Vijaya Suvarna : Transforming Businesses Through Ethical Leadership & Innovative Solutions
Vijaya Suvarna
Managing Director & CEO
Raised in a lower-middle-class family with limited financial resources, she began working as a teenager. Her journey since then tells a story of resilience, intellectual rigor and emotional balance. Being one of the top university rank holders from NMIMS, she managed family and work while also delivering academic excellence.
In 2006 she co-founded Liberation Coaches along with Amol Muley, which has since transformed 350+ organizations, 3000+ business owners and provided guidance to businesses worth ₹4.5 crore to ₹35000 crore in different parts of the world. Vijaya continues to push the boundaries of what real transformation means, apart from just increasing revenues.
In an exclusive interview with CEO Insights, Vijaya Suvarna reflects on her evolution from a determined young earner to a transformative institution builder. Let’s know about her journey.
How do you build Corporate Family Businesses that balance process and values?
Our mission is to create Corporate Family Businesses that integrate the finest corporate processes with the values of a family business. And we have been doing exactly that for the past two decades across multiple industries.
Almost 2 decades ago, we realized that the models, case studies and processes that work for corporate businesses, simply do not apply to family businesses and SMEs.
At its core, Liberation Coaches helps enterprises transition from person dependent functioning to process-driven performance, without losing the cultural strength that family businesses are built upon.
How did your early struggles and education shape your leadership approach?
My journey began in a lower-middle-class household where financial pressure was constant and space was limited. Those early experiences shaped my sensitivity toward people and built a deep emotional steadiness in the face of uncertainty. I realized that the first step to changing one’s circumstances, starts with changing oneself first.
I began earning in my early teens by taking tuition classes. Over time, I worked across retail, hospitality, banking, and consulting, accumulating more than 30 years of experience in the service and HRM ecosystem. These roles gave me a practical understanding of organizations of every size.
Education became a turning point in my life. I completed my master’s degree from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) while balancing work and motherhood.
I attended evening lectures while caring for a young child and continued my studies during pregnancy. My discipline and consistency earned me the first rank in the university, reinforcing my respect for structured thinking and systemic clarity.
NMIMS gave me the much-needed direction and opportunity to choose the rest of my professional life. Even today, Prof. Seema Mahajan, Prof. V.B. Joshi, Prof. Hafeez Iqbal, Prof. Vidya Naik, and Prof. Kachwala remain my role models.
What led you to co-found Liberation Coaches and shape its disciplined approach?
Through my early consulting engagements, I observed a recurring challenge in SME and family-owned businesses strong founders with deep intent and hardworking teams, yet growth heavily dependent on one individual, systems lacking clarity and success often accompanied by stress. The intent was always strong, but the structure was fragile.
In 2006, I co-founded Liberation Coaches with Amol Muley. The early years were demanding. I often conducted client meetings while carrying my mont hold child in a basket, quietly placing it under the table as I worked.
Those formative years shaped our firm’s grounded philosophy: no shortcuts, no cosmetic change, only disciplined, step -by-step transformation.
What differentiates Libe - ration Coaches’ approach, and what purpose drives its long term impact?
Liberation Coaches differentiates itself through ethical business practices which is one of our six core values, along with a process-driven, sector-agnostic approach and deep on-ground diagnosis before any intervention.
We focus on building long-term partnerships rather than transactional consulting relationships. Our key strength lies in simplifying the finest modules and models of training, coaching, and consulting from across the world that can be understood by a 10 year old.
This ensures that people find our models easy to understand and implement. We realized that people are resistant to a new idea only if the process is complex. But if there is simplicity, inbuilt success opportunities and fairness, then most people adopt and adapt eagerly to any change initiative.
Over the years, most boards and founders have maintained long-standing associations with us due to significantly improved business results, tremendous clarity of vision, and greater balance in leadership.
How do you define meaningful trans -formation beyond revenue growth and scale?
As a business transformation expert, I have advised enterprises ranging from ₹4.5 crore businesses to ₹35,000 crore conglomerates across India, Africa, and the UAE.
However, for me, milestones are not defined by revenue scale alone. They are defined by outcomes, founder-dependent businesses becoming system driven, family enterprises moving toward public listing, leadership teams aligning around a shared purpose, organizations achieving exponential growth with stability, and founders finding more time to live their passions and spend time with the people they love.
How has your leadership style evolved over the years, and what experiences have shaped this transformation?
My leadership style has evolved significantly over the years and has become far more collaborative. This shift came through deliberate self-work and participation in global programs including IIM Bangalore – NSRCEL, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, and Stanford SEED Spark, along with completing my Independent Directors Certification.
Returning to NMIMS as a visiting faculty member marked a full-circle moment for me. The institution that once gave me structure and grounding now gave me an opportunity to be at the other end of the classroom. And I have tried my best to ensure that the students benefit from my industry experience.
Alongside these structured programs, my daily discipline of reading and writing Vijaya’s Wisdom Capsules for over 3,250 consecutive days, that’s almost 10 years, has shaped my thinking and sharpened my strategic clarity.
