{"id":25537,"date":"2022-11-22T03:30:05","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T04:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/?p=25537"},"modified":"2022-11-22T04:41:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T04:41:57","slug":"8-south-asians-among-insiders-100-people-transforming-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/2022\/11\/22\/8-south-asians-among-insiders-100-people-transforming-business\/","title":{"rendered":"8 South Asians among Insider\u2019s 100 People Transforming Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The change makers come from areas ranging from Diversity Equity Inclusion, to Sustainability to Emerging Tech<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Eight South Asian business leaders figure in Business Insider\u2019s 2022 list of 100 leaders across 10 industries who are driving unprecedented change and innovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe T100 does more than highlight career milestones; it features the power players behind the most significant trends of the year,\u201d it said noting, \u201cDuring the past 12 months, business leaders faced myriad challenges including inflation, a polarized political climate, and war in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Featured in the Diversity Equity Inclusion category is Anish Melwani, CEO and Chairman, LVMH North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Melwani, does has ripple effects in the fashion world,\u201d Insider wrote. \u201cOver the past year, the chief doubled down on supporting designers and creatives of color across multiple portfolio brands.\u201d The move is likely to encourage competitors to follow suit, multiple fashion analysts and bloggers told Insider.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think critics who are talking about diversity and inclusion as window dressing are usually responding to too much talk and not enough action. And I think our strategy to avoid that is to do the opposite,\u201d Melwani said.<\/p>\n

In September, LVMH served as the first title sponsor for Harlem\u2019s Fashion Row, a New York City organization supporting designers of color. The partnership consisted in LVMH and brands like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co, and Moet Hennessy offering their expertise through a mentorship program, as well as grants to emerging fashion creatives of color.<\/p>\n

The luxury group has several other internship and mentorship activities, including with the Fashion Scholarship Fund via the Virgil Abloh \u201cPost-Modern\u201d Scholarship Fund, and recently committed to investing in historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) as a way to further advance DEI efforts.<\/p>\n

In addition, Melwani has worked to diversify the top echelons at its brands. People of color now comprise more than 30% of leadership positions in North America, excluding the C-suite, according to a company spokesperson. He wants to continue diversifying C-suite leadership, in line with corporate goals set for 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the challenges in our sector is if we limit our recruiting to people who have vast experience, the sector doesn\u2019t get more diverse because the people are who they are today, right? You have to widen the aperture of where you seek great talent and are willing to take some risks on people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sustainability section features Vaishali Nigam Sinha, Chair, ReNew Foundation and Chief Sustainability, CSR and Communications Officer, ReNew Power.<\/p>\n

Sinha started her career in investment banking. But after 16 years in the industry, she found her calling in something far different \u2014 philanthropy. She founded the online-donation platform iCharity in India and, from there, feels as though she \u201caccidentally landed\u201d in the green-energy and sustainability industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really prepared me as far as philanthropy is concerned,\u201d Sinha told Insider about her experience in banking. \u201cWe all come to a stage in our lives where that part of us takes center stage. Even when I was in New York, I really felt like contributing to a lot of issues which India and people here were facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sinha\u2019s focus on making the world a better place brought her to her position as the chief sustainability, corporate-social-responsibility, and communications officer of the renewable-energy company ReNew Power. She\u2019s also the founding chair of the ReNew Foundation.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, ReNew Power has set up wind farms, solar farms, hydro projects, and around-the-clock generators, to the point that the sustainable-energy company now supplies 1.8% of India\u2019s energy, Sinha said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe raised global funds. It\u2019s really, I would say, a perfect example of really putting global North to global South kind of model in practice,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s really been quite amazing how we\u2019ve been able to build the infrastructure in remote parts of our country and around our sites, engage the local people, and provide employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sinha is an advocate for female participation and leadership in the fight against climate change, and she hopes to see ReNew Power\u2019s work spread across the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the boundaries for climate change, for the global energy transition, are melting,\u201d she said. \u201cAs we look around us, there are humongous opportunities for us to be able to produce energy and make it fungible from one geography to the other. And we see ourselves taking the lead there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Also featured in Sustainability is Ali Zaidi, National Climate Advisor, White House. Zaidi who has served on President Joe Biden\u2019s climate team since it was founded in 2020 was promoted to his current role in September.<\/p>\n

