Episode 70: An Unconventional Career Journey w/Susan Zhang
Susan has a remarkable career spanning three continents. With an impressive legacy through her work with Google and ByteDance (TikTok), Amazon, and Canva, she effectively combines technical prowess with commercial acumen. Susan has an exceptional track record and has become a prominent figure in the global business, making her a powerful catalyst for positive change. She is a published author, a dynamic, inspirational speaker, and a valued mentor for young entrepreneurs worldwide.
Episode 69: Part 2- Building Blume Ventures w/Karthik Reddy
In part 2 of our conversation with Karthik Reddy, Blume Ventures, we delve deeper into the world of venture capital. Join us as we explore Karthik's approach to investing, his counterintuitive insight about venture capital, how he identifies exceptional founders, concepts and frameworks that have influenced him in his career and much more.
Episode 68: Part 1- Building Blume Ventures w/Karthik Reddy
Karthik is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Blume Ventures, one of India's pre-eminent early-stage venture funds. At over $600 Million in AUM, Blume has made 150+ investments across three funds. Karthik also serves as the Chairperson of the Executive Committee at the IVCA (India's Venture and Alternative Capital Association) - India's apex association for Venture & PE Funds, working alongside the Indian Government in policy & regulatory issues concerning Alternative Investment Funds.
Episode 67: State Bank of India: Elephants Can Dance!
It is hard to imagine an elephant dancing, but if that elephant is the State Bank of India, SBI, as popularly known, you are in for a surprise/ delight. SBI is India's biggest bank, with 450M+ customers. As an Indian, you may be able to rattle 100s of challenges and inefficiencies of SBI, but its contribution towards India's growth is second to none. SBI has groomed the finest talents and established financial services and products that has paved the path for other Indian banks.
Episode 66: Exploring the Toy Industry w/Brendan Boyle
Brendan Boyle is a toy inventor, an adjunct professor at Stanford, and the Founder of the IDEO Play Lab. He is also the inventor of the world-famous Jumperoo.
Brendan consults companies about redesigning their organisational behaviour to include space for play and co-authored the award-winning encyclopedia of never-before-seen inventions, The Klutz Book of Inventions.
Episode 65: Career: Making bold moves w/Aditi Sharma
Aditi Sharma is the co-founder of Grow Commerce, ex-Grab & McKinsey. She talks about why she chose to join Grab and declined an offer from Google even when she was expecting her first child to join a hypergrowth stage startup.
Episode 64: HabitStrong: Importance of Habits, Boredom and Discipline w/Rajan Singh
Rajan Singh is a graduate of IIT Kanpur and a former Indian Police Service officer who served as the Trivandrum Police Commissioner. But after a few years, Rajan felt a sense of intellectual stagnation in his job, and he decided to quit and restart his career. He then pursued an MBA from Wharton Business School and worked as a consultant with McKinsey in New York before returning to India as an investment professional at New Silk Route, a billion-dollar private equity fund. However, his restlessness did not end there, and he eventually became an entrepreneur, founding a habit-building startup called HabitStrong. At HabitStrong, Rajan helps people improve their lives by inculcating focus, self-discipline, and good habits.
Episode 63: Building Generational Brands w/Raja Ganapathy
Raja Ganapathy is a brand builder, a voracious reader and an eternal optimist Raja Ganapathy. Raja spent his conceptual years learning the ropes of marketing at Ogilvy on accounts such as Hindustan Unilever, and his defining stint was as the Chief Marketing Officer at Sequoia Capital India. At Sequoia, Raja worked with industry-defying founders of Byju's, Free Charge, Healthkart and many more. Today, Raja is the founding partner at Spring Marketing Capital, a skin-in-the-game marketing value-added investment firm to build the brands of tomorrow.
Episode 62: Career: Management Consultant to Storyteller w/Abhay Maheshwari
Career: Abhay Maheshwari is a management consultant by day and a storyteller by night. He took to storytelling, open mics and podcasting only after completing his engineering degree and landing a full-time job. Despite being encouraged and nudged to participate in drama, skits, and cultural activities, he hesitated to deviate from the traditional career path in school and college. Today, Abhay is an award-winning storyteller, nationally featured writer and a TEDx speaker.
Episode 61: Being an Evangelist w/Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and the creator of the Remarkable People podcast. He was the chief evangelist of Apple and a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation. He has written Wise Guy, The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and eleven other books.