Female Disruptors: Neeta Murthy of Rekindle Global on How She’s Helping Women Across the Globe Excel
You can achieve a lot, as long as you have good health on your side. Without taking care of yourself, there’s not much you can achieve in the long run. Make yourself a priority.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, we had the pleasure of interviewing Neeta Murthy.
Neeta Murthy, the CEO and founder of Rekindle Global, is renowned for her pioneering online professional development program for women employees. Prior to this, she held crucial leadership roles at SLB Oilfield Services, overseeing multimillion-dollar operations globally. With over two decades of experience, Neeta excels in steering complex business units, driving revenue growth, and implementing innovative strategies. A Harvard Business School graduate, Neeta continues to be a revolutionary industry leader and empowers other women in the process.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
As someone who went to a top engineering college where I was one of 20 women in a class of 500, the world seemed very blatantly skewed to me when it comes to gender. After college, I went to work in the oil industry — on offshore oil rigs in Egypt — where I was again the only woman on the rig. In fact, there were even times when I was refused to be let onto the helicopter taking us to the rig because they didn’t want “a woman” on the rig. As I got promoted into management roles thereafter, I noticed that the same theme continued at every stage, whether it was in Paris, on Wall Street or in Kuala Lumpur. I noticed how few women were in decision making roles, and how the women employees I managed kept facing the same challenges — being interrupted when speaking in meetings, having others take credit for their work, being passed on for promotions even when they delivered stellar results, being paid less than their male peers with similar expertise, etc.
Such challenges impact women’s sense of belonging at the workplace and the satisfaction they receive from their work. They can end up questioning their career choices and it may even force them to step back from the workforce altogether. I wanted to tackle this, and while I had never planned on becoming an entrepreneur it came to me like it was my calling. I now help companies develop their women employees to navigate these challenges so they can make the most of their potential, feel more engaged, and succeed in their careers and lives!
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
First, our program is designed specifically for women employees. Corporate training programs have traditionally been designed to meet the needs of the majority workforce — men. Women attend these same programs where they’re told to be empathetic, be good listeners, be collaborative, etc. But these are traits that women are generally better at, yet women have other challenges that are completely unaddressed in these programs. For example, women tend to be perfectionistic, don’t delegate enough, or tend to be protective of their teams rather than inspiring them to deliver their best performance. If we want to give women an equal opportunity to succeed, it’s important to acknowledge the specific challenges women face and help them overcome those challenges. That’s what Rekindle does!
Second, our model is very different from traditional employee development programs. Most development programs are event-based, i.e. the employee attends a course for a week, or a 2-day workshop. Research shows that these kinds of models have close to zero impact as most skills are learned through practice rather than a theory-based approach. Rekindle uses a behavioral science-based approach that emphasizes on taking consistent action over the course of a year and ensures tangible change.
Finally, our program is 100% online, making it possible for companies to offer the program to hundreds of employees simultaneously and take big strides toward strengthening their pipeline of women employees. The program structure also makes it easy for women to integrate the program into their busy lives seamlessly!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This was during the early days — it was one of my first pitches to a client. She was the CHRO of a large multinational company, and she absolutely loved the program offering. She said the issues we cover were spot on, the methodology was fresh and innovative and that something like this was much needed for women’s advancement at the workplace. She confirmed that she would like to go ahead and implement it for her company. So, I popped the champagne bottle and the team celebrated onboarding our first client! And then for the next few months the deal just went into this black hole of B2B sales, with multiple presentations, multiple approvals, all interspersed with months of absolute, chilling silence. I’ve grown since then to know that B2B sales are a complex thing — and that you don’t celebrate until the cash is in the bank!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I’ve been blessed with some great mentors in my life — my parents, my partner and even some of my closest friends. Two mentors who have had the biggest influence on my career are Satish Pai and Rajeev Sonthalia. Satish taught me to aim big, take risks and to lead authentically from the heart. Rajeev taught me to be fearless, to not let traditional boundaries hold me back from doing the right thing, and to always look for innovative and better ways of doing things. Together, they have had a huge impact on the kind of leader I grew to be. Lastly, I tend to be a curious person and always look to keep learning by reading books, listening to podcasts, watching TED talks, etc. As such, I’ve had a lot of mentors who don’t know me, but who have influenced my decisions!
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disrupting for the sake of conforming to a passing trend or making the annual report look good isn’t real disruption. For example, a company that allows organizations to greenwash their greenhouse gas emissions may be innovative, but not disruptive. For me, real disruption is when you disrupt with an end goal of enhancing the status quo — to make the world a better place.
For example, most companies’ structures were designed decades ago and haven’t changed much during this time. As the composition of our workforce changes, it is important to acknowledge and address the specific needs of other groups if we want to give them an equal opportunity to thrive. So innovative solutions that disrupt the current systems are great because through that we are helping build a world that is more inclusive and representative of society!
In fact, I don’t think we should give any system or structure a pass for having withstood the test of time. Our world is constantly evolving, and it’s important that we keep questioning why things work the way they do and if it still makes sense in the current world. There’s still so much inefficiency and inequity in the world that I think it’s good to keep disrupting and finding creative, new solutions to improve things for all!
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey?
Think things through and if in the end you still trust your decision, go for it fearlessly.
Recognize the power of momentum in your actions — consistently keep taking steps, however small, and you will eventually reach your goals.
You can achieve a lot, as long as you have good health on your side. Without taking care of yourself, there’s not much you can achieve in the long run. Make yourself a priority.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Research shows that people tend to question a woman’s judgment much more than that of a man. What does that mean when you’re a disruptor who is introducing a new way of doing things and shaking the status quo? Everyone thinks you’re crazy!
The other challenge I see women entrepreneurs face is that people tend to think of your business as a “side hustle” — like it’s a temporary pet project you’re doing in your free time. People struggle to take your business and your role as a founder seriously enough to give it the respect it deserves.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
Oh, I have plenty! There’s so much good advice out there — YC resources, Masters of Scale podcast, TED talks, etc. But there’s also a lot of noise. So it’s important to take the relevant things and see how to make it work for you. I remember in the early days we spent all our efforts on building the product and making sure our customers would really benefit from it. But people kept telling us that we’ve got a good enough product and that we should instead start focusing on growth, which was very contradictory.
Coincidentally, around that time I listened to an episode on Masters of Scale where they talk about how customer love is all you need and how scaling only starts after you reach that. And that’s it — it just gave me so much more clarity on where I should be focusing. We’ve spent four years bringing the product to a place where our users absolutely love it — I’m proud of that and I’d say the podcast definitely had a role to play in getting us there.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.” Amelia Earhart
As an entrepreneur, there have definitely been times when I’ve felt daunted by the things I needed to learn and do. And you worry about failing, about making a fool out of yourself, about the financial risk you’re taking on, etc. But the one thing that has helped me through all of this has been to remind myself of why I started this in the first place — to help women thrive and get the respect they deserve in this world — and when I think of that, everything else seems inconsequential.
How can our readers follow you online?
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neetamurthy/
X: https://twitter.com/NeetaMurthy
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
