Mr. Shekhawat is the UK-Europe CEO of Akshaya Patra Foundation and is based in London. He is a speaker, strategic partner and independent advisor on company boards including Erehwon Innovation Consulting, Sevendots. He has had a career of over 25 years where he worked with Nielsen, Reckitt Benckiser and Coca-Cola. He is an esteemed faculty of the Personal Growth track where he teaches a course on “Leadership and Innovation” at the Vedica Scholars Programme for Women.

Vedica Scholars Programme for Women

How is leadership & innovation nurtured through your classes at Vedica?

The leadership and innovation programme at Vedica is a really unique program because it does not really focus only on the process of innovation on how to make innovation happen in the organization, rather it really focuses on how these scholars can become innovative. Because if you can become innovative there is potential of you touching anything so the focus on leadership and innovation is provided to scholars in Vedica in a way that they learn in means of stories and by means of examples and all these stories and examples are based from India, and an effective leadership and innovation makes the scholars belief that yes it is possible and I can make it happen tomorrow.

How is Vedica’s classroom experience different?

I try teaching the same way as I do anywhere else because I am in Delhi, there is little bit more fun teaching in a classroom with amazing scholars and as course of leadership and innovation is a heavy one but it becomes very light hearted in the way you express some of the cases and when I walk these students through some of these learnings and it becomes a lot more real and near to them.

According to you, how is the classroom diversity in Vedica?

It's fantastic to have such a diverse class in Vedica, I remember in our first batch we had a lot more engineers and then slowly the number started reducing and perhaps we have now taken fairly acute focus on making sure that classes are not diverse in terms of subjects that students have studied at graduation but also where they come from, what is the background and what is that they wish to aspire next after Vedica and what that does adds to the beautiful flavor to the discussions that I had in the classroom with the students.

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What makes Vedica Scholars better leaders of the future?

Vedica provides an environment which is very different from most Business schools, in other words because it fuses liberal arts with strong discipline of management and personal growth etc. It not only provides the girls at Vedica a great platform to explore their capabilities but also provides that platform on the basis of what really and who really they are. Because of this not only are they able to contribute constantly but also able to contribute with their head and their heart.

What was your most memorable moment in your seven years teaching at Vedica?

The most memorable moment was when scholars come back to those who have graduated in the first or the second batch and perhaps moving through their career trajectory faster than ever before and come back to say that you know what, what we learn in that session on that particular day suddenly became very apparent and real to me right now.

What are your views about the learning provided to the students of Vedica?

The fact is that their learning is not confined to what happens in the classroom, the fact that they take that learning all the way through is within their work life. Thus the learning and teaching provided to the students at Vedica Scholars program for women is done in a way that they learn the maximum from it and maximum exposure is provided to them.