Women are born entrepreneurs

I am born and brought up in Delhi. I always had dreams!! I studied Business Economics for 5 years followed by working with many organisations like CII, FICCI, SREI Infrastructure Finance, Amity, NYCS, NIESBUD for 11 years. Post marriage I live in a big joint family in Noida. Hubby works with a Japanese company. Have a daughter of 7 years. Apart from work, quite passionate about growing plants, reading and writing. 

Despite working for the best of the industries, I was dissatisfied throughout my professional career. I changed 6 jobs in 8 years no matter how good my profile and growth was. Something was missing!! I always found a reason to change my job, at times even if it was a great job. It was a difficult time as I was a new mother with responsibilities in a job I was totally fed up of. I thought I would try something different by joining a Government organisation. 

I was Chief Consultant in a national level institution of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Govt of India which promotes Entrepreneurship across India. While training entrepreneurs from more than 55 countries at NIESBUD, I created some cutting edge programs like “How to raise Finance”, “EDP on Solar Energy” which were extremely successful. The exposure of sectors such as Energy, Climate Change, Education, Health, Research, and Infrastructure helped me in guiding people to become entrepreneurs. 

I became a trainer and speaker there and did really well for 3 years. Some of my women trainees did really well. Adding value to Entrepreneurs and helping people start their businesses gave me immense satisfaction and happiness. I finally found out what I love. I love to make entrepreneurs successful!! I also realized that I have the spirit and instincts of an entrepreneur in me, that is why I never enjoyed working for others. The creativity and drive to lead never allowed me to enjoy systems created by others.

From there started my journey of driving my first venture. In my maiden home as well as the extended family no one ever did business so there were apprehensions when I started. My mother felt I have gone crazy. It took my own family a year to accept and believe in what I started. Another challenge I faced was to reach out to women who really want to scale up business. 

Most networking clubs or associations either conduct events or form groups which are dysfunctional for the long term. If you go to them with a great offer they often reject because they feel insecure or want financial benefits. So after a few women business clubs, I didn’t pursue that route to reach out to women. I did a lot of seminars for free to share my learnings. 

It was a cost-based method and I spent good money however it felt worth it whenever someone came up to me and shared how it really helped them. Secondly, in India coaching is still not taken seriously. People often confuse coaching with advisory or with counselling. So when I started I realized people often want to learn for free and not take actions. Initially I had to work a lot to make women understand that their business dream or goal can be achieved only when they own it completely and take actions rather than blaming environment.

 Today I run Evoke Inspiring Lives which is a social initiative to empower women entrepreneurs to reach new heights. I am a Business Coach who pushes women to achieve their dreams. 

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Image from one of the seminars