How Women Can Reinvent the Corporate Wheel and Drive Lasting Impact

Two vibrant women are on the path to delivering an equitable future for the world. Here’s what others can learn from them.

Despite coming from an average background, Misha Khurana dared to dream about leading projects that would develop vulnerable communities across the globe. Nadja Atwal, too, has been building solutions to serve a wide range of users.

Growing up, young Misha Khurana was fascinated by the need to help those around her. In a world where pandemics, poverty, and displacement from regional conflicts are hot topics on the news, Khurana knew she had to lend her voice to alleviate the sufferings of those affected by these issues.

Meanwhile Atwal, born in West Germany, had always dreamed about founding her business as a woman. Beyond starting a business, she had a zeal to rewrite the status quo with her business.?

Overcoming bias at home?

Indian girls, according to a UNICEF report, are more likely to drop out from school. The report further notes “While boys tend to experience greater freedom, girls tend to face extensive limitations on their ability to move freely and to make decisions affecting their work, education, marriage and social relationships.”

Determined not to allow the bias of being a woman in India stand in the way of achieving her goals, she sharpened her knowledge and skills. Eventually, she secured admission into the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, an institution celebrated for its groundbreaking achievements in science and research. At this point, she envisioned studying at the prestigious Harvard Business School. It seemed like a long shot but not impossible.

Life in the corporate world?

Khurana’s story in the corporate world began with her time at the Boston Consulting Group. She served as a fellow of the Global Social Impact Immersion Program, an opportunity that led to her handing projects on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Save the Child.?

Interestingly, her time with the above initiatives slowly paved the way for her involvement in technological innovations, especially? the AI-driven types. This led to her development of a predictive AI tool that could estimate the scale of displacement in a region.?

In 2019, she hit another milestone when she joined the Global Fund at just 26 years old. The Global Fund is a worldwide initiative geared at guaranteeing an equitable and healthy world by combating diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV. To finance its efforts across over 100 countries, it solicits and invests $4 billion annually to support existing health infrastructure.?

When asked to speak on her time with the Global Fund, Khurana said that her greatest interest in the Fund's efforts was its “ambition to tackle the insurmountable challenges caused by major health pandemics”. Among the Global Fund's achievements are halving the potential death toll of three diseases, saving over 50 million lives, and helping countries to strengthen their COVID-19 response.?

Atwal’s sojourn in the corporate world has been nothing short of a fairy tale. She serves as a CEO, co-founder, and has helped many businesses scale to incredible heights as an advisor. At Eyetencity where she is the co-founder, Atwal along with her colleagues have built an innovative Web3 solution that makes it possible and affordable for realtors to show photo-realistic real estate projects to clients. This means that clients can see what a property looks like virtual tours to improve their decision making process.

‘Don’t feel shy to reinvent the wheel’?

Despite making up nearly half of the global workforce population (47.7%), women still experience several issues like gender bias, wage disparity, and little to no career advancement opportunities. Khurana, too, has been a victim of this sad trend, but her story has a great ending.?

Speaking on the biggest challenge she had ever faced in the corporate world, Khurana said “My biggest challenge has been overcoming the bias of being a 26 year-old winning the trust of experienced experts while attempting to solve some of the world's greatest problems. Despite how challenging this seemed, I always drew strength from the desire to create maximum impact in society despite being just one person.”

Many gender equality advocates have emphasised the importance of giving women in the workplace equal opportunities to showcase their skills.? The benefits of gender equality in organizations include the attraction of a larger talent pool, improved work-life balance, among others.

From rising above multiple setbacks and always gaining a lesson from each loss, Atwal made a note to always analyze what went wrong and devise a solution to make things right. Her relentless spirit helped catapult her into the big leagues as a PR expert, crisis manager, a business founder, but most importantly a better woman.?

Atwal strongly believes that young female entrepreneurs should not be afraid to question the way things are. “Don’t feel shy to reinvent the wheel. I never just accepted things, but experimented to see what works. That takes a great amount of confidence.” She advocates for more meaningful collaborations between women, adding that it can play a major role in a female entrepreneur’s success.

Kolawole Samuel Adebayo is a content strategist and technology writer specialising in the software-as-a-service space. Adebayo explores emerging technologies and investigates the digital trends that drive business today and in the future.?