The Brand Called You

This episode of The Brand Called You brings you lessons on entrepreneurship, investment and running a business from a well established entrepreneur who has done a lot of startups and now advises and invests in startups. We are privileged to welcome the founder of Livemocha and TeamOnSystems, Mr. Shirish Nadkarni. Shirish is an quintessential entrepreneur with several successful startups and exits. He is also an angel investor. Shirish has also authored a book titled 'From Startup to Exit: An Insider's Guide to Launching and Scaling Your Tech Business'.

Cancer is understandably a dreaded disease, and late diagnosis often leads to the heart-wrenching results of loss. Early diagnosis and the right course of treatment are essential to get life back on track. And if professionals are not well-equipped or educated about the kinds of cancers that exist, it can be life-threatening for the patients. Today, we have an oral cancer survivor and a celebrated storyteller, Eva Grayzel, who shares her unusual story of surviving cancer. She shares the impact and journey from the onset of disease to recovery. Eva recalls the onset of oral cancer at the age of 33 when she, along with the health professionals, was unaware that a simple sore on the tongue could be deadly. She consulted multiple dentists for the treatment, but nothing helped her.

There are some passionate individuals in the world who do not work merely for money, instead they work for purpose. They make the right use of their position in society and educate people for social good. Our guest for today, Charles Ayitey, is one of such personalities. Charles is a business journalist working and living in Ghana. He hosts a highly watched business program, 'The Marketplace'. He also works as a journalist in 'Voices for Peace'. Charles tells us that the thing that guards his conscience as a journalist is the feeling of being factual and not partial. Keeping this in mind, Charles says that he has no problem shifting to one side if the facts and neutrality is not compromised. He has also been awarded for his work in journalism.

Today, we have Prashant Parameswaran, a young Kochi entrepreneur is the Managing Director and CEO of Tata Consumer Soulfull Pvt Ltd, a company on a mission to bring back India’s ancient grains to the global market. Prashant hails from an agricultural background, and while studying and working in the US, he got this idea of bringing back the millets as he studied the acceptance of quinoa in the US. We talk more about it in our podcast.

Innovation is a never-ending saga. Innovation is considered to be very technical and advanced, but our guest for today, Daniel Buchbinder has a different perspective on Innovation. He says that innovation is not an innovation if it doesn't solve societal problems or raises the living standards of the people. Daniel is a Mexican, currently working in Guatemala. He is the founder and director of Alterna, which is the centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In the past, he has worked with brands like L'oreal. He has also advised the Ministry of Economics in Guatemala on the National Policy on Entrepreneurship.

Old age is a sensitive phase, the reality we often hesitate to discuss because of our busy lives. The elderly are left sidelined and isolated. Physical weaknesses coupled with societal and family neglect leave them vulnerable to mental health challenges, elevating the caregiving responsibilities. With children moving places for careers, it gets difficult to look after the parents. The provisions of old age homes and old age policies are not very conducive. Several caregivers have come out with a sense of responsibility to give back to society by working in the elderly care sector. Today, we have Mr. Pankaj Mehrotra, Elderly Care Advisor, who talks about old age challenges and possible solutions. Pankaj discusses the challenges that come with old age. Calling ageing a gradual loss of independent living, he divides the challenges into physical and mental brackets.

Anybody and everybody who likes to watch romantic Bollywood movies can't deny that one of his favourite movies is Ashiqui. Ashiqui was a blockbuster and one of the factors for its success was it's female protagonist, Anu Aggarwal. Anu has now turned into a social worker and has founded The Anu Aggarwal Foundation, which focuses on maximising potential and raising joy and peace. For this episode of The Brand Called You, we feel privileged to invite the Aashiqui girl and a social worker, Anu Aggarwal as our guest. Anu is trained and mastered in meditation. She is an ambassador for UNHCR. She has also authored a book titled 'Anusual'. Anu throughout the episode talks about positivity and love.

With the fast-paced business environment and competition, there is a constant race to create a long-lasting brand relevance. In that attempt, companies end up overthinking, trying to replicate or overpower their competition. The need is to understand the power of their products or services and leverage it for the audiences accordingly. Today’s guest, Soon Yu, an award-winning author, speaks about creating brand relevance with existing product innovation and ethical delivery promises. He has written the book “Iconic Advantage: Don’t Chase the New, Innovate the Old.” The Forbes contributor who has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times is soon coming with his second book, titled “Friction”.

This is the story of a guy who was an athlete in his growing-up days. As he grew up, he joined a rehabilitation centre to help drug addicts and alcoholic kids to get out of their dark life. With that he also started a business. With all these three things which were separate till then, he combined all the learnings and founded a behavioral strategist company. We are talking about Peter Sorckoff, who is also our guest for this episode of our podcast. Peter is a Canadian, living in Atlanta, Georgia, US for over 20 years. He is the founder and CEO of Seer World, a company which works as a behavioral strategist. Peter has worked for popular brands like Coca-cola, NBA, MBL etc. He also has a strong connection with sports. He calls himself a Weekend Warrior Athlete.

The concept of remote working has led to employees getting to spend quality time with their families, saving on commute time and opportunities beyond geographical constraints. Today we have Larry English, president of a consulting firm who discovered the power of remote working 20 years ago and has been promoting it through his organization ever since. He shares with us his journey and the benefits of the working model. He is also an author of the book, “Office Optional: How to Build a Connected Culture with Virtual Teams”.