My leadership has evolved because of my children, Raqshit and Tapasya and husband, Shalil, too. They have fearlessly called out whenever I have faltered and brought an honest perspective to many of my decisions and actions.
Today, I lead by creating space, building trust, and modelling values. I also have a secret advantage, my incredibly dynamic and happy team who help me to extend our vision and values to all the people - clients, vendors, empanelled experts and associates in our circle of influence.
How does your board experience influence your transformation approach?
Unlike a purely academic approach, my under standing of business is rooted in real-time interactions with founders and sector leaders. As an Independent Director at Gopal Snacks, Unique Chains and Jewels, and LCC Projects, I bring a deep understanding of corporate governance and quantum-growth systems to every project.
Our work across steel, construction, transportation, logistics, plastics, paper, pharma, FMCG, commodities, services, and manufacturing has given me insights into the best practices followed by each industry.
Our clients benefit tremendously from my exposure to multiple sectors across diverse geographies and varying levels of success. My advice is grounded in highly scientific, yet practical models.
What differentiates Libe - ration Coaches’ approach, and what purpose drives its long term impact?
Liberation Coaches differentiates itself through ethical business practices which is one of our six core values, along with a process-driven, sector-agnostic approach and deep on-ground diagnosis before any intervention.
We focus on building long-term partnerships rather than transactional consulting relationships. Our key strength lies in simplifying the finest modules and models of training, coaching, and consulting from across the world that can be understood by a 10 year old.
This ensures that people find our models easy to understand and implement. We realized that people are resistant to a new idea only if the process is complex. But if there is simplicity, inbuilt success opportunities and fairness, then most people adopt and adapt eagerly to any change initiative.
Over the years, most boards and founders have maintained long-standing associations with us due to significantly improved business results, tremendous clarity of vision, and greater balance in leadership.
How do you define meaningful trans -formation beyond revenue growth and scale?
As a business transformation expert, I have advised enterprises ranging from ₹4.5 crore businesses to ₹35,000 crore conglomerates across India, Africa, and the UAE.
However, for me, milestones are not defined by revenue scale alone. They are defined by outcomes, founder-dependent businesses becoming system driven, family enterprises moving toward public listing, leadership teams aligning around a shared purpose, organizations achieving exponential growth with stability, and founders finding more time to live their passions and spend time with the people they love.
How has your leadership style evolved over the years, and what experiences have shaped this transformation?
My leadership style has evolved significantly over the years and has become far more collaborative. This shift came through deliberate self-work and participation in global programs including IIM Bangalore – NSRCEL, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, and Stanford SEED Spark, along with completing my Independent Directors Certification.
Returning to NMIMS as a visiting faculty member marked a full-circle moment for me. The institution that once gave me structure and grounding now gave me an opportunity to be at the other end of the classroom. And I have tried my best to ensure that the students benefit from my industry experience.
Alongside these structured programs, my daily discipline of reading and writing Vijaya’s Wisdom Capsules for over 3,250 consecutive days, that’s almost 10 years, has shaped my thinking and sharpened my strategic clarity.
My leadership has evolved because of my children, Raqshit and Tapasya and husband, Shalil, too. They have fearlessly called out whenever I have faltered and brought an honest perspective to many of my decisions and actions.
Today, I lead by creating space, building trust, and modelling values. I also have a secret advantage, my incredibly dynamic and happy team who help me to extend our vision and values to all the people - clients, vendors, empanelled experts and associates in our circle of influence.
How does your board experience influence your transformation approach?
Unlike a purely academic approach, my under standing of business is rooted in real-time interactions with founders and sector leaders. As an Independent Director at Gopal Snacks, Unique Chains and Jewels, and LCC Projects, I bring a deep understanding of corporate governance and quantum-growth systems to every project.
Our work across steel, construction, transportation, logistics, plastics, paper, pharma, FMCG, commodities, services, and manufacturing has given me insights into the best practices followed by each industry.
Our clients benefit tremendously from my exposure to multiple sectors across diverse geographies and varying levels of success. My advice is grounded in highly scientific, yet practical models.
And each of our consultant continuously adds to the portfolio of shared knowledge that we build so assiduously. I believe frameworks matter but lived business reality matters more.
How does creativity influence your leadership journey?
Creativity remains an essential dimension of my life; beyond my corporate role, I am also a writer, artist, and singer. Through initiatives such as Mom to Supermom®, I support women in managing personal and professional roles with confidence. And my daily habit of sketching, painting and singing keeps my C.Q., Creativity Quotient high.
How is your technology ecosystem expanding Liberation Coaches impact?
Liberation Coaches is now building a technology-enabled ecosystem to scale our impact.
Through 4D-PMS, the Four Dimensional Performance Management System, we are converting 20 years of consulting experience into a structured SaaS platform that ensures performance evaluations are fair, transparent, real, and result-driven by automating reviews, appraisals, scoring, and MIS reporting, while generating data-driven insights on increments, promotions, role clarity, and organizational alignment.
Alongside this, Career Jeeto is a live learning management platform focused on vernacular learning for Tier 2 and Tier 3 India, offering hundreds of bitesized modules in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and other regional languages to strengthen managerial capability and continuous upskilling.
