Shownotes:

2018, was a defining year for me career wise, it was also the year when I was able to live up to my aspiration to contribute a percentage of my time pro-bono to the third sector. I had the opportunity to align and engage with PRADAN, a leading Indian charity working in the livelihoods space. This opened the door for some wonderful collaborations and strategic work with the organisation in the last 6 years. The person who enabled this partnership was Sudhir Sahni – our paths had intersected briefly in the past.

A veteran of the Indian Advertising Industry, Sudhir made a deliberate shift to the non-profit sector after three decades, in the quest for work that aligned with his beliefs. At PRADAN Sudhir leverages his experience to foster partnerships and amplify PRADANs impact amongst external stakeholders.

In the 130th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast, Sudhir talks about his transformative journey from the corporate to the social sector; the intrinsic motivations that guided the move; his desire for a collaborative approach to work focusing on individual potential; challenges faced by the development sector; the evolving funding landscape; equity and inclusion in the third sector; a community centred approach to delivering projects; women in leadership; ….etc.

We also spoke about the impact of Transformers an interview series featuring leaders and best practice from the third sector and Samagam, a multi-stakeholder platform conceptualised and hosted by PRADAN to facilitate dialogues and collaboration amongst the third sector, private sector and governments. 

It is great to call a fellow champion and ally for women in the workplace, a friend.

To hear more about Sudhir’s transition to the third sector head to the podcast 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Episode Transcript:

Sudha: Good morning, Sudhir. Welcome to the Elephant in the Room podcast today. Thank you for being a guest.

Sudhir: Hi Sudha, it's always a pleasure talking to you. Happy to be with you today. Thank you.

Sudha: So let's get started. My first question to you is how did this move happen from advertising to the social sector or the impact or the development sector? Was this a planned move the? Last time I'd met you before you were with Pradan you were at Ogilvy?

Sudhir: Yeah. I've had a wonderful career in the advertising world over almost about 28 odd years and I loved what I was doing. And I loved, the kind of influence it had on people, on consumers. So that was great. At some point I felt that my style of working and engaging with people was I would say far more collaborative than competitive, which is required in the corporate world. And for me, I think getting the work done was more important than getting credit for it.

I was beginning to wonder whether at a certain point I may not be so fit for the corporate world going forward. And my learning curve was beginning to plateau. And I would especially find pleasure in helping people achieve their tasks and realize their potential the underdog performing was far more exciting, than the champion team delivering a winning campaign I felt that maybe I may have a far more, if I may say, you know, within quotes, socialist outlook. And was happier to create more equals within the team than, create or deal with unequals.

So that was beginning to fester in my mind.

A couple of campaigns that really excited me. One was The Pulse Polio Immunisation Campaign wherein you had to mobilize almost the entire population that had kids up to five years of age repeatedly on the immunisation days and get them to the booth and get their children given the polio drops and it was a remarkable kind of success. We managed more than 98 percent of the population coming to the booths. So that was very exciting, inspiring.

The other one was VDIS, which was the voluntary disclosure of income scheme, which was actually way back in 97 which was basically inspiring a nation to actually come into the mainstream and pay taxes. Not too many people were wanting to do that, and there were a lot of people who found reasons not to pay taxes. How to get people over a six month period to actually join the mainstream by paying taxes was quite a task. The success that we achieved over that six months period was quite exciting. And I thought that, you know, these kinds of things of mobilizing people and having a large impact on the audiences that we deal with was something that was exciting. And I was beginning to therefore look at the social sector as an option going forward.

So I started looking around, I initially went into something else related to advertising and communication and even sports marketing for a while. But again, I felt that I was looking at creating more new talent and helping the marginalized people coming into mainstream rather than just dealing with champions. And then in conversation with my wife, I felt that I would look at some social causes. I looked at garbage recycling, I looked at other issues, but essentially my wife then kind of inspired me to say that, I've always worked well with people in a good organisation. So I might benefit more by joining a large organisation that is already doing some good work rather than try and create some small niche for myself. And that's how then I started talking to more people within the sector.

And I think by a happy coincidence frankly, I met Naren who was my batchmate from school. He had been in Pradan for over 28 odd years or so. He later became the executive director of the organisation. So I kind of chatted with him and I was telling him that I was looking to do something in the development sector. And he said, you know what? I've been around here for about 28 odd years. And I said, okay, so I really want to know what you do.

I understood what Pradan did, I had an eight-day field visit, and I was absolutely thrilled, amazed at the kind of work that the organisation was doing in the sector. And I thought that this was something that would interest me. So that's how finally entered the development sector. And I've been in the same organisation for over seven years now.

Sudha: Wow. What I really like, Sudhir, that you are very self-aware about where you were headed and where you were going because often we are not self-aware and I think despite being deeply unhappy, or despite recognizing that we are not actually using our strengths or talents to go where we should be, we continue to exist in the same sort of ecosystem and struggle there in the short and long term.

So that's an incredible journey. You've answered some part of the second question, what caused you to take that leap of faith? And what drew you to the sector? I think you could elaborate more on what drew you to the sector. You knew Naren, which is a very happy coincidence. it is like quite a seismic move for somebody moving from the corporate to the development sector.

Sudhir: I was closing on to 50 years of age then, and I was thinking that even in my earlier days, both at work and even earlier days in school and college, I was always very interested and excited by helping some of my colleagues or some of my students who are not doing so well.

Even in Ogilvy, I was very keen and there was a time when there was a business that was coming our way. And I felt that the direct marketing team would do a better job of managing their business.

And I offered that business to that team and the head of that stream Ogilvy XXXXX XXXX, he says, why are you giving me this business? Is that a lemon? I said, no, no, I just feel that your team would do a far better job of managing that business and delivering on it rather than, the advertising business.

As I said, that the development sector, social sector gave much more opportunity for that kind of thinking, that kind of collaborative working. Also, I think Pradan is an organisation, what drew me to that was that it also believes strongly on realizing individual people's potential. That always felt that and my thinking also was that financial resources and in fact, even time resources, that time wasted can be made up. But if professional resource, human resource talent is wasted, then that's the biggest miss that we have.

And to that extent, this organisation, as I mentioned, Pradan kind of seemed to echo the same thought. And that's why got more interested in joining the sector.

Sudha: That's why you gravitated towards it. And how has the experience been, was it a shock to the system?

Was there a difference in how people operated?

Sudhir: Yeah Sudha, so frankly, I think for me both the initial months and almost now seven and a half years that I have been there in the sector and in the organisation, I would say quite surreal at one level and I would say extremely fulfilling on the other because frankly, and I consider myself still as a bit of an outsider from the sector.

And I think I'm