International Women's Day: Meet 5 inspiring women leading from the front, all of whom are ISB Graduates

An alumnus of ISB, Hyderabad, Bindu, has a rich and diverse career spanning over 23+ years that hasbeen about making a difference and getting people to exceed their potential. Bindu spent 11.5 years with Aon Hewitt till March 2015 and was the Service Delivery Leader, APAC region in her last role with them. In addition, Bindu led the corporate social responsibility for Aon in India under the banner of Aon Cares during her 11.5 years career with them. Bindu has extensive experience in leading large complex operations spread across several geographies, managing customer service organizations and leading change management initiatives. She has led a three part, three year transformational initiative called the “Destiny” series in one of the business units in Aon that led to outstanding business results. As a leader she has an abiding passion for leadership development and coaching. There are several senior leaders who have been coached by Bindu during her stints with Pizza Corner, Wipro Spectra mind and Aon Hewitt. As a leadership coach she is coaching several senior leaders. Bindu did a three year stint as an entrepreneur early in her life, where she and her husband encounteredsevere losses. They struggled for many years as they repaid their dues. The event was a huge learning experience and made them realize the value of giving back and contributing to the community than just focusing on earning.
As co-founder of ShikshaDaan Foundation along with her husband, she is currently on a multi-year roadtrip titled "ShikshaDaan Yatra" to every district of India. This Yatra has been undertaken to advocate giving for education and identifying partners for ShikshaDaan.

Priya was helping her company during her tenure with PRADAN to run employability program for tribal youth in Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh. Soon after this, she conducted a summer program in Mandla for 60 children where she invited Mumbai-based artists to conduct workshops for children. She also piloted remedial programs in English and Math for children in Mandla. However, she realized that parents were keen to have children engage in such programs but not ready to send them outside school hours. They preferred these type of activities to happen in school itself. So, Priya started looking at setting up schools since she felt that it was important to evolve a model that would work in such geographies. She set up the first school in Mohgaon, a block level place in Mandla. Called the Riverside Natural School, it has 90 children coming from a variety of backgrounds - some are first-generation learners, some are from tribal families and travel 16-20 km every day to come to school. Priya is also the founder of Tortoise Learning that provides consultancy and management services to set up high quality schools in rural geographies. It aims to transform the traditional school and advocate the natural learning model through which children can learn meaningfully and achieve their full potential if they are allowed to do things at their own pace in an atmosphere of stimulation and thoughtful guidance.

Growing up, Ayeleen was sure she wanted to work in the development sector. she began her career as a Management Trainee in Unilever, working in a remote part of Pakistan, where she was first exposed to communities that lacked access to basic needs. After graduating from ISB in 2006, she joined Acumen as part of their first cohort of Global Fellows. At Acumen, she was assigned to work with Kashf Foundation, a microfinance organisation serving women in rural Pakistan, and later joined the fledgling Aman Foundation to set its vision and strategy. In 2009, she moved to Bangladesh and joined Friendship, a nonprofit that supported isolated, marginalised communities living in extreme poverty. On a floating hospital serving riverine communities, she had an experience that profoundly affected her. A six-year-old girl asked Ayeleen if she had a doll. The child had never seen or played with one. Ayeleen was rendered speechless that this little girl had never experienced what most girls her age take for granted. The challenges faced by young people she encountered during this period led her to join Bangladesh Youth Leadership Centre in 2013. Here, she provided training to youth from diverse backgrounds to address challenges in their own communities with compassion, courage and competence. Her latest project was inspired by a question from her toddler son about the garbage in the city’s streets and lakes. This made her realise that, ‘at the very least, I am accountable for my neighbourhood’. She began Amar Dhaka, a startup whose mission is to revive public spaces through art. It engages artists and community members in creating a vibrant environment that promotes open interaction, exchange of ideas and civic responsibility. Amar Dhaka is now building a children’s library and playground in a public park. Ayeleen’s every decision has been driven by a need to get out of her comfort zone, challenge the status quo, travel and acquire a worldview that answers a question her mother, a social worker, asked her when she was young, ‘What will you leave behind that is greater than you?’

‘Sibling love and joint family taught me the value of selflessness,’ says Shikha, when asked about her life philosophy, both professional and personal. Being big-hearted was part of the value system in a home where guests were welcome at all hours. She recalls the night before her Chartered Accountancy law exam and trying to study in a house filled with guests and the sound of laughter. When she confronted her parents, they replied, ‘Balance is the key to life.’ The 24-year-old CA who fell in love with accounting the minute she set eyes on a balance sheet, landed her first job at the Taj Hotel in Lucknow and went on to become one of Taj’s youngest chief accountants. Passionate about finance, she decided to move to IL&FS despite a drop in designation. Within months, she found herself working with a senior Executive Director whose office became the perfect training ground, and Shikha honed her skills even as she fought fires on the personal front – dealing with her husband’s health challenges and the resulting expenses, raising her daughter and even having to leave the three-month-old baby for a week to take her CPA exam in the US. She calls this a period of ‘building fortitude’; it was also a spiritually significant time for Shikha, a staunch devotee of Lord Siva. Her pursuit of professional excellence and managerial expertise led her to ISB after two years as CFO of IL&FS Securities. The highlight of her 16 years at IL&FS was running its capital markets business and incubating businesses and markets within that vertical – work that ultimately fuelled her desire to transition to another platform. She joined Aditya Birla Health as their CFO in 2016. She talks excitedly about ‘building capacity’ and being given the opportunity to undertake a journey from start to scale. And she hopes to do all this while seeing her daughter through her board exams and pursuing her love of classical dance.