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Doing billion dollar strategies, you always look at what is the paradigm shift you wanna make. When I was sitting inside Microsoft and Oracle and running, like, a billion dollar strategies, I kinda started meeting a lot of women founders who had the skill, the product, the traction, but not the access. How do we democratize a billion dollars of economic access? The world has become me rather than we. If the leaders are instilling fear, then they're not leading. And if the leaders are instilling faith, then they are leading. Leadership is all about unlocking their ultimate potential for their greater goodness. Welcome to The Business Game, the show that breaks business down into real levels from zero to over $50 billion so founders can see exactly where they are and what comes next. Today's guest is playing at level one, which sits in the zero to $1 million bracket, the founder startup and survival stage. At this level, you're proving the model works. You're validating demand, refining positioning, and fighting for consistent revenue. The challenges? Doing almost everything yourself, hiring your first team member, and stepping from practitioner into CEO. The goal? Turn expertise into traction and build momentum that's repeatable, not accidental Welcome to The Business Game. I'm Kaleena Steno. I'm Steve Plummer. Be sure to like and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening. Today, we're joined by Chaitra Vedullapalli, an award-winning tech entrepreneur, global business leader, co-founder, and president of Women in Cloud. Over a career spanning across Microsoft, Oracle, and multiple tech ventures, Chai has helped drive multi-billion dollar growth strategies while championing greater economic access for women and underrepresented founders around the world. Through Women in Cloud, she's helped unlock more than $600 million in economic opportunities, supporting over 150,000 individuals across 80-plus countries, while also leading initiatives in AI, cybersecurity scholarships, and digital innovation. A sought-after speaker at the United Nations, TEDx, and G20, Chaitra is on a mission to prove that technology, business, and storytelling can create meaningful systemic change. And today, she's joining us to share what she's learned along the way. Let's dive in with Chaitra Vedullapalli. Chai, welcome to The Business Game Thank you. Thank you for having me on The Business Game, and Steve, Kaleena, I'm excited to be here. Oh, absolutely. Oh, thank you. Yeah, we're- Can't wait to dig in. Yep yes, we're really looking forward to this. Yeah. So Chai, um- Same here. Um, so you're currently playing at level one, described as the startup and survival stage in your business. So you've built Women in Cloud into a global movement that has unlocked over $600 million in economic access across 80 countries, which is- Hm. Yeah we were talking about that before we jumped on, and that, I mean, that's incredible. Yeah. So- Congratulations. Yeah Yeah, congratulations. That is, that's a huge achievement. Thank you. Can you tell us more about what Women in Cloud actually does? Sure. Um, you know, I, before I get to, directly to the answer, I want to kinda get you to the origin of where it all started, because everyone, you know, wants to know how did all got started? But for me, actually, it didn't get started in a boardroom or in, in a, in a, you know, a pilot scenario. It actually started with my grandmother and her chit fund. So growing up, I watched her some- uh, you know, run something that had no bank or no collateral and no credit score. It was a rotating pool where a small group of women would put a little money every month, and one woman would take a full pot each cycle. And there was no interest, there was no paperwork, just trust. And that system actually funded their weddings, businesses, emergency, and actually the entire local economy running on relationship instead of capital. So years later, when I was sitting inside Microsoft and Oracle and running, like, a billion-dollar strategies, I kinda started meeting a lot of women founders who had the skill, the product, the traction, but not the access. And they didn't have access to capital. They didn't have access to distribution or even decision-maker and a network that can turn that into a contract for them. That was the time I realized me as a pr- you know, an entrepreneur That it was never about the talent, neither it was about the money, it was the access. So I wanted to really figure out how the economic pathway can be engineered through access, not just by the merit alone. Because I saw my grandmother was able to do at a very small, you know, you know, scale with nothing, just trust in her living room, and I realized that access is all about trust. But what if we do it on scale for cloud and AI solution? And that became the question of how do we democratize a billion dollars of economic access, and Women in Cloud was kind of the