The highest-ranking Pakistani American in the administration has helped shape Biden\u2019s strategy that connects the climate crisis to social and racial justice, public health, infrastructure, and jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can build the politics for climate action if we use that climate action to tackle multiple crises at a time,\u201d Zaidi told Ozy in an interview last year. \u201cIf we use it to eat into injustice, to spur economic activity, to build worker power, the popularity of that climate action goes up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s tasked with shepherding the rollout of the $369 billion in climate funding in the Inflation Reduction Act alongside John Podesta, who was named in September senior advisor to the president on clean energy.<\/p>\n

Zaidi\u2019s path to the White House began in Karachi, Pakistan, which his family left for small-town Pennsylvania when he was 5. Zaidi earned a law degree from Georgetown University and did stints in academia, at a law firm, and as the chair of climate policy and finance for the state of New York.<\/p>\n

\"\"Emerging Tech section features Akshay Kothari, Chief Operating Officer, Notion, which has become both a popular workplace-productivity tool and a social-media phenomenon over the past two years. The $10 billion startup\u2019s total users quadrupled to more than 20 million over the past 12 months. At the same time, its tools have become a staple for TikTok influencers and everyday users looking to organize their personal lives.<\/p>\n

Kothari, a product exec turned jack-of-all-trades, has been instrumental in guiding the company through its rapid growth. \u201cI spent a decade building products, and the job I have at Notion was everything but product. I was responsible for really building out our foundational and our business teams,\u201d Kothari said, explaining his mission to hire experienced leaders for Notion\u2019s sales, marketing, product, human resources, finance, and other essential teams.<\/p>\n

In some ways, it was a challenge to start teams in business units he hadn\u2019t worked in before, Kothari said, but it made it simpler. It forced him and his team to think about how best to serve customers and build practices around that, he said.<\/p>\n

The toughest challenge he\u2019s faced at Notion was in early 2021, when it got a huge influx of users, which was spurred by it going viral on TikTok and almost took down the company\u2019s servers. Under Kothari\u2019s leadership, the company took a six-month break from any new product features to focus 100% on improving its infrastructure. \u201cThe investments we made during that time also helped build the company culture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Notion\u2019s next phase of growth is focused on making it easier for large companies to use it for workplace collaboration. Kothari is focused on making sure Notion\u2019s growing community of users is happy with the product and continues to pull it into their workplaces. New marketing ideas, like its recent pop-up in San Francisco, are part of this strategy, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNotion has very much sort of become the default asynchronous collaboration platform,\u201d he said. \u201cOur most exciting days are very much ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Featured in the Shopping category is Dilip Kumar, Vice President of Physical Retail and Technology, Amazon. He is in charge of Amazon\u2019s futuristic \u201cJust Walk Out\u201d technology which allows shoppers to pick out what they want and leave the store without standing in line at a checkout counter. Instead, their accounts are automatically debited for the purchase.<\/p>\n

While Just Walk Out got its start in a roughly 10,000-square-foot Amazon Go store in early 2020, the technology now functions in stores that vary in size.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur technology services are operational in locations ranging from small-store formats to full-size grocery stores to locations that cater to high customer volumes, like airport and stadium stores,\u201d Kumar told Insider.<\/p>\n

In February, Amazon opened an entire Whole Foods store in Washington, DC, with Just Walk Out. Amazon has also installed the tech at its AmazonGo convenience stores and sports stadiums.<\/p>\n

Kumar also oversees related projects at Amazon. They include Amazon One, which allows customers to scan their palm to enter a Just Walk Out location or pay, and Amazon Dash Carts, a smart shopping cart that keeps track of what consumers put in their carts as they shop and allows them to skip the checkout line.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese technologies can improve the shopping experience by saving time and removing friction from shopping trips,\u201d he said. Kumar said he doesn\u2019t \u201chave a crystal ball\u201d to see into the future of retail. But he anticipates \u201cthe retail industry will continue to adopt machine learning and computer-vision-based technologies that offer customers ease and convenience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Shopping section also features Amish Tolia, Co-CEO and Cofounder, Leap, a retail-as-a-service startup that secures leases, designs stores, and manages operations for brands in exchange for a monthly fee and percentage of sales.<\/p>\n

