The Vahura View: Edition 14

In 2007, Lee Ignatius walked into a small office in Mumbai to return a book to a friend. Lee had been catching up on his reading between quitting a recruitment company and joining the HR team of an IT giant. There, he met Ritvik Lukose and Sachin Malhan who’d just co-founded a company called Rainmaker with Bhavin Patel and Nikhil Chandra . In the quietly persuasive way that would influence many unsuspecting people in the coming years, Ritvik (with some help from Sachin) managed to convince Lee to junk the job at the IT major (he was meant to start the next day!) and join Rainmaker, which had taken on the mission of pioneering legal upskilling and recruitment in India.

It was a buoyant time for the economy. To facilitate hectic activity and make the most of new opportunities, corporate legal departments and law firms were increasingly looking for high-quality talent. Around corporate law as a profession, there was a buzz like never before. This air of consolidation and excitement wasn’t just restricted to the marketplace. In 2008, the country’s national law schools came together to create a common entrance exam called the CLAT.

The vertical within Rainmaker that focussed on recruitment and consulting was The Talent Management Group. This group established itself quickly, with senior leadership in legal departments and law firms thrilled to be working with a specialist team that instinctively understood the context of their business.

By 2011, it was clear that the recruitment and consulting business had its own destiny, different from the training and testing-focussed verticals of Rainmaker. The clear path was specialist search and consulting. Vahura was officially launched as an independent venture in October of that year.

This month marks our 13th anniversary.

In the words of Tennyson, “though much is taken, much abides” And two things that have abided the most are the culture we have created and our ability to reinvent without losing sight of our values .

If we had to do a laundry list of business achievements, there is much to speak of: more than 10000+ positions closed; an enviable client list; an unrivalled database of 40,000 professionals; branching out into recruitment in the finance, tax, compliance and board functions.

We’re equally proud of the culture we have created. Operating in two domains that have a reputation for being ultra-competitive and combative (Recruitment and Legal), we’ve managed to build out a company that prioritises authentic relationships over all else, both internally and externally. We’ve shown that it is possible to be ambitious and chase scale while running a people-first and values-first organisation that centres creativity and collaboration.

So here’s a kind of alternative list of our achievements, a list that testifies to our culture of trust and care: an ESOP Trust launched in 2016, three employee directors; founding partner of Agami, a non-profit seeking to transform the experience of justice; annually mentoring and supporting over 500 college students and young professionals through initiatives like Navigator; creating a credible industry benchmark on workplace health through the Vahura Best Law Firms to Work studies (we have a new edition planned in 2025).

Through all this, we’ve displayed a remarkable ability to reinvent ourselves. Thirteen years since the launch of Vahura 1.0, we’re in Version 4.0. In this phase, we are focussed on deepening our lead in the legal talent segment; scaling our success in other specialist segments like finance, compliance, governance & policy; and expanding our international footprint. There’s much else afoot. We’re engaging deeply with technology and AI as drivers of business transformation. We’re making a bet on a scale-driven model with LegaFin Jobs . Our affiliate Counselect is pioneering future-of-work services.

Every milestone motivates us to step back and re-evaluate what we can do better.

This 13th anniversary has inspired us to think more deeply about how best to reflect the transformation of the legal, governance and finance domains from cost centres to strategic functions. Our website will tell this story in a more cohesive way soon. Watch out for the revamp!

The one thing that does remain constant is our mission to help the right people and organisations find each other and prosper together. That’s the thread that runs through all the things we do—our ambition to serve as true partners to people who shape the future.

Finally, we’d like to take this occasion of our 13th anniversary to thank everyone who has supported, championed and constructively criticised us. Back in October 2011, in our cubbyhole office in Mumbai, we were just eight people with fire in our bellies (we are 70-odd now). You have helped us channel our passion and find our purpose. Stick with us for the next 13, too—let’s continue shaping the future together!