Where am I headed & the multiplicative effect of strong leadership
(plus, a few abridged professional referrals)
“Karm aise karo, jaise tapasya ki jaati hai” - Bhagwad Gita (Translation : Work as if work is meditation in, and by itself)
About me here
I am writing this post after a conversation I recently had with Sameer Guglani (Supermorpheus) where I experienced a state of flow, and got intrigued to understand the role of intuition(and means to tapping it) in building a lasting legacy. After this conversation, Sameer shared with me the draft copy of his work on building a startup as an evolutionary process of consciousness - and to trust the power of serendipity to have people discover you.
I am putting a part of me out here - to allow that serendipity to find it’s way to people I would love to work with. It is not just about functional/technical competence - but seeing that you can grow with these people who share common values and goals for life.
Where am I headed ?
My goal is to build and lead a Bn dollar company and after I have built that, to build & invest in (Invest !=money==time) at least 10 people who will build 10 of those 1 Bn $ companies.
We are often bullish in our yearly goals, but excessively sheepish in our long term goals. The way I see this, is I still have 22+ years of relentless multidimensional growth in front of me - and so, my own north star vision should inspire, endure and challenge. Along this while, I have also invested aggressively on myself across 2 commercially unsuccessful startups and hopefully I am much wiser, because of this.
Why, this goal ?
The purpose of leading a Bn $ company is not to chase an arbitrary status signalling, but to scale my legacy - through the employees, customers, and stakeholders(investors++) I will touch. And that your voice becomes a force for putting more good in the system and hopefully leave the world better than you found it - more inclusive, dynamic, meritorious and purposeful.
Strong Leadership is an important lever to the multiplicative effect of scaling your impact.
Because I have a long window of time to optimize towards my goals, my journey has been non linear. To the point that often rightfully so, my peers may be ahead of me in certain title related dimensions, but it has never bothered me. I am running my own life and comfortable with my sense of (leadership) muscle building. My goal is compounding, which by definition means that it will get worse first. As a byproduct, this has built in a an extreme ownership, sense of self awareness and this has served me to steer through some of defining moments in my professional & personal life.
I am purposefully living an asymmetric life and I am comfortable with that.
About my value systems
In 2011, during my masters at Frankfurt, I happened to read two books that changed my persepective and frame of reference. These were Viktor Frankl’s Man’s search for meaning and Clayton Christensen’s how will I measure my life. Clayton ‘s book in particular I have come back to more than 12-15 occasions and I still re-discover something new in it. Here’s my personal copy of the same.
But this awareness did not come overnight, like a big epiphany, far from it. I first realized it during the loss of my 1st daughter and coming to terms with the phenomenon called loss and how your anchor point dramatically shrinks as a result of that.
Professionally, I deeply care about three things - (personal) fulfilment, people and an insanely deep need to learn & evolve.
Fulfilment is the feeling of creating your best work , but its not just about quality of work. Deeper than that, is the purpose, and the excitement of making it happen - the feeling of knowing that with you on it - that task will land somewhere it otherwise wouldn't - and that it means so much for collective success.
Work, of all kinds is a development opportunity, and I have stretched and discovered a room in me, for so much more pain that I can absorb for my future self to emerge. It is like allowing yourself to drown so you can emerge and cleanse yourself.
A byproduct of this is, that in my world - there's is no place to carry an albatross around your neck. As unapologetic as it can get. This does not mean that I am inflexible to work in value systems different than my own - just that stripping off that "purpose" makes me go through a disillusionment of sorts(I'm very critical of myself, not in a low self confidence way, but in a forward looking , self improvement sorts, way ) - one that I have to fight out and focus before I can truly make peace and move forward, my whole self with it, again.
People and giving my best, whole self to their success, and as a natural byproduct of that, grow myself. For some strange, impractical reasons - pursuing things for my own self doesn't fill me up in ways that "giving" does. May be it's feeling grand'er from those second order accomplishments, enabling people to achieve something they didn't know they could achieve. This is also why I enjoy working with teams & partnering, learning with them - and why I seek these situations proactively.
On the need to learn - self-explanatory. I optimize for exponential learning and personal growth, with people. There have been many situations in my life, where I almost lost my voice and found it again. It is what makes my mind rich !!
People who know me closely call me all sorts of things - incl. Bad ass/ unaplologetic. And often I feel the pressure to be a mould of a different kind. But then, they say that when you take away a weakness, you usually also take away all the strength with it, and all my absurdity, turbulence and a calm-agitation even with the unhealthy conflicts that rub on me - make me stronger.
And in that, I find new purpose - and a new self, which will be the base for the 22 more professional years ahead of me - and I see myself as building two if not more legendary companies during this lifetime, with that kind of impact. And I am looking for a missionary team, that can resonate to that goal.
Body of work and referrals
Below are a set of snippets of things people say about my craft. By putting these, I am having it known how much of that growth mindset I have consistently demonstrated in my work. More referrals can be seen at Linkedin.
InMobi(2017-2020)
( This note was sent ny Abhay, after leading Catalyst which is an internal InMobi annual event for Tech & strategy, worldwide, for all InMobians)
Ekta - Every catalyst we push the boundaries of what is humanly possible. We try to bring so much of our own Individual personality and infuse builds InMobi further by infusing our own personal ethos/values/feeling. I would want to highlight my own experience to indicate how this catalyst raised the bar further and it is clearly a reflection of how you have added to InMobi.
My catalyst deck was ready even before I reached India on Friday evening. I was feeling good because this is the fastest I have ever created my deck
Little did I know I was off from your standards by a mile (not an inch, not a foot but full 180 degrees apart). It was Monday morning (Catalyst was on Tuesday) and we met at 6:30 AM and we went through an hour of discussion on why the messaging in my deck is not communicating your larger theme. I am glad we had that discussion. Within 12 hours entire storyline was changed, the deck was (re) created and nothing from the earlier deck was used (not even one slide). Did you notice my deck had NO NUMBER, not even one? And then you pushed me to get my inner creativity out in the form of poetry, true raw feelings.
As I was going through this journey on Monday, I was thinking that you are taking special care of me for whatever reason but that assumption was blown away when I saw the catalyst the next day. EVERY PRESENTATION COMMUNICATED THE SAME THEME "BIGGER BETTER BOLDER", they were aligned like I have never seen them before.
So accept my kudos on ensuring that the theme of catalyst if reflected in "every which way". It's neither easy nor obvious....it could have been easily left to every leader to drive their own interpretation but the way you held the theme and demanded each one of us to be a better version of ourselves deserves a big bow.
As they say, we should rest to observe, acknowledge, applaud and learn but the journey much continue.
So to everyone, may the force be with you!!!
- Abhay Singhal, Co-Founder InMobi Group (InMobi, Glance, Roposo) and CEO of InMobi Marketing Cloud
(This note was sent by Prasanna Prasad in context of Nominations for best enabler award. I did not win the award - but knowing that Prassana valued my craft and contributions was more than enough)
Ekta as an integral part of the CTO function for IMC has been unmatched on two dimensions.Firstly, an undying and demonstrable passion for work,it is not just the inhuman hours she works to make things happen, but it is that itch to solve everything the absolute right and sustainable way, be it processes or program management or planning or negotiations.
She makes sure she puts in insane hours in prepping herself so she can contribute valuably in these conversations versus only being a listener or facilitator, and the gaps in context that she has managed to fill across teams and business lines through conversations and self-learning is a stunning achievement in itself. And then to back that passion up, secondly is the quest for sustainable perfection and the meticulous eye for detail and associated rigor in ensuring every data point to back or counter a decision is out there in the open for all to see, enabling the collective leadership to make the best decision forward.
Each of what she has driven in 2019 , be it a very complex tech AOP planning, that required ramping up and understanding a complex new domain,and holding and driving conversations across different levels of seniority of people from different functions, or be it executing with flawless rigor and thoroughness the many rounds of preparation for an FTC audit, again a multi-team, multi-dimensional, multi-function problem.Ekta has also stepped into many other tech enabling conversations, and worked across multitude of software license providers and vendors in ensuring negotiations that are favorable for the company,and also streamlined many progress tracking and leadership meetings for IMC.
She has been a stellar addition to the team and in every sense of the word, enabled the IMC LT to be smarter, wiser and more effective at their jobs.
- Prasanna Prasad, SVP & Chief Technology Officer , InMobi Marketing Cloud
These notes below were sent by a few InMobian’s in the context of my moving on.
It's very rare that you come across people whose intentions match their words, whose simplicity matches their actions and curiosity matches your wavelength. From a far, I admire and connect to your fearlessness and passion. Don't ever that lose that about yourself.
- Nandika Pradeep, Strategy & Operations Leader | CEO's Office
I must admit that you have a extra-ordinary conviction and willpower to go just beyond limits. At hindsight, I think - it was really good to team-up with you for Catalyst, otherwise wouldn’t have gotten a chance to work together.
- Dhrubajyothi Sarkar , Director, Accelerated Growth & Product Incubation (APAC) at InMobi
Bloomreach (2016)
These notes were sent in 2015 & 2016 resp. re: my 1 & 2 year anniversary respectively.
Circa, 2016, Fifth Elephant, Bangalore
This photo seems to fit her really well:
- Front and center
- Owning it and getting it done
- Teaching and answering questions
- Fitting this into everything else
Congratulations Ekta. So great to have you on at BloomReach for what you do and who you are. - Niran Kundapur, Head of Product (Shopping Personalization Platform)
Number cruncher, story teller, go-getter, great communicator and a super awesome colleague - that's what Ekta is. Go to her with a problem and she will give you a list of options to fix the issue. Best thing about her is she is straight to the point and a no non-sense person. Once she commits to do something, no matter what (even if she breaks her hand or leg), she will still complete the task on time. Her time-management skills and work dedication is definitely commendable. Thanks a lot Ekta for being you and helping us work better. Wish you many more Bloomversaries!
Ekta is amazing every body knows , Ekta is strong everybody understood , Ekta has immense knowledge - her tech skills prove that , she is a great speaker - all her conference participation endorses that - she makes communication beautiful - She is the "Mike cassidy of Tech " I would say. But what I admire about her is she gives her 500% to everything and if you figure out somewhat how she is - she is the most comfortable person to talk to :) and she makes you leap forward :) with her energy , her life interpretations and always makes things 1000 times better ! She is a star - keep shining bright :) :)
Ekta is a personification of 'Own' and 'No Drama' qualities in BloomReach. Her dedication and time management are skills that any other Indian employee, not just in BloomReach, should look upto and learn from. Meticulous and absolutely clear about a task before beginning it, she knows how to get any Analytics task done, and the shortest way of doing it. Always to the point and focussed. Absolute genius.
Ekta is an absolutely solid data scientist. She is always extremely thorough and goes above and beyond to make sure that her work is well designed and scalable. She is one of the smartest people at Bloomreach yet down to earth, dependable, friendly and ever ready to help. We are extremely lucky to have her at Bloomreach.
Hardworking, mentally super strong and get things done - that's Ekta for you.
Ekta is the strongest person I have ever met. She is a survivor a fighter and a winner. A superwoman for sure. She manages to maintain that calm look on her face in worst of times. She is a great person to work with and I got tolearn a lot about life from her. She asks all questions without hesitations andwants to learn how to do everything. In all she is an excellent person to work with (except when she asks for sugarless tea to be made in office and then everyone has to drink sugarless.. ;) ). Hope to continue working with her.
Bloomreach (2015)
"Ekta is amazing! She is always willing to lend a hand with additional analyses, and develop tools to make all of our lives easier. She is a great team player and I am very glad she has joined the team. Keep up the awesome work Ekta!"
"She is very focused and confident whether it's about her work or other task. Must say very creative, motivated and motivates others. Great lister and down to earth, In short great bundle with Bloomreach values :). Great to have her in our team. "
".. One of the very enthusiastic and hard working person in the team. She always strives to do the right thing for the customer. She is always open to how she can improve and not shy at saying what is wrong. Her contribution in her search quality monitoring emails, self serve framework etc has really helped improve the stability and the productivity of the team. She has helped us with a lot of one-off analysis with data especially with Staples, Neiman etc. Overall - a really great person to work with on the team"
"Ekta is usually super focussed on her work (as a proof, I submit the image below). That is, when she's not going through a bout of generosity, making coffee for the rest of us. Her persistence with time honored tools (such as pencil, paper, calculator and dell laptop) is legendary."
Shunya (2021)
Shunya was my first company to work with officially after my graduation. Shunya let me experience all the ups and downs that a startup goes through and explore all the dimensions let it be how to mentor your juniors, how to own up your work or how to give customer demos and understand what the customer needs are. The experience and knowledge I have gained from Shunya is immense.
All this is possible just because of one person that one woman army Ekta. Her knowledge about everything about the product she builds is immense. She clearly understands why this feature is needed her and how it would make the like of end user easy. Working with her and being a part of Shunya was my pleasure.
- Hitesh Sachdev, Founding engineer, Shunya
“True growth lies at Shunya(Scratch)” .
That’s what I thought while joining Shunya. I always dreamt of starting my career with a startup because that’s where you can grow exponentially.
I always believe that, “There is no point to becoming spiderman if your town lacks tall buildings”. And I got those tall buildings at Shunya where I was able to work at my full potential and became the best version of myself. Shunya provided me with an environment to lead the team and learn how to manage a team.
Ofcourse, A ship is only as good as its captain. And our ship’s captain was Ekta grover. She is an irrepressible spirit and a risk taker undaunted by setbacks. Her passion toward building products is truly inspiring. I admire the fact that she single-handedly managed a young team who didn’t have any prior experience working at a company.
- Aayush Chaudhary, Founding Engineer, Shunya
I have started my professional career with Shunya. As Shunya was a very early age startup I got full ownership of my work, got many different problems to solve and the best part was from HLD discussion till the end to end development I got every opportunity to explore. Understanding the business need of the problem you are solving is the best thing to explore for any engineer, the satisfaction it gives when my work brings value to someones’ life cannot be compared and I have got all this in Shunya.
I got to mentor my juniors as well and that was also a new learning experience for me. And I got the best mentor as well.
And all this opportunity I have got just because of Ekta she trusted me at the very start, and the energy she brings with her and the way she understands the problem statement is amazing.
- Sachinam Srivastava, Backend Intern, Shunya
Shunya was my first step in the world of professional software engineering. The first look into what a large scale codebase looks like; how programming remains a small chunk of what building a feature is: from ideation to going back and forth on system design, coding and then spending countless hours on testing, debugging and demonstrations. Knowing what I'll build today will impact users at scale was exhilarating!
One of the perks of Shunya being an early stage startup was that I could work on things way out of my 'domain', backend development. Making sure the website font size is just right, designing promotional emails, working on SEO - enjoying the process, but at the same time being humbled by how easy it is to write code but how hard it is to sell as a product.
And for all this, I can never thank Ekta enough :)
- Prakhar Pandey, Backend Intern, Shunya
Sharechat, 2022
Ekta is a very strong and fierce leader, and I've had a very steep learning curve - right from basics to abstracts - I've grown tremendously because of her. She is very ambitious, self hardworking and challenging, and she made me push my limits very often, which I learnt was essential for growth. She invested her energy into teaching me everything at ShareChat, and always exhibited an internal push for excellence - which is one of my biggest learnings from her. I have seen myself grow from 0 to 1 with her and anyone whom she hires from our college would definitely grow exponentially
- Mrunal Mendgudle, Product Intern & FTE at Sharechat