Working in Bombay

The most common question I get asked is, why India?

The answer as to why I chose India, of all places, is as simple as it is complex or rather confounding. Put simply, I learned about the education crisis in India through my undergraduate coursework in intercultural communication; a problem that needed solutions; and rather than read about a country in the pages of a textbook or tune into stories on the news, I wanted to understand the issues of poverty and education on the ground in a city like Mumbai, firsthand and in a practical sense. The part that seems confounding, even to me still, is why I thought I could do something about it. When I graduated from college, after unsuccessful bids for Fulbright and then-Clinton Foundation-backed fellowship programs in India, I packed my bags and boarded a flight to India, anyway. 

A professor at my alma mater connected me to a nonprofit in Mumbai, Atma, and I joined their team as a program associate and executive assistant to the chief operations officer. I enjoyed the work, advising founders of schools and nonprofits to help them design and implement accelerator models and develop strategic plans for sustainable growth. And I learned a lot about innovation and assessing impact and the education sector in an emerging economy. 

After the six-month stint at Atma, I was successful in securing a fully funded fellowship program through IDEX Accelerator. I worked in the private sector with Ador Group through the fellowship. And I participated in a feature interview about the IDEX fellowship with ProFellow. The conclusion of the fellowship, soon after, presented me with an exciting opportunity to pursue a stint with Ador Group, so I joined their incubated start-up as a digital marketing manager. I helped lead a team of consultants and web developers and marketing professionals with launching a personal care store for online shopping and advised the sales strategies for partnerships with Amazon and Google.