Power Women

At #PowerWomen we want to impact change at the highest levels of power. Hence bringing more women into the #boardrooms is close to us and we had launched #projectknockknock last year to kickstart change. We are honored to host #Dineshi Ramesh, Executive Director at Board Intelligence for a session with us. This will be a closed and intimate session were you can ask all the questions you might have with regards to joining a board as an advisor, preparing for board meetings, etc. Dineshi works across a range of companies from FTSE 100 firms, overseas-listed firms, private businesses and the public sector. She runs Board Intelligence's Academy, an online learning platform for executives and board members. Dineshi has authored a number of Board Intelligence publications, including Governance Challenges and Opportunities in 2021 and has hosted the Coffeehouse, a series of panel discussions with board members and experts. She is Chair of Thrift+, a circular fashion retailer that distributes profits to charities and its donors. Dineshi holds an MEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College, London.We would like to introduce the chair for the session, Dimple Sahni, Managing Director at Anthos Asset Management. Dimple is responsible for originating investments, managing relationships, and helping to execute strategies for the portfolios at Anthos Asset Management.

The crisis has been very difficult for many of our members and to support them during these difficult times, we are working towards bringing more sessions around #mindfulness and #copingwithgrief and #anxiety!We are truly grateful to our partner, The Consciousness Explorers Club, an innovative contemplative community and think-tank based in Toronto led by Jeff Warren! A big thank you to Erin Oke, the Executive Director at the Consciousness Explorers Club for leading the session. We will do a brief introduction about mindfulness practice and guide a meditation geared towards working with challenging emotions. Erin's focus is on meditation for self-care and emotional well being and she has taught mindfulness skills in health care, education, corporate and non-profit settings. She also does mindfulness coaching for individuals, with a specialty in encouraging emotional self-regulation. She has a background in social service work, having served as Youth Program Coordinator for ehm from 2007-2018, where she ran a youth centre and support programs for low-income children and youth in downtown Toronto. She also studied and worked in theatre for many years, and loves to infuse her teaching with a sense of play and creative exploration. Erin is passionate about the confluence of meditation practice and social justice, and using mindfulness in the service of caring better for oneself and others.

We are excited to bring someone brings along a decade of experience in coaching others, and is himself a senior leader.  Parin Mehta is the Managing Director Airbnb for Asia-Pacific.  He previously was the head of strategic partnerships for South-east Asia at Google. Parin has grown both small startups and large global sales organisations across APAC, EMEA and the US. He has been based in Singapore for the last 10 years, previously serving as head of strategic partnerships for Southeast Asia at Google. He worked for Google in Singapore, California and London to help superscale products such as Chrome, Android, Adsense and GMail. Prior to joining Google, Parin was a management consultant and a teacher in rural Japan. He continues to advise and coach several start-ups and entrepreneurs around the world.He has a BA from The University of Cambridge and an MBA from INSEAD. In his spare time he enjoys boxing, coaching, investing and dressing up his baby son in silly costumes.Thank you Smita Nair and Mrinalini Ramakrishnan for chairining this!

We were thrilled to have another trailblazer Hamisha Daryani Ahuja share her inspirational journey with us! Hamisha is an Entrepreneur, Film Producer and Director. She gave up her long-running business to pursue her dream of making movies. Two years later, she has directed her first feature film, the cross-cultural love story “Namaste Wahala”, which debuted on Netflix. Putting out hundreds of movies and television episodes a month, Nollywood is the world's second most prolific film industry after India's Bollywood. "Theres an important message, we are all actually one, and that's the whole theme of the movie.” Hamisha believes that the world can be a better and happier place by applying a few simple tools, she trains individuals and companies on this subject. Her course “The Pursuit of Happiness” has impacted thousands of lives till date. She has been trained by the world renowned Lisa Nichols. She also founded Bistro 7 a chain of restaurants in Lagos. She ran the award winning establishment for seven years. It was successfully acquired in January 2019 by Chocolate City Group. She is now a shareholder of the newly formed company and serves on their board.The session was chaired by Dr Anino Emuwa. Dr. Emuwa is the Founder and Managing Director of Avandis Consulting, a strategy and financial advisory firm in France.  A former corporate banker with Citibank, she is an experienced Non-Executive Director and sits on the board of several organisations. An award-winning international speaker on entrepreneurship, emerging technologies, and diversity and inclusion, Anino has been invited to speak at prestigious institutions and conferences including Forbes, Facebook, Association of MBAs Business School Leaders Forum, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics and the French National Assembly. Dr Emuwa's articles have been published in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Global Banking and Finance Review, and Business Chief Middle East and Africa. Dr. Anino convenes global and regional communities for women in leadership including 100 Women@Davos and African Women CEOs Network. She is a coach and mentor for Cartier Women's Initiative, and the Women's Development Programme at the Nottingham Trent University .