As cofounder and co-CEO, Tolia is always looking for ways that brands can use data to ensure that their digital and physical retail channels are working together in complementary ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past 10-plus years, there\u2019s been a lot of conversation around the death of retail,\u201d Tolia said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen that as more of the reinvention of retail, or the rebirth of retail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that consumers want to be in person,\u201d Tolia added. \u201cThe lion\u2019s share of spend is still taking place offline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leap was founded in mid-2018. Today, about 55 brands \u2014 including Ring Concierge, Naadam, and Mack Weldon \u2014 are on the platform. Leap operates more than 80 stores across 11 markets in the US. It raised a $50 million Series B in January.<\/p>\n

Tolia said that Leap\u2019s tech-powered solutions are especially relevant now as platforms like Shopify have lowered the barrier to entry for online sellers.<\/p>\n

As these sellers \u201ccontinue to scale their businesses online, it\u2019s without question that they\u2019re going to need to address the physical-retail channel to meet the consumer where the consumer is,\u201d Tolia said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s world, it\u2019s really important that those brands think about every channel \u2014 including that of retail \u2014 and address every channel in a way that provides them the greatest amount of flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Rajatesh Gudibande, President and Cofounder, GraphWear Technologies Inc, a biotech startup, is one of the two South Asians featured in the new Readers\u2019 Choice section.<\/p>\n

Gudibande is pioneering the first no-blood, no-needle glucose-monitoring test that could be revolutionary for the 422 million people with diabetes around the world who must subject themselves to daily finger pricks to monitor their glucose levels.<\/p>\n

Unlike the traditional finger-stick monitor \u2014 which Gudibande previously said could be painful, lead to infections, and be inaccessible to some \u2014 GraphWear\u2019s tech uses sensors to monitor glucose molecules on a patient\u2019s skin.<\/p>\n

In addition to diabetes, Gudibande, who holds a master\u2019s degree in nanotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania, said his startup\u2019s tech could eventually be used to monitor other health issues, such as high cholesterol, heart attacks, and cancer risk.<\/p>\n

Established in 2015, GraphWear has raised $25.2 million total in VC funding, according to Crunchbase. The startup\u2019s most recent raise was a $20.5 million Series B round in October 2021 that was led by Mayfield Fund.<\/p>\n

Chronic-care management is important to Gudibande, who contracted cerebral malaria in rural India but was misdiagnosed with chickenpox and suffered severe complications. He said his experience was difficult even while having better access to healthcare than most others in his situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had access to doctors and medications, but the true missing piece was the absence of labs \u2014 I saw that the logistics of healthcare were clunky, and so I set out to make a change,\u201d Gudibande told Authority Magazine in an interview last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding an alternative, noninvasive healthcare solution has allowed us to unlock a whole new outlook on what we can do to better people\u2019s health,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Nitin Gupta, CEO and Founder, Beans.ai is also featured in the Readers\u2019 Choice section. For him helping people navigate the last 100 yards of their journey is personal.<\/p>\n

While visiting from India, Gupta\u2019s mother had a medical emergency at his apartment. \u201cThe paramedics hit my property about 15 minutes before they found my apartment,\u201d he told Insider.<\/p>\n

His mom received treatment with just a minute to spare. \u201cIt was surprising that in a developed country like the US, the first responders don\u2019t have the data\u201d to find where they need to go, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey actually have this thick paper binder in every fire truck with less than a tenth of the relevant data that they flip through as they\u2019re going to an emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the stakes are much lower, delivery professionals face the same challenges at sprawling apartment complexes and labyrinthine office buildings. By crowdsourcing information about the built environment, Beans.ai is helping people get where they need to go.<\/p>\n

Gupta has been creative about where he gets his information. The company has paid delivery drivers for maps of apartment complexes and partnered with fire departments to digitize those clunky binders.<\/p>\n

In addition to its contracts with government agencies, including postal services, it helps power between 2 million and 3 million daily deliveries on a variety of platforms, including InstaCart.<\/p>\n

Read: White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi Among 8 South Asian Americans in the Insider\u2019s List of \u2018100 People Transforming Business\u2019<\/strong> <\/a>(November 17, 2022)<\/p>\n

Fresh off a $17 million Series A financing round, Gupta said his firm is rounding the corner into profitability. The firm is also developing its business with the real-estate and telecommunications industries.<\/p>\n

After that, there\u2019s no shortage of spaces with confounding layouts. \u201cHotels have the same problem, hospitals have the same problem, universities have the same problem,\u201d Gupta said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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