brand. And we realized it was a systematic problem, and, uh, I thought, like, we should solve it. Why not? Because that did not exist in the, um, ecosystem, so we went about creating the three economic pathways for professional founders and leaders so that they actually can achieve an ultimate goal of realizing their economic security and prosperity. Yeah. Wow, that's incredible. Yeah. What a fun story- Yeah and how cool that you've been able to take something that you were, you know, part of i- in some way and take and apply it to the modern, uh, you know, AI- Yeah. Yeah and all of that. I mean, I think it's incredible. Yeah. So, and before creating Women in Cloud, so you, you know, you sort of described that realization, and you a- applied that. What, what was the moment sort of like for you when the, the penny dropped- Mm and you went, "Okay, this is a thing, and this is what I'm doing"? What did that feel like for you, and how did you roll that out? Hm. I think when you think about, um, y- you know, doing billion-dollar strategies, you always look at what is the paradigm shift you wanna make. And the paradigm shift was, for me, was, uh, you know, as an entrepreneur, I did not have access to. I came from a corporate world coming into the business world, and I'm like, "Why isn't access that accessible, and what do you need to do?" And that was a moment to realize that we need to create a new paradigm for people to understand what does economic access looks like. So if you look up economic access problem, my name will come up on the top of the Google because it is the paradigm. If you get the access right for economic opportunities, then you have to really build a preparation game plan for yourself because there's a lot of checklist that goes in to achieve that, and those trust assets needs to be checked off really well so that people, when you show up in the world, whether in on LinkedIn or you come and meet with some, you, your brand actually travels before you when you enter the room. And I wanted to really ensure that we are creating the pathway for visibility as well as demand generation and creating a transformation so that you actually, the access is unlocked. And so that was kind of the moment you realize is, as an entrepreneur, I struggled with it. But in a corporate world, because I did from the other side, I knew exactly how to think about a transformation program that allows us to unlock the distribution on scale. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Incredible. Yeah, a, a couple things to dive in, in the, into there, I think. So w- you mentioned trust assets. What are they, and what should businesses, entrepreneurs- Yeah have in their trust asset bank, if you like? Yeah, there's a lot of definition on trust assets. For me is a trust assets is something that the customer, your partner, your community, when they access that, it becomes really valuable. So simple example is a podcast. A podcast is a perfect trust asset because you're building that one, you're building trust with your as- you know, the, the people who are coming and listening to you, uh, the speakers who are coming and, uh, sharing their thought. You're creating value, so at the end of the day, a podcast is a trust asset. If you're creating your technology, that is also a trust asset, that it can solve problems, and it can make your life better. So you need to think about what is your trust asset? For Women in Cloud, we said the trust asset is a go-to-market engine, and a bunch of things that goes into that trust asset, which was a movie, it had a podcast, it had a book, it had, um, transformation program, and it had a network where you can tap into where it's easily accessible. So you have to really identify a structured way of putting your network so when people go through these assets, they feel like, "I can trust them. I can trust the people," because the, the right set of, um, I would say value system is incorporated in it. So it's not like just a checklist of item, but it's a proven infrastructure that you can, you can enter and you feel tru- you feel the trust within it. You don't feel like they are taking advantage of me. They're actually, you can feel that they are giving me value at the end of the day. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So just on that, and I don't wanna belabor the point, but is there something in that trust bank that in your experience and observation that, that businesses miss? Absolutely. Um, we have like a five laws of iconic leadership that we do from Women in Cloud. One is a law of value, like how do you go in when you're in a relationship, how do you create value? Second is a law of, um, uh, authenticity. How do you show up authentic, and how do you ensure that when people see you, meet you, connect with you, you're very authentic to the relationship? The third law which we have is the law of influence. How do you influence each other? Um, and how do you create influence in the market? And then you have is a law of generosity, and how do you-- are you generous in making people, uh, care about it? So when you think about all these laws, uh, the law of generosity is a missing piece because the world has become me rather than we. And when the generosity doesn't exist, the contracts never gets created because you're always talking about, "I want to be on the camera. I want to be on the video." But when you think about visibility, the visibility is the currency you give to others Not to yourself. So when you have, like, LinkedIn or a podcast, you need to shine light on the other person rather than just on you. So you really need to look at your- the- the- the generosity as a lever to really unlock access for you, and that is a missing component right now in the current spa- i- in the ecosystem. That's why you see people are not able to trust each other. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad you- Yeah brought that up. That really... Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of shining the light, can we shine the light on you a little bit more? Ju- just in this moment. I- I'm- I'm- I'm really curious about your experience speaking at the United Nations, um, uh, being a TEDx speaker, and speaking at the G20, and so forth. So I guess I've got a broad question. Um, you know, what was that experience like? But more importantly, I guess, what did you learn from those experiences? Mm. A fantastic question. Um, when you get access into, you know, the UN ecosystem, the G20, the W20, and, uh, where the real, uh, advisory for AI, cloud, cyber is ha- having, um, people are talking about the challenges that individually you cannot solve. It requires a collective action, and no one has the answer, right? And you really have to bring lot of brilliant minds together. You need to drive collective partnership. You need to drive, you know, innovative solutions to solve the problem in hand. So when you go into the room, everybody is very humble. Everyone is like, "Wow, this is, like, the problem I don't think I can solve by myself." We really require everybody to come together, whether it's raising funding, whether bringing the right people, br- creating the new programs, uh, influencing the economic policies. You have to really go back in the past and also think about the paradigm that we are going, looking at the, um, you know, leadership that is being led by the country leaders. How are they thinking about investing and putting incentives to drive the GDP? All these conversations happen. Very complex, and then you come back from the other side as really great friendships, uh, great people that you debate on really difficult topics, but you also become very good friends, and you want to contribute to each other because there's only a few set of people who are doing this work. So lot of respect for them because they're all doing volunteer work. Nobody's getting paid for it. Uh, we are carving out our weekends and our time to really do that work, uh, to ensure that the rest of the world has access to opportunities- And if you don't write the economic policies right or your trade policies right, uh, it impacts the general public. Mm. Yeah. A- and in those, those big engagements, were you more nervous at one compared to the others? I would say, uh, when you are invited, my first thing is like, "Oh my God, I don't know if I can contribute to this- Yeah, yeah particular topic," right? Because you're coming from that space of like, "I don't know what I can do." So I think the entry for everybody is like, "Wow, this is I'm glad I'm here, but I don't know how I'm going to contribute." And when you activate the law of generosity at that time, great f- uh, very fast you build a relationship. You activate law of value. You know, you are creating value every time. So if you activate those leadership, um, values and laws in action, and then suddenly the, you start to reduce your fear, and you go into creating faith, and you're creating faith in yourself, faith in the process, and faith in people. And that is what one of the thing I've learnt is you enter the room with fear inside you, and when you come out of the other side, you have a lot of faith that the world will be fine. Yeah. Wow. Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. Mm. I'm really I, I wanna, um, just circle back. Well, it's not really, but, um, y- when you were talking about, um, that shift of, um, giving rather than d- doing it for receiving, if Shifting the light. Um, so with Women in Cloud, you've sort of built that ecosystem, right? Where you've got this collective action with e- and everyone's contributing and collaborating. How did you convince or deliver the message to inviting people into that? And what was the mindset shift that you had to encourage them to participate in? Mm. And is that something that we could maybe share with our listeners that might be sitting at that level one stage- Mm that might be able to take that away as well? Absolutely. I, I