are moving.
Speaker 2:That's so true, and you did touch upon value investing, impact investing and the social impact sector. If I were to give you a check of 10 lakh to create the biggest impact, where does it go?
Speaker 1:That's an interesting question and I will answer it in a slightly different way, because I think inclusive development, or broader scale impact, is a very deep question. I think that accelerating it's very important to think of a sector as a whole and not just a single company. And let me explain why. Because accelerating the development of a sector can impact far more many lives than any one single company or any one single organization can. And to accelerate the development of a sector, we need a few things to happen. First of all, of course, we need the innovators who come up with new business models, new solutions that can scale rapidly, or come up with business models that are successful and others can replicate as well. The second thing you need is good quality sector infrastructure, and the infrastructure is a key enabler of the sector. For example, it could be physical infrastructure like warehouses or roads. It could be institutional infrastructure For example, credit guarantee institutions are a great example. Or it could be knowledge infrastructure, which is simple research to uncover what the problems are, what the issues are. So you need sector infrastructure. And, thirdly, you need government policy which is encouraging of development in that sector.
Speaker 1:So where I would put that money would depend on whichever sector I pick and I think there's enough work to be done across the board. Whether it is education, whether it is jobs, whether it is skilling, financial inclusion, mobility, you name it healthcare. There's no one area which is better than the other. But where I would put my money, depending on the sector I choose, is based on my assessment of where the sector is in its journey at a particular point in time. If it was an early stage sector, say like property titling, there I would focus a lot more on research to understand the nature of the problem. But in more evolved sectors, say like fintech or financial inclusion, I would actually put my money in backing an innovator with a new business model. So the answer really depends on where a sector is in its journey, but recognizing, if you're an impact investor, that all three are important to development of a sector and all three are important for inclusive development in India. You need the innovators, you need the sector infrastructure and you need the supportive policy.
Speaker 2:And what is that sweet spot, so to say, to draw a difference between scale and impact, while you need all of these things, but are there areas where you can clearly articulate this is scale versus this is impact, and have you seen some of it play out in the startup environment?
Speaker 1:Well, I think you touched upon a very important question, which is what is impact and how do you investment? By that I mean what impact is this investment seeking to make and how will this business model help in achieving that impact? Once you're clear about that, then you're very clear about how impact will be measured. And impact can happen in many different ways. One is the scale, which you mentioned, which is the reach. The second is the depth of impact.
Speaker 1:I may not impact as an entrepreneur. My venture may not impact millions of people, but it may impact, say, thousands of people, but there the depth or transformational effect on the life of that one individual can be profound. So the depth of impact, so I could. My impact thesis could actually be more about the depth of impact. It could also be about sector level change. Am I coming up with a solution or am I coming up with an intervention which drives change in the sector? I gave the example of a credit guarantee institution. A credit guarantee organization is not dealing with millions of people, neither it is having deep impact on the lives of individuals, if you look at it that way, but it is enabling the unlocking of so much more in the sector and it is having that kind of impact. So I think, if you're clear at the time of investment what is my impact pieces the way of measuring impact becomes automatically very clear, and impact could be measured in terms of scale, which is reach. It could be measured in terms of depth, which is how much is it transforming somebody's life, or it could be measured in terms of depth, which is how much is it transforming somebody's life, or it could be measured in terms of sector change, and I would say that no one way is superior to the other.
Speaker 1:There are many sophisticated ways now of measuring depth of impact. You have in-depth surveys. There are also listening surveys. There's a very interesting technology that we once used which allowed people to talk to an IVR system and the machine would listen in later and actually analyze and draw conclusions from the tone of the voice, how long the person spoke, the pitch of the voice, the kinds of words that they use, and analyze all of that to actually make an assessment of what kind of a depth of impact the product that we were measuring impact for was having in the life of the individual.
Speaker 1:So there are many sophisticated tools now for analyzing depth as well. Let's also be very clear that if you're an impact investor, for you the impact outcome is as important as the financial outcome and therefore you must make a commitment to having that impact thesis and measuring that impact. Otherwise, you know every business has an impact. There's no doubt about it. Whatever business you start will have some impact. That's not what we are talking about here. We are talking here about something much more purposeful and much more deep.
Speaker 2:And that has a societal impact aspect.
Speaker 1:That's correct.
Speaker 2:And talking about impact investments startups in this space, are there specific solutions that you're seeing which would be a game changer in the years down the road, or any specific startup that you would want to call out, saying that they're doing some fantastic work in that impact investing space?
Speaker 1:There's no specific startup that I would like to call out, because there's just so many of them doing such creative and such impressive work, but I would like to call out a trend which, for me, has really been extremely satisfying, and that is the changing profile of the Indian entrepreneur. If you looked at Indian entrepreneurship 20 years ago, when this whole startup and VC industry actually began to take root in India, what was been educated in the best schools, who went to an IIT or maybe had gone abroad to study in some of the universities there and came back here to go down the startup route, etc. And I think they initially came up with products and services which catered to the top of the pyramid of the Indian consumer. Fast forward from there to what do we have today? I mean, today you have India's entrepreneurs coming from the small towns and smaller cities of India. They're not people who have gone to a premium educational institution, they're not people who have even had an English medium education in many instances, and they are actually trying to come up with solutions to problems that they themselves have experienced in their lives and therefore their empathy with the problem and their creativity about the solution is far, far higher, whether it be Indian language publishing platforms, to fintech solutions, which take into account a very different profile of consumer compared to who you would find in the metros, for example.
