“Money in the right hands can move mountains”
Meet Vidhi Data, our Business Innovation & Leadership strategist as part of “Meet Our Mentors” Series hosted by Impact By Women.
I’m Mahtab Namakian, designer at Impact By Women. This role has given me the opportunity to work closely with women entrepreneurs. As an Iranian American woman, this means a lot to me because I have seen many inspiring and talented women in Iran wanting to follow their passion but lacking the courage and resources to achieve their goals. My desire to capture their stories inspired this series called “Meet Our Mentors”. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
Vidhi Data, Business Innovation & Leadership strategist
Vidhi Data is the founder of Lead with Impact — an organization on a mission to build transformational women leaders across all business sectors and sizes. She is a former digital transformation executive and has helped organizations of all sizes innovate, transform, and scale with agility while delivering tremendous value to customers and stakeholders alike. Vidhi has been coaching leaders for over 15 years on mastery of personal leadership with mindsets and skills that are authentic to their individual values. Vidhi enjoys writing and speaking, and often mentors start-ups and emerging leaders on topics like business innovation, transformation design, high-impact leadership, agile, and lean product strategy.
MN: Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
VD: I was born and brought up in India, in a regressive society, with no role for women in decision making. Despite the strong cultural pressure, my parents chose to give me the education and opportunities that led me to move to the UK first to continue education and then to the US where I established my career in product management, progressing into program management and eventually into business transformation.
Fast forward 18 years of enjoying strong roles and impact in my career across global corporations to start-ups, I began to realize that I was often the only woman in the room where decisions were being made. I decided I was an exception to the rule, and something had to be done about it. So, I left behind an amazing career, and a great paycheck to go after the mission to skill up and promote women leaders and especially bring my experience around driving innovation and transformation and designing large programs which is even a rare number of women. That’s when Lead With Impact was born with a mission to prepare, skill-up, and promote women leaders, who can not only lead effectively but build their legacy via their impact on the businesses and societies.
MN: What part of your work inspires you and why?
VD: First is the realization that I don’t have to wait to have a lot more money or a better position to have the power to make a difference today and that was a big self-inspiration for me to make this move. It’s really the intention and willingness to go after the change I want to see in the world.
The second point of inspiration for me has been the intersection of my experience as a leadership coach for 15 years and as a woman, having to navigate the biases, sexism, and racism myself.
Last but not least, a strong inspiration today is my 10-year-old daughter and other little girls who deserve to not just have the opportunities but total freedom in designing their own future. Opportunity isn’t enough — we need to give them equity as well.
MN: Why do you want to work with women entrepreneurs?
VD: Money in the right hands can move mountains! For me, this sums up why we need more women entrepreneurs making their mark in the world of impact-driven businesses.
The current world has been a harsh mirror of injustices and lack of equal voices in our society, not just in the business world. More than ever, the world needs leaders who can bring ideas that are novel, that create value all while breaking down these multi-layered social issues through innovative thinking.
Research has shown that women tend to use the earnings and resources of their businesses not just for their families but also for their communities and social causes. Despite all our duties, and the constant questioning about our juggling act, nothing prepares us better for managing a highly diverse impact portfolio as I call it. My partnership with Impact by Women is laser-focused on helping such women build businesses and that’s our combined inspiration
MN: What are you looking forward to as a mentor at Impact by Women?
VD: My biggest gift from this experience would be to see these female founders go from being one idea wonders to being seen as innovation-based and transformative businesses. In addition, I look forward to helping them build their unique leadership style that is authentic to their values and is highly visible in their business culture, communications, and customer experiences.
My expertise is in designing frameworks that will enable sustainable growth, continued innovation, and a strong strategy for building a legacy of impact. I want to share with female entrepreneurs that the world is changing steadily, but until we reach a balanced world, we need to be armed with skills, mindsets, and confidence about our convictions behind our ideas. We need to combine that with a resilient and agile business model, a strong roadmap of transformations, and innovation for social impact at the core of the business model.
MN: What are the challenges you’ve faced as an entrepreneur?
VD: My own personal challenge as I was starting my business was to let go of my financial security that came with a monthly handsome paycheck and the sense of power that you tend to take for granted when you have a budget, resources, and a team when you are working in those positions. This is a personal challenge that I continue to work on for my own mindset shift like other women — redefining security and power for myself.
The other challenge has been around educating people. I sort of assumed that there would be enough passion in women and even supportive male leaders to justify the business and equity case, but unfortunately, this continues to be very low in priority, both in personal and professional decision making. In order to really grow as successful entrepreneurs or businesses, more diversity in leadership is needed. Educating them has been a challenge.
MN: How has COVID impacted your life?
VD: On the personal front, my family was hit hard especially my parents, who live in India. Unfortunately, they got COVID infected. It’s hit home in the true sense. So anyone who says it’s not real; they haven’t really experienced it.
Professionally, This year has been a high point for me. I had been actively consulting, while slowly building my business but that often got sidelined. When COVID hit, I was about to start an initiative and found myself unable to go forth. I decided to engage in visioning exercises on my values and my purpose. I realized how important it was for something like my business to be put in place sooner than later so I can start helping women navigate the challenges, and thrive even in the new remote work environment with critical skills. I started off by launching free coaching services for women hit hard due to COVID. It has been extremely humbling and a learning process throughout the summer. Also, as a part of the mission of my company I give away 10% of my profits to women empowerment projects in India and 10% of my personal time to mentor and coach women. COVID has given me clarity on my mission.
MN: What would you advise your younger self?
VD: I would tell my younger self to use my voice a little bit more and sooner than later. I think I looked away from problems for too long. Being an immigrant woman, having to fight against biases I experienced and the judgment of leaving “home” in search of a better future, continued to keep me focused on building economic independence and a strong career first. I seemed to ignore the broader issue of inequality and gender parity, as I was busy navigating the biases myself. So, yes, I would also tell my younger self to bring others along and get active without waiting to be in extreme privilege or in position of power.
MN: What’s your hope for the future?
VD: My hope for the future is very simple. While I was setting my business I worked with many advisors to decide if I should establish a gender agnostic offering. I was overwhelmingly advised to focus on women as they really need that attention, un-learning, and learning of new mindsets. The day a company like Lead with Impact doesn’t have to be gender-focused is the day we would have arrived!
My hope for the future as a woman entrepreneur is that I would like to show up simply as an entrepreneur and not have to be called out as a woman. My hope is that we would be defined as a tribe, connected via values, and purpose to solve the world problems, innovate and generate collective prosperity.
My 10-year-old enjoys telling me how she wants to be the President of the United States. For her and all the little girls, my hope is that the “first-woman” celebrations would be a thing of the past and laughed at. In a perfect world, the so-called ceilings would be a non-issue, and freedom to reach the heights would be everyone’s choice and not an exception to the rule.
Meet the Designer :
Mahtab is a UX and Product Designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who recently graduated from California College of the Arts with a Master’s in Interaction Design. She is motivated and driven by identifying innovative approaches and improved solutions to connect and empower people. She is inspired by people’s stories and constantly tries to find opportunities to dive deep into understanding their motivations, intentions, attitudes, and needs. She believes in thinking empathetically, sharing humbly, and working collaboratively.