think the, the collective action is much simpler than what, what it sounds like. I'll tell you that one. Um, I, I'll give you a, a story because I think that is where I learnt what collective action. One is from my grandmother. I saw how it works. But when I was at, uh I moved from Oracle to Microsoft, and we were doing Partner Velocity platform. It was the singular infrastructure for managing 800,000 partners and getting them to all the benefits. And to build that platform, we had to raise $80 million for this particular platform. It has to be, like, moved from different sources, build that one. And I had to go in a round of tin cupping. So tin cupping for, um, raising the funds to make this platform come to life. During that process of 80 million over the, you know, 12 months I had to do, uh, I learnt that- You really don't need money all the time You actually need to know there are resources that you need to combine. So we started looking at, oh, we need people, let's bring the, the strike team together. So let's bring the people who can contribute the intelligence and time. Then we looked at, oh, we need capital. So why do we need capital? We may want to get a vendor, or we may need to buy licenses. How about we go to the right folks, and they can give us that? So, uh, the $80 million was lot of understanding how do you bring all the pieces together. So when we did Women in Cloud, we had $0, zero investment, nothing. And I basically said, "Here is the vision. It's a crazy bold idea to do a billion dollars of economic access. It's a moonshot idea. I know I'm gonna fail, because that's how I feel right now." Even saying the words when you don't have anything. But here's what I believe, when we bring 20 strong women together, and really drive the conversation on what we really need to do, what do we need to democratize, and each one of you have the resources to unlock. And we were able to connect all the pieces, and then from there, once we saw the transformation, the money also started to fuel in, all the companies started to come in. So the, the piece is to really understand people and what resources they have that you can combine together so you can launch something together. Instead of trying to constantly tin cup for money, you should think about how do you co-launch something with each other by bringing all your resources, and magic happens. Mm-hmm. Wow. Mm. That's a- that- the world really needs more of that, doesn't it? Yeah. Absolutely, and, and I guess- Agreed. Y- y- yeah. M- my question then follows up from that, Chai, in that you came from level 10 companies like Oracle and Microsoft. They're, you know, multi-billion dollar companies. W- And coming back to, you know, that, that level one, that startup, th- they're chalk and cheese kind of thing, right? Like, what did you have to unlearn about how business works to make it work at a, you know, at a founder level? Oh, absolutely. Oh, my God. Uh, I'm so glad I actually worked at enterprise, uh, companies, um, because, um, it really taught me how to scale a strategy inside a system, uh, that already had like power, budget, infrastructure behind it. But what I had to really unlearn, um, was believing that growth is something you extract, like market share, wallet share, or head count. So building Women in Cloud from zero, I had none of that infrastructure, so I had to relearn the growth as something you unlock, not extract. So in an enterprise you, um, you know, you compete for a finite pie, whereas when I was out, I was able to really think about building an ecosystem so we are not f- Fighting for a slice of pie, you were talking about you can actually grow your pie, and everybody gets to be part of it, and we get to bake together and have a fair price for it. So, um, I would use as like an analogy of like an highway versus the driveway, where corporate strategy helped me kind of think about a beautiful private driveway, fast, controlled, exclusive. Whereas it also helped me, like, how to build the movement and how to lay the freeway so that the other cars can drive on, and that's what I was able to build on the other side. Um, you know, being on the other side was slower, it had more friction, more governance, and... But the thing is, I was able to build an highway that can actually fuel the economy. Um, so the ecosystem building was fun rather than just a PL- you know, P&L review every day, every time, looking at scorecard and metrics. I didn't have to do that. I really didn't have to see, uh, you know, red, yellow, green on a scorecard. I had to really think about how many people I am actually influencing and transforming, and how much trust we are building through the infrastructure we are building, which was actually much more fun. So thinking about, um, you know, I would say is corporate growth was like extraction on scale, whereas, uh, on the other side was ecosystem growth, unlock was on scale for me. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Very cool. And, and so just on that ecosystem growth then, can you... For, for listeners who might be looking to expand overseas and whatnot, can you, can you just describe how that growth of ecosystem- Mm worked? Was it... 'Cause we were talking about this. So how do you- Yeah get to 80 countries and, and that many people? Was it just you ring up someone you knew in another country and say, "Hey, we're starting this. Do you wanna jump on board?" Or how does that, that growth work? What does it look like? Right. So, uh, when you're building an ecosystem, you need to know who is your target audience that you're serving. So we started with founders as our first ecosystem. Like, that was my first piece, that they all needed a distribution engine, access to funding, access to people to do enterprise contract. Then COVID happened, and a lot of people started to panic. At the start, a lot of people didn't know how to go to cloud and AI, and a lot of the founders came back and say- If I have to grow my contract, I really need my employees to get certified, and they need to be certified on cloud and AI. So we were able to go back to an hyperscaler saying, "We need certifications for industry certification for these people to be functional to do what they need to do." And when we opened up that program, it just went like 80 countries just- Wow like that. Wow. Right. Yeah. We were just so surprised. And then as we were going and serving this ecosystem, they said, "Oh, I'm stagnant in my job. I need to lead. How do I lead? How do I build my executive presence?" And then we started to see there's a remarkably a problem with leadership growth and access to leadership opportunities. So we started building the programming there through CXO programs and, uh, you know, executive presence program. And then AI came, and then everybody was focused on tools. We said, "Well, that's great," but everyone said, "Well, the AI will not replace the human character or agency, or it's going to impact the agency." Then we said we need to double down on leadership, and that's when we realized you need to do iconic leadership. So we want to say is, what's the role of human in the world of AI when you have to work with agents? So it was kind of like a constant understanding of how the ecosystem is morphing based on the external condition. So now we are looking at what if the global currency changes, what happens? Hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, what if, um, the war ca- happens, what happens to women? What do we need to think about? Uh, what if our human agency is completely taken away by AI? What do we do? And those are like a question I don't have answers to, but what we know is understanding that the code to solve is within the ecosystem. There is someone who knows the answer, someone who can use that answer. We just have to connect those two in a easy and quick and fast way, and then suddenly the ecosystem just lights up. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Mm. And that's a really good message too in, in a broader sense for business owners. I think let your target audience tell you what they need from your product, rather than- Mm like creating an assumption. You might have had like this vision in your mind of like, "Oh, we'll have all this," but you let the founders tell you what they needed and you sourced it for them, and then you said it just went like that, which, you know- Yeah I think is a strong message. 'Cause sometimes- Yeah as founders you go, "No, this is what they need." Yeah. Instead of- And you're very single-minded about that, right? Yeah, you sort of- Yeah, yeah, yeah miss opportunities by doing so. Mm. And also I think there's one thing that I would say that founders should consider is always focus on economic outcome for your customer. Yeah. Mm. Um, make sure their economic value grows because they're working with you, their visibility grows, their customer base grows, their employees are happier because they're working with you. If you focus on them, automatically your company will grow. You'll get the referrals. So focus on giving before taking. So. Yes. That's a big message. But I've actually been sharing- Yeah a little bit about that. Yeah. It, it's, it's interesting though, isn't it? It, it's so, it's so obvious- Yeah but yet it's often not expressed that way. So yeah. No. Yeah. I, I have a question around that, um, partly something that I've experienced myself as well. Um, with creating something through the act of giving and creating a business that really is for others, but you also still need to make money, it still needs to support you and itself. Mm-hmm. How do you- Make that, that, I mean- Mm-hmm that part I struggle with, and I'm sure there's other people that struggle with that as well, is when you wanna do something out of giving, but you also have a bit of a strange idea around taking something f- from it, 'cause you obviously still need to pay bills and, you know. How does, how do you, how do you get