Speaker 1:To me, that is where the excitement of early stage investing lies. It isn't supporting this new, ambitious, hungry class of entrepreneur who comes from a mindset and a background where they have been immersed in the problems that they are trying to solve, where they come with the passion and commitment and a sense of purpose which is truly extraordinary and inspiring.
Speaker 2:That's very heartening to hear, so definitely good times ahead for sure. We jump into a segment of this conversation, what I call it as the Power of Three round. Okay, here we are with Rupa and at the Power of Three round segment, the first of the Power of Three. Question Rupa what are the three books that have had profound impact on you?
Speaker 1:There is one book that has had a profound impact on me, and it is an autobiography of a woman called Catherine Graham. She was the owner slash editor of the Washington Post, which is a US newspaper known for breaking the Watergate news, which ultimately led to the resignation of President Nixon, known for its handling of the Pentagon Papers, which was again seminal in terms of journalistic reporting globally. What is unique about Kathleen Graham is, while she came from a privileged background, she had absolutely no experience of business. Her husband died from suicide and she found herself catapulted into leading the Washington Post, which had a bunch of opinionated, you know, and very talented reporters and journalists as its staff.
Speaker 1:Warren Buffett was an early investor. He invested. He stayed invested in the Washington Post for about 40 years during this period of her leadership. The Post was not just a journalistic success. It was a massive financial success as well. She was brought up to be a socialite. She wasn't brought up to be a businesswoman. Biography was the fact that for years, under a glass sheet on her table, she had a piece of paper that said assets on the left and liabilities on the right.
Speaker 2:So cool, so cool, good, great start, rupa. So Rupa, imagine you're having this podcast in 2035 with your future self. You're interviewing your future self. What are those three pieces of advice that you think will come true 10 years from now, when you're talking with your future self?
Speaker 1:Look, I would say that I'm in the third innings of my life. My first innings was the corporate world, the second innings was the world of startups and impact investing, and this is my third innings. I really don't have any big plans when I look back. I hope I will look back on this at a phase where I have taken life as it comes, opened myself up to new experiences and helped and supported others, whether it be through spending time with people or whether it be through philanthropy.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So if there are three micro experiments or habits that has changed your outlook towards life and if you would want to share it with our listeners, what would those three micro experiments be?
Speaker 1:The first, I would say, was learning how to speak. I grew up in small towns, as I explained, and I was always conscious of the fact that my exposure was not very great. While growing up, we had, of course, only the radio, and I would therefore spend hours and hours listening to the BBC news programs, many bulletins of news in a day, for example, just to improve my vocabulary, understand how to communicate an idea, how to talk. So that was one. Secondly, I think, the habit of rallying people around me in difficult times. I have learned through my life that when we have our downs and lows in life, it's important to seek support, and we will all. We are all, or I'm at least, always surprised by the amount of support I receive when I'm going through difficult times and when I reach out to people, and that's something that I consciously do. And the third I would say is something that we discussed earlier. It's preparation Great something that we discussed earlier.
Speaker 2:Is preparation Great? What are three life lessons that you hold very close?
Speaker 1:no matter what, when I hold these lessons close, not sure how good I am at actually practicing them, but one is I think it's really important not to take oneself too seriously. You know, sometimes I think it's really important not to take oneself too seriously. You know, sometimes I think it's important to keep reminding ourselves of that. Just experience life, take it as it comes. Not every story has to have a lesson, not everything has to have a takeaway. So I think that's one not taking oneself too seriously. Second then we touched upon it a little bit earlier I think recognizing your privilege is really important. It is only when you recognize and acknowledge the privileges that you might have had can you unlock a deeper sense of purpose in life and can you actually use that privilege into improving things for others. So I think these are important life lessons for me.
Speaker 2:Experience life that's a beautiful word that you kind of frustrated there and in your own experience and want experience. What are those experience life moments that you would want to kind of do?
Speaker 1:Well, as I said in my third inning, I don't really have a life plan. I have consciously decided to take life as it comes. I don't think too far ahead. The only thing I know is I would like to have new experiences, and I'm sure life would throw them at me. A recent new experience which life has thrown at me is writing a book, so I'm quite excited about that. So I just want to enjoy life in its fullness and do my best. I also know that there will be tough times that one will have to face, given the stage of one's life, and I hope that I will just be resilient enough to handle the tough times when they come, as they inevitably will. I hope I'll be able to handle them with resilience and grace.
Speaker 2:Wonderful Rupal. That brings us to the end of the Power of the Year round. Moving along future of India Inc. A decade from now. What should current corporate athletes be doing for them to blaze up for the future 10 years from now?
Speaker 1:I think, corporate professionals or business professionals in general, given the fact that the world is changing so fast it is, how do you focus on becoming a purpose-driven as well as an adaptive professional or leader? That's going to be key.
Speaker 2:That's a great word purpose-driven and adaptive, and that's the mantra that we've been speaking about. With the change technology advancements that is happening, your agility will define how one would shape up in the corporate world.
Speaker 1:It will indeed.
Speaker 2:Rupa. This brings us closer to wrap up. This show is all about creating ripples of inspiration. Before you and I sign off, what's your Inspire Someone Today? Message to all of our listeners.
Speaker 1:Be yourself. Jump into every new experience with both feet and a sense of adventure. Life will have its ups and downs, but don't let the downs hold you back too much.
Speaker 2:Don't let the downs hold you back. I think that's a message out there, my dear listeners. On that note, rupa, thank you so much for sharing your life journey, your career journey, and the perspectives that you've gathered all along. Appreciate your time and thoughts.
Speaker 1:Thank you, shrikant, appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us on this episode of Inspire Someone today. This is Shrikant, your host, signing off. Until next time, continue to carry the repulse of inspiration, stay inspired, keep spreading the light.
