Show Notes:

The global climate movement/industry is not very inclusive; amongst other things it struggles with gender gap. This is especially true in a country like India where the climate industry, particularly the clean energy sector, suffers from a significant gender gap, with women severely underrepresented in technical and leadership roles. While women disproportionately bear the burden of climate change impacts, social and systemic barriers limit their participation in the very sectors that could offer solutions and economic empowerment.

Along with several government initiatives focused on women’s participation, there are several grassroots and third sector initiatives that are working towards building skills and capacity. One such initiative is Nadhi-SheforClimate a women-led initiative building climate resilience through human capital development. Nadhi works at the intersection of gender equity and climate adaptation by enabling women to enter and thrive in green careers building long-term individual and community economic resilience.

They also support micro-entrepreneurs in climate-aligned sectors such as sustainable agriculture, clean energy, circular economy, and low-carbon services

and help create community-driven knowledge networks.

Nadhi is the brain child of Shalini Bharat Shalini Bharat a banker turned climate entrepreneur and social leader. After a 17-year career in finance, including serving as the COO of Corporate Bank at Deutsche Bank India, Shalini founded the climate community platform with a vision to empower 100,000 women to become climate leaders by the year 2030.

Head to the podcast to hear Shalini talks about the motivations that spurred her to create a platform dedicated to increasing female representation in climate leadership, citing the overwhelming lack of women in decision-making roles within this critical field. She speaks about initiatives to facilitate capacity building, fostering community, and provide career support for aspiring female climate leaders. Shalini also speaks about the importance of partnerships in advancing these objectives, highlighting how collaborations with various organizations can amplify the impact of their mission. She also reflects on how authenticity and purpose are critical to driving meaningful change within the climate space.

Shalini is also the founder of the circular economy startup The Kind Business

To learn more, head to the podcast 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾 (link in comments)

 Episode Transcript: 

Sudha: Good morning, Shalini. Wonderful to have you as a guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast today.

Shalini: Thank you. My pleasure to be here and thanks for inviting me.

Sudha: Let's start with a quick introduction. Shalini, what inspired you to start a business focused on climate? What is Nadhi She for climate? And is that the right pronunciation?

Shalini: It's Nadhi. Like river.

 I'll talk about the inspiration behind Nadhi

So, Nadhi, it's been about, I think 16, 17 months since I started Nadhi, but the backstory to this is I used to be a corporate banker. And in 2021 I left my job a CXO level person, quit the job without a plan, wanted to, get into the climate space. But I started with a little bit of social leadership fellowship. But when I kind of entered the climate space, I. It was very overwhelming.

First of all, you didn't know whether it was a scientific or a science based, you know, skill or experience you need, or is it something that I can use my existing domain expertise to get in there? It was just overwhelming. And climate is a huge space, right?

So I remember how overwhelming it was for me and I think over the past four, five years I tried to build a few things on the side, but one of the common questions or topics where whenever I used to speak to anybody used to be, hey, how do I get into the space? And that prompted me to start Nadhi.

I could also say it was also for selfish reasons that I also wanted to be part of something where I can meet like-minded people, you know, exchange ideas, exchange thoughts, and also feel that you're not really out of place in any of your conversations.

I could have kept it open, but I also realized that having been part of so many networks and conferences, there's always a little bit of not being heard in the room kind of.

Shalini: And you know, usual mansplaining. All those things also happen. So I thought, why not do this only for the den? So it all started with a Google form last year, February. I just rolled it out in Bombay. I didn't really expect the response I was getting.

And that is how Nadhi's journey has also been that it was completely impromptu without too much of planning or anything.

And then it kind of became into a venture or a social business,  Nadhi's primary goal is how do we enable more and more women to come into the climate space. Now it will be interesting to also see that, or rather it was for me very interesting that I have been part of so many conversations with women. 

But it was when I read a report from OECD, it said less than 30% women. There are only 30%, less than 30% women leaders in the climate space who are decision makers and senior level leaders.

So all these things I would say kind of prompted me to kind of put a structure which was pretty much can I enable more women to the climate space?

So the focus is on three aspects which is climate fluency through capacity building and of course a whole community of like-minded women and and providing them career support by partnering with organizations. That became like the core of Nadhi. So the mission is to enable 100,000 women to become climate leaders, decision makers, change makers by 2030.

Sudha: Amazing. I think this journey to transitioning and taking that leap of faith.

It has to be a leap of faith when you leave something without a plan because we are so conditioned culturally and socially to not take risks. And this is definitely; this definitely sounds like a risk.

So this plunge into entrepreneurship, Shalini, was there an aha moment or was it a gradual. Gradual sort of, you know, awakening to the possibilities as you sort of explore and then you find that oh, you know, this is what is me or this is what I'd like to be doing.

Shalini: So to be honest, if you had asked me five years back if I would even ever think of become an entrepreneur, I would have said no. That was something I didn't really plan or even remotely thought about.

But what happened I think was, I would say it was gradual, but I think they were also that aha moment for me to kind of jump into that space.

So gradual because you know, when I, like I earlier mentioned coming into the climate space, having had a very, very, how do I say, broad experience in the corporate sector, I thought getting into climate would be also easier and it wasn't easy. So which means I was also very clear that I'm not going to start from scratch.

All the years of experience I've, I built I don't want to just go to Cash, so. And that's where I thought, why not do something on my own? Honestly, after being through the journey, I realized how hard it is.

But I think the point in time was if I don't do it now, I would regret it later. Yeah, might as well try it now and see where it takes me. 

So I think it was also a little bit of, I would say, risk taking on my part, thinking that, okay, let me try it at least.

Shalini: But that moment was for me to try, build something on my own came about because I found it extremely difficult to find anything, how do I say, suitable for my, you know, experience and what I was trying to look for. So I think that that kind of requirement need also pushed me to kind of do this. 

Sudha: Amazing. That sounds like. Yeah, that sounds like. So such an interesting journey.

So what, what does a typical day look like in the day in the life of a founder? Can you walk us through it?

Shalini: One thing I can tell you for sure, No two days are the same. So there are days which are really full of energy. You are literally peaking. There are days where you want to kind of literally dig your head in the ground and, you know, think about, why am I doing this? So there are both kind of days.

So typically I would say, you know, it's all, it's all about spending a little bit of time planning for the next set of things you want to do. So in my case, what I also realized is I don't plan too far ahead because this one, this sector is changing for me.

It's also kind of keeping three months or six months as a planning goa