around that? Help me with that. I think, uh, people think giving is all about money, right? And that's why the, the skew changes and, uh, your heart starts to close when you don't have the bank balance to give. But what if you look at energy as your way that you can be positive for people? You can think about giving your resources or your technology or your framework that you have built so that they can be successful. You've already built it. You can make that one accessible for people. Uh, you can also think about, uh, your talent, your, uh, people who are in your company. How can you bring those people together to do something really fun together? It's a lot of playing rather than selling. You have to play with each other, and once you, um, vibe with each other, then the giving automatically happens. Then it's nothing about, uh, "Oh, I, you, I need to give you a check." You actually will bring the check. We say, "Hey, we need to get this product out. We need to get this launch out. It- this is how we do it." Suddenly everybody comes together. And ensure that everybody gets to be recognized through that process. Give the credit where it's due. And even recognizing publicly is a form of giving. Uh, r- uh, giving, uh, your undivided attention is also giving. Um, uh, talking nicely to people is also giving. Yes. Does it make sense? You, you should not- Yeah be energy vampires. You should be energy activators, right? There's so many things you can give, and I think people get stuck into like, oh, it's all about money. No, it's not about money. It's so many other things you can do. Mm. Totally. That's great. Thank you for that. Yeah. Um, let's, let's circle back to AI because- Mm I think we can't have a business conversation- Yeah without talking about AI. Yeah. And you mentioned it- Yeah briefly, and I, I, I love, we always like to talk about the human element. Yes. Yes. Um, so yeah. Everything is circling AI, so where is, like, the single most practical entry point to turn that- AI into a real opportunity for founders right now? Oh, I love this question. I love it so much because I think people think as like AI is gonna change a lot of things, but here is how I look at it. Um, AI does not replace your differentiation. It really doesn't. What it removes is the excuse, uh, not to spend more time building it, right? Ooh. Hmm. So that's the one. I like that. Hmm. So the- Hmm the, the shift every business owner needs to make is closer to electricity. AI is your electricity, it's your infrastructure, and the infrastructure only becomes an opportunity when you find your outlet. So how do you go about it? Uh, you take one task in your business that eats most hours and creates the least differentiation. It can be invoicing, it can be scheduling, first customer draft reply, content repurposing, automating anything first. Not a sexy use case, right? The most boring, bleeding one, which takes your time. To do that, you have to write your list of things of, like, what are... where am I spending a lot of my time? I do, like, every month, I write down where am I spending a lot of the time, in searching, writing. Pr- And what you're doing is using the AI to buy back your time. That's the very easy entry. Every hour you can reclaim from a low-value work is an hour you can invest into one more thing that AI cannot replace, right? It cannot replace the relationship, it cannot replace the trust-building with your actual customer. So what AI can do is compress your production time, m- and it also, if some- if founders are looking at it, start with the most boring task this week, not a strategy, just the boring task, and automate that with AI. Just create a prompt and automate it, and if you create, like, 100 of those, you have already achieved 100 hours, and then you can see what you want to do with it, right? That's kind of how I look at AI. Start with something very boring. Yeah. Hmm. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. All right, can we talk about, um, Icons? Because that's an initiative that you use to produce films that celebrate women leaders and drive policy action. So, and we'll get to your book in a minute as well, 'cause that's a- another part of it, right? Yes, very cool. So we can't wait to talk about that. But, um, most business owners, I guess, they think of storytelling as marketing content. Yes. Um, yeah, so how did you come to see narrative as a strategic tool that could move capital and change policy? Steve, I love movies, and I watch a lot of movies, and I don't know why I watch, but I watch a lot of movies. And, um, and I learn a lot through movies, a lot of the strategies, a lot of the ideas. And movies actually, um, unlock very... It unlocks a paradigm that you wanna go in without actually risking anything, right? If a policy... Like, I love documentary movies. I don't know why. I feel like I'm living a life through the person. And then I also like action movie because it gives me act one, act two, act three, how that thing looks like. So when we had to, when we were trying to, um- Think about, you know, the movies. One of my friends, she said, "Hey, I'm a film producer and I am producing this movie. Do you think you wanna come and invest?" That's kind of how I started be- because otherwise I would go every Friday, watch movie with my husband and my kids, and we will have lot of discussion and, you know, review about the movie. But one of, one of the time my husband said, "Why don't you produce one? I think it'll, it'll be so good." And that kind of s- stuck in my head. And when I've met this film producer, I said, "Oh yeah, I'm interested. I wanna know how it is." But the thing that I learned about film producing, it's a opportunity zone. It creates lot of jobs for people. I was like, whoa, this is so cool. A million dollar movie can create 400 opportunities for somebody. Mm-hmm. How cool is that? Yeah. Yeah. It is a breakthrough. As a f- as a business owner, these are the kind of things you need to look for, opportunity zones that allows you to create new jobs. So that's kind of how I got kind of p- excited about the movie. And then I also started to ask my friends and we say, let's go put a film fund together. And as part of it, we said, let's go create a movie and see what does that look like. Not only investing, but also creating. So that's kind of how we created our first documentary, Icons. And, and it was given to a 17-year-old kids because they needed to get into a college and I said, "Why don't you do it? And we'll fund it and we'll see if we can take it to Oscar qualification." Crazy idea. And they'll say, "Why?" I'm like, "I just want to know the process, and let's go see if we can make this movie accessible for 100 million people to watch, so we will crack the distribution Because every filmmaker struggles with that. Because when we are coming from the enterprise, we know you need to understand the process. So that's kind of how we kind of dabbled into building the Icons movie. Um, and we said we want to learn how the Pixar model gets used and created because then everyone can learn about, uh, any topic. So we wanted to explain Women in Cloud instead of words, but through the storytelling, and allows people to feel what democratization of economic access looks like. And when you do it, you become an icon through the process. But to do that, you have to show up first. So that one was kind of the journey of creating the movie Icons, and we learnt a lot. Uh, it wasn't just producing a marketing content, it was also building the policy evidence with the human face, uh, because people will remember a senator talking about how democratization happens from a policy, from an enterprise. So that was kind of our reason, is to earn memory and to have a recall value, uh, rather than just kind of words and words to say to people, "This is how Women in Cloud does." So it was just kind of creating a firm narrative to help people understand the power of democratization of economic access. The Business Game is proud to partner with HighLevel, the all-in-one CRM and marketing platform built for growing businesses. With CRM funnel, website, and course builders, marketing automations, email builders, and so much more, HighLevel software will drive your customer retention and your profits through the stratosphere. And HighLevel is fully white label, which means you can brand the platform and mobile app with your logo and company colors, and then resell it to your customers for a monthly subscription. Ready to go HighLevel? Click on the link below to begin your 14-day free trial. It's incredible yeah Yeah. One, one of the things that's standing out for me, Chai, is that you are such a big thinker. Yes. You know, it wasn't just, "Oh, well, I, I like movies," and it didn't end there, right? It was, "Oh, what's producing a movie look like? Then how do we give more people access?" And- Yes the same with, um, you know, with your other business ventures. It's not just a surface level stopping there. So two things. Number one, what's your favorite movie? I've got to ask that if you're a, a movie fan- fanatic. Uh, I, you know, my f- one of my... I have a lot of favorite movies, but the one that I really love is the Gladiator. Ah. I don't know why. It's the Russell Crowe- Russell Crowe movie. That's so funny. It's the Aussie connection thing. There you go. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We'll take it. And I love, um, uh, the Gladiator because I think I can see my story in that. Um, and it, it takes a lot to stand up because you have to fight your own, uh, demons to really fight for your country, fight for your people, fight for it. So the Gladiator kind of encompasses that. Like, for me, he's a superhero in my head, right? Like, the, the icon in my head. So that's kind of my ultimate movie, like I will go and watch anytime. I love any kind of movie. You w- name it, I'm, like, watching Korean movie, sometime watching, you know, Tamil movie, sometime watching English, sometime in the theater. I will try to pr- watch at least two to three movies a week if I get- Wow a chance because it allows me to regulate my emotion without talking to anybody- Yeah because it really helps me go through all the- Yeah emotional experiences. Yeah. And the other one was the Babylon, the recent Babylon, was, like, absolutely my, one of my favorite movies. Oh my gosh. Wow. Wow. Yeah. There you go. Now I know what I'm gonna be watching this weekend. Yeah. I wonder what- Babylon is the one. Yeah. Right. So speaking of doing things, big thinking- Yeah tell us about your book, because I suspect that's not just going to be a small production either. It's going to have a big impact as well. So tell us about that. Oh, um, that's like a labor of love, and I'm so excited to be bringing that. Um- We started to kind of s- uh, spot that when AI and cloud was, you know, coming up. You know, being in the tech, we can see like patterns when democratization happens. Uh, you can see because I was part of democratization of computing, it opened up amazing opportunities for us. And today I'm here because of Bill Gates having that vision saying, you know, "Let's bring this Windows 95 in the hands of a billion people," and suddenly we all were part of, um, having access, and it really helped us leapfrog into the economic, uh, um, um, strata that I never even imagined. I was supposed to be a housewife, and I'm like, I'm like doing all this global stuff, and that one was because of democratization of computing. But when we saw the democratization of intelligence, there's something that happens because now competence is democratized. So what is going to be different? Because humans still have to come in and contribute and, and the loss of jobs, the fear, the anxiety because the economic opportunities are shrinking with AI. But what is actually growing if you really focus on it? We looked at the Davos data, and everyone is saying is, how do women-- people show up, humans show up in the world of AI? What is their role? What does judgment look like? What does their contribution look like? How do they work with these agents? So we said we need to really build is democratization of leadership, mostly a human agency, making sure that we can actually lead technology effectively. So based on the Icons movie, people were asking for a book. We said, "Oh, we need to create like eight trust assets to create a leadership platform and allow everybody to grow their leadership, uh, skills so that they can work with the technology with greater judgment, greater creativity, uh, work very effectively, and not lead with fear, but lead with faith in the world and faith in the people." So the Iconic Leadership, um, was the platform that was born. Um, we created the podcast as the first infrastructure or trust assets, and it went really well, and it's going well. Uh, the second one was to bring, uh, the Iconic Leadership book. So we curated 20 global leaders and asked them is how does humans or what do humans do in the world of AI instead of talking about how to use AI. They say what AI will not do and what we need to show up. These were 20 chapters and their leadership stories, along with their blueprints of how they led, uh, in different scenarios and setbacks and how did they show up, and those leadership strategies will be unlocked for the world. And the third asset is to bring is Iconic Leadership assessment, so you can measure across an iconic arc and showing that how you need to show up in the world, and you can start mapping yourself and identifying where your blind spots are, so you can identify the right people to collaborate with you. Um, and bunch of other assets that are going to come. So all the eight trusted assets will be ready by end of this year, and we would love to go to Davos and invite all the founders, all the companies to say we have a chance to really collaborate together, take a collective action, and build humans' leadership capacity to a next level so that we never have to be afraid of AI or quantum They get to do what we want it to do, rather than data, the technology telling us what we should be doing. We should be leading that. So that's kind of the most exciting part, and I think it will be one of those, um, I would say initiatives I will be very thankful. And when I go into my grave, I'll say I have created 10,000 iconic leaders in the world who created impact and, um, led the world to be in a good place, and they also used AI for good. Mm. That was the- Fantastic. That's amazing. Well- I got goosebumps. Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations, and good luck on the launch. So, so everyone's clear- Thank you when are you launching, and where can we get a copy? So we are launching on September 18th, uh, and the global launch is on September 23rd, which is going to be virtual. Uh, people can pre-order on Kickstarter right now, and on September 18th, they can be, uh, purchasing on Amazon and Barnes