We are also developing UnBoggle, a structured coaching ecosystem designed to democratize mentorship and connect professionals with guided career pathways.
How do you plan to scale while staying rooted in your core purpose?
Liberation Coaches aims to scale from a 100+ professional team to 500 members and is working toward a planned IPO by 2029.
Parallelly, we plan to publish 12–15 books over the next three to five years, buil -ding on our current portfolio of seven books and further contributing to leader ship and organizational development literature.
While I focus on operational excellence and future-based interventions, Amol Muley is building the network and reach for business development and marketing.
Luckily, both me and my Co-Founder Amol Muley share the same values and purpose. That makes our approach unified and integrated to create a multipronged impact in the businesses we serve today and in the future.
While scale, technology, and platforms will continue to evolve, our purpose remains unchanged:
To Energize, Enable, and Empower People to Live a Liberated Life.
Vijayalakshmi Suvarna, Managing Director, CEO & Tedx Speaker, Liberation Coaches
Vijayalakshmi Suvarna is the Managing Director & CEO of Liberation Coaches Pvt. Ltd., an accomplished international entrepreneurial coach, organizational development expert, and global speaker.
With extensive experience in leadership transformation and business mentoring, she has empowered entrepreneurs and organi -zations to achieve sustainable growth and performance excellence. She also serves as an Independent Director at Gopal Snacks Ltd., LCC Projects Pvt. Ltd., and Unique Chains Ltd.
An accomplished author of seven books, Vijaya Suvarna continues to inspire leaders through her insights on leadership, entre -preneurship, and personal transformation.
•Favorite Book: I cherish Gone with the Wind for its timeless insight into personal growth, The Firm for its lessons on systems and values, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People for its simplicity and profound philosophy and my seven authored books, each marking a milestone in my journey.
•Awards & Recognition: One of my most meaningful awards is the TiE Stree Shakti Award, whose mentorship transformed my life, alongside other honours like NSRCEL IIM Bangalore, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, Stanford SEED SPARK recognition and the tiny cards and letters that I receive from my teammates and their families that is proudly displayed at my workstation.
How does creativity influence your leadership journey?
Creativity remains an essential dimension of my life; beyond my corporate role, I am also a writer, artist, and singer. Through initiatives such as Mom to Supermom®, I support women in managing personal and professional roles with confidence. And my daily habit of sketching, painting and singing keeps my C.Q., Creativity Quotient high.
How is your technology ecosystem expanding Liberation Coaches impact?
Liberation Coaches is now building a technology-enabled ecosystem to scale our impact.
Through 4D-PMS, the Four Dimensional Performance Management System, we are converting 20 years of consulting experience into a structured SaaS platform that ensures performance evaluations are fair, transparent, real, and result-driven by automating reviews, appraisals, scoring, and MIS reporting, while generating data-driven insights on increments, promotions, role clarity, and organizational alignment.
Alongside this, Career Jeeto is a live learning management platform focused on vernacular learning for Tier 2 and Tier 3 India, offering hundreds of bitesized modules in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and other regional languages to strengthen managerial capability and continuous upskilling.
We are also developing UnBoggle, a structured coaching ecosystem designed to democratize mentorship and connect professionals with guided career pathways.
How do you plan to scale while staying rooted in your core purpose?
Liberation Coaches aims to scale from a 100+ professional team to 500 members and is working toward a planned IPO by 2029.
Parallelly, we plan to publish 12–15 books over the next three to five years, buil -ding on our current portfolio of seven books and further contributing to leader ship and organizational development literature.
While I focus on operational excellence and future-based interventions, Amol Muley is building the network and reach for business development and marketing.
Luckily, both me and my Co-Founder Amol Muley share the same values and purpose. That makes our approach unified and integrated to create a multipronged impact in the businesses we serve today and in the future.
While scale, technology, and platforms will continue to evolve, our purpose remains unchanged:
To Energize, Enable, and Empower People to Live a Liberated Life.
Vijayalakshmi Suvarna, Managing Director, CEO & Tedx Speaker, Liberation Coaches
Vijayalakshmi Suvarna is the Managing Director & CEO of Liberation Coaches Pvt. Ltd., an accomplished international entrepreneurial coach, organizational development expert, and global speaker.
With extensive experience in leadership transformation and business mentoring, she has empowered entrepreneurs and organi -zations to achieve sustainable growth and performance excellence. She also serves as an Independent Director at Gopal Snacks Ltd., LCC Projects Pvt. Ltd., and Unique Chains Ltd.
An accomplished author of seven books, Vijaya Suvarna continues to inspire leaders through her insights on leadership, entre -preneurship, and personal transformation.
•Favorite Book: I cherish Gone with the Wind for its timeless insight into personal growth, The Firm for its lessons on systems and values, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People for its simplicity and profound philosophy and my seven authored books, each marking a milestone in my journey.
•Awards & Recognition: One of my most meaningful awards is the TiE Stree Shakti Award, whose mentorship transformed my life, alongside other honours like NSRCEL IIM Bangalore, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, Stanford SEED SPARK recognition and the tiny cards and letters that I receive from my teammates and their families that is proudly displayed at my workstation.