September 4, 2025
Living with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) since my teens gave me one mantra I carry into every buildout: no gain without pain. It taught me resilience and the ability to keep moving even when things were messy or unclear.
That mindset defined my first 10 years across McKinsey, Fisike, Airtel, and Net4India. These were the years where I learnt to turn ideas into reality, get comfortable solving ambiguity, and build structure where none existed. They shaped me to run large innovation charters in the decade that followed and firmly defined how I build even today.
At McKinsey, I worked with leadership teams in telecom and hi-tech, helping them think through market entry and future product strategies.
This was my first training in breaking down problems into solvable parts: taking broad visions and converting them into milestones and action tracks. I also learnt the value of blue-sky thinking — knowing when to step back, pivot, or reframe — while still backing arguments with structured research and hypothesis building. It was here I first discovered the discipline and rigor that drive
real innovation.
Motivated by my own health journey, I co-founded Fisike, a startup building personal health records long before digital health became mainstream. We scaled to 10K patient records a month, a proud milestone but not enough to sustain.
Fisike taught me a hard truth: passion and vision are not enough without ecosystem alignment. It remains close to my heart because it was my first attempt at aligning personal purpose with professional building.
At Net4India, a small broadband challenger, I worked on last-mile delivery through cable operator partnerships. Competing with giants meant being creative and hands-on.
Here I discovered my passion for organising unstructured markets — taking fragmented, chaotic systems and turning them into structured, repeatable businesses. I also saw how tough it is for smaller, bootstrapped players to balance execution with fundraising
These early chapters gave me the foundation I still draw from today: Rigor turns ambiguity into clarity Blue-sky thinking sparks pivots Alignment is as critical as vision Organising chaos creates value The first 10 years shaped me to run the innovation charters of the next 10 years. They firmed my belief that progress does not come easy, but no gain without pain is what builds things that
last.