CEO Insights India

Pragati Leadership is a pioneering L&D firm with a relentless focus on the growth and evolution of the individual and their organizations. Through its work, it enables getting managers to recognize their full potential, getting them to be unblocked and work from happiness & joy in order to make their organizational growth and acceleration happen. The firms makes their learning sessions engaging to get maximum participation from the participants. We stay away from 'gyan'and focus on application. We believe in contextualization of the content for the business of the organization and the role of the participants. We follow-up and work with participants to ensure application on the job says, Anu Wakhlu, who is the Chairperson and Executive Director of Pragati Leadership, when asked about her operational philosophy.

In an exclusive interview with CEO Insights, Anu talks more about her professional journey and the unique business operations of Pragati Leadership.

1. Can you provide us with a glimpse of your educational & professional journey prior to the establishment of your firm Pragati Leadership?
I have done my Masters in Nutrition and was working mostly in the social development space. I was in projects that were around rural development plus child development for over five years. Sub sequently, I found that my interests and aptitude are more in the space of Management. I then changed career tracks. I developed my Managerial and HR Skills through enrolling for some professional courses(HR, Strategy, Train the Trainer, and Coaching) and developing my skillsets in the same.

2.What inspired you to establish the firm? Share us about the inception story of the company.
Pragati Leadership is a firm founded by two of us my husband Arun Wakhlu and myself. The purpose of the firm was to follow a people centric and humanistic approach to Human Capital and People Development. We also wanted to follow a more wholesome approach to People Development including tapping into people's inner resources. We found that most organizations looked at people as

mere resources. Process orientation was high, but the emotional, spiritual side of people was ignored. Their growth, aspirations and development were not taken into account. Leadership and Management Development approaches followed a very left-brained approach. We wanted to create an organization that propagates and lives out humanistic and people centered in the approach to People Development. Rather than fight forces, we felt let's create an alternate story and demonstrate how we can bring about a change in corporations where the overall objective (so far) was to demonstrate only business results. This we felt would be the ideal place to test this alternate paradigm of working with people to bring out their best.

Initially, as with most startups, it was a journey of establishing the value proposition in the minds of our clients, getting work and being able to deliver around the same. As the learning interventions we designed and implemented were effective, work started increasing, and then obviously, more people joined the team and we matured to where we are today.

3.Enlighten us on the Leadership Development program offered by Pragati Leadership.
As a company, we have established our own propretary and researched framework on leadership which we call 'Wholesome Leadership'. This framework is like a meta framework that gets integrated with the Leadership Development Frameworks of most companies which are usually more competency based. Based on this framework and the needs of our clients, we offer various learning solutions for Leadership Development.For example, for organizations interested in developing Future Leaders or Emerging Leaders, we offer a 9-month Leadership Journey which covers all aspects of Leadership through a menu of learning options, for example, Virtual or Face-to-Face Sessions, Coaching, Assessments, Panel Discussions, Action Learning Projects, Webinars and more.

We have Leadership Journeys for people at various levels in the Management Hierarchy to address their unique leadership and managerial needs. For example, one

of our most coveted programme is for First Time Managers. We offer Leadership Programmes right from First Time Manager to the CXO level. The treatment of approach and topics are based on the needs of the cadre plus what our clients want. One feature across all our learning designs is high customization. We don't follow a mass cookie cutter approach.

Apart from Leadership Journeys, we also address Competency Building programmes such as strategic leadership, leading change, creating a talent pipeline, working from mindfulness and others. Our unique approach is the blend of spiritual and personal growth practices with the tools of Management.

4. What separates you from the rest?
Most L&D companies in India are franchisees of international brands, and what separates us is that we are an independent company that was established to look at the learning and development needs specific to the Indian market and also address the issues related to L&D challenges in India through unique strategies.We have aspirations to become the first multinational Indian L&D firm. We are a team of 55 people, out of which 30 are trainers and coaches. Our objective is to raise the flag of India in the global L&D space. So,we provide leadership development taking into account the culture, heritage and ethos tradition of India.

5. What are the strategies that you come-up with to increase your market presence?
This is a very competitive space and it has grown a lot over the years. Now, we have a plethora of different companies operating in the stratum. We do a high amount of customization and many of our competitors are not able to do this. We look at the requirements of our clients and come-up with tailor made solutions that will offer the best results for them. This has also helped us to be agile in the market and create a good relationship with our clients. When we meet with the client, we understand their vision and future plans as well to offer the best solution for them. Our approach is to be very customer centric .

Anu Wakhlu, Chairperson and Executive Director, Pragati Leadership
Under Anu’s guidance, Pragati Leadership has been able to achieve various awards and recognitions including HR Excellence award at 2nd HR Annual Awards 2015, Appreciation letter from Bharat Ratna APJ Abdul Kalam, Accredited Training program (Service Providers) from INIFAC, Excellence in people development award, and Global Leadership Award with Sudarshan Chemicals as Learning Partners (WLDP). With her at the helm, the company is aiming to break new business frontiers as well.