We are excited to host Kamal Hassan, Founding Partner Loyal VC for a talk on Angel and VC Investing. Over 30% of Loyal's companies have a woman CEO, which is ten times the industry average. Kamal Hassan is a founding partner of Loyal VC, a fund taking an unconventional approach to early stage investing. He is also a Global Director with Founder Institute, the world's largest idea-stage accelerator. Kamal has spent 18 years as a startup and growth stage CEO, startup accelerator director, angel investor, and mentor to over 300 startups. He currently holds equity in 80 early stage companies. Kamal previously was a consultant at Bain & Co. Kamal has an MBA from INSEAD.What are the private equity, venture capital and angel asset classes?Why do top investors include these private market assets in their portfolio?What is the fundamental math for making money in angel, VC and PE?What are the three sobering realities of VC and angel investing?What is venture's gender and race problem, and why does it matter to you making money?

#InternationalWomensDay is coming soon and we would like to make some noise! As part of the celebration, we are bringing powerful stories from women who have been shattering the ceiling, setting new norms and inspiring us all! #EmpatheticLeadership, #WomenOnBoards, #WomenInSTEM, #WorkLifeBalance, this leader is an example of how to have it all!  We are deeply honoured to host Senior Vice President and Managing Director, SAP Labs India Sindhu Gangadharan. Sindhu Gangadharan holds dual responsibilities at SAP. As a Senior Vice President, she leads the SAP User Enablement unit, that provides a seamless, integrated end-user platform for all SAP's products. She is also the Managing Director of SAP Labs in India, responsible for product development and innovation at SAP's Research & Development facilities in Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Gurgaon. SAP Labs India is the largest R&D centre outside SAP's headquarters in Germany and a leading hub for innovation and a hot spot for talent and diversity. Sindhu joined SAP in 1999 when SAP Labs India set up its operations in Bangalore and later moved to SAP's headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. She has worked on various products, technology and innovation platforms and held several strategic and leadership positions managing global teams. She has played a pivotal role in shaping SAP's Integration strategy by growing SAP's Integration product portfolio as Head of Product Management for SAP Integration Suite, IoT and SAP Process Orchestration. Her deep technical expertise and business knowledge led her to head the critical integration function in SAP's Technology and Innovation organization in the Office of the CTO.Sindhu led SAP's strategic and global Intelligent Enterprise Program reporting into SAP's Executive Board. She has been instrumental in bringing to life SAP's vision and strategy of the Intelligent Enterprise by orchestrating the end-to-end process delivery roadmaps.In January 2021, Sindhu was appointed to the Board of Directors at Utah-based Qualtrics International Inc, the global pioneer of the Experience Management software category. She also serves on the Board of Titan Company Ltd as an Independent Director with a focus on technology. Sindhu is a member of the NASSCOM Executive Council – the apex industry body for the IT/IT enabled services in India. She is also a member of the Steering committee of the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, an industry body driving the Bilateral trade and deliberations.As a respected thought leader, Sindhu is a regular speaker at domestic and global conferences. She is a passionate advocate of using technology to benefit customers and the society, workplace diversity and inclusion. Sindhu currently resides in Bangalore with her husband and two daughters.

In this episode I am talking today to a true power house who has been working tirelessly so that India as a nation has better governance, has equality in the political arena and we the women of India have more representation.Tara Krishnaswamy wears many hats. She is the Co-founder of Shakti, a pan-India, nonpartisan citizens movement working to get more women into State Assemblies & Parliament. The objective of Shakti is to enable more women to be elected as MLAs and MPs from all sections of society, to support women who are interested in political leadership. Tara Krishnaswamy  is an Author & Activist, a successful business leader in tech, Co-founder of Citizens For Bengaluru. Tara  gives us a lot to think about. 50% of India's population are women, 50% of the electorate are women. The Indian constitution gives us equal rights to vote and to contest to both men and women. 70 years after a democratic republic, we have only ~11% women in Parliament,  why are leaving half our population unheard ?Thank you so much for what you are doing for all the women in India, for the people of India, for the sake of equality, democracy, better governance in India. We are very honoured to have you as a part of the podcast, and wish you all the best to you and Shakti. More power to the women in India politics, we need them, we want them, for us and for the future generations to come!    

With the launch of our #PersonalAdvisoryBoards, we are on a journey to be inspired and powered by other talented women from across the globe. We know the feeling of being moved by art and transported to new experiences, emotions and places. #PowerWomenOfIndia is incredibly honoured and excited to have among us the very talented artist, Mahira Kakkar.Mahira will share with us, her journey from Calcutta to the west and the high of working with acclaimed film-maker Mira Nair in "A Suitable Boy". Mahira is a New York City-based actor who has worked in film, television and theater. Born in Kolkata she is the first person of Indian origin to attend The Julliard School's Drama Division. In the last 16 years, Mahira has acted on stage, television and films, with appearances in Orange is the New Black, New Amsterdam and Louie. She has appeared in numerous plays both in New York and around the world, and guest-starred on many television shows. In 2013 she starred in Hank and Asha, for which she won Best Actress at the Napa Valley Film Festival.The hosts for the event are our stellar #boss ladies Mrinalini Ramakrishnan and Shruti Van Dyke Gandhi. This is an invitation only event with limited seats. If you would like to attend, please kindly RSVP. We will share the login details a day before the event. I am confident that conversations will traverse the reel and real worlds, packed with take-aways that will hold us in good stead.

I caught up with Dr. Ruchi Dana to hear her journey into the boardroom, what she had to say about project KNOCK-KNOCK and the three things that women leaders should be doing to get onto those boards. Come listen with me!