Founder of a consulting firm, Nirmala has dedicated her life to achieving her goals and dreams. She is now a leading entrepreneur working in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion, helping organizations connect more with their employees.Founder of a consulting firm, Nirmala has dedicated her life to achieving her goals and dreams. She is now a leading entrepreneur working in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion, helping organizations connect more with their employees.

Nirmala Menon is the founder and CEO of Interweave Consulting, which is a consulting organization that is focused exclusively on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She, as a leader in the organization, sets the strategic directions of the organization and helps create solutions for her clients.

Nirmala was born in Kerala and brought up in Chennai. She is currently living in Bangalore. She completed her schooling and education in Chennai. She believes Chennai had a significant impact on her life.

Recalling her childhood, Nirmala says she feels she had a privileged childhood. She was a shy child, and being the only dark-skinned child in her family had a significant impact on her mindset, pushing her to do more to prove her worth in society. Coming from a conservative South Indian family, she broke many barriers and moved out for her further studies. Thereafter, she started working and married in her later years, which was not normal for girls in those days.

Sharing about her journey, Nirmala says that she started working about 15 years ago. She describes how Interweave helps organizations work collaboratively with each other and understand the importance of diversity, like hiring women without any bias, considering the value behind it etc. She believes that organizations are the most effective means of effecting social change and having an impact on society because we, the people, work in them. She focuses on creating inclusive policies in organizations and helping women become better leaders through workshops, theater, and art.

Nirmala considers her time at the Xavier School of Management to be a watershed moment in her life. The interactions with her fellow students helped her gain self-confidence and further her capabilities. She worked on her leadership skills, which made it easier for her to work with people.

Talking about her challenges, Nirmala says that she was deeply affected by her mother’s illness and could not give due attention to her work, but her team members supported her throughout. She feels that in the process of building her own career, she compromised on spending time with her family, especially her daughter, but she feels relieved to know that her family understood her and supported her in her difficult times. She had a few setbacks along the way, but she has accomplished her personal and professional objectives.

Despite her fears that her company would not be able to survive, they overcame all obstacles and grew even more.

Nirmala feels that with the opening up of the Indian market and the changing environment of India, there is so much scope for the growth of the supporting organizations. She has been involved with various industrial bodies such as NASSCOM, the National HRD Network, and the American Chamber of Commerce, assisting in their various initiatives and gaining experience.

When asked about her role models, Nirmala says her mother has been her biggest inspiration and has supported her in every decision. Beside her mother, her family, her seniors at work, her daughter, and everyone she has been associated with, motivated her in her life.

In her spare time, Nirmala likes to do things which she was not able to do in the past, like going on solo trips. She also advises everyone to accept the fact that we can’t be liked by everyone.

Nirmala believes that instead of leading from the front, her ability to give a distributive leadership style has been her success mantra. One life lesson she has learned is that one cannot please everyone.

To all the budding entrepreneurs, Nirmala says that this is the best time to start. She asks everyone to do something to contribute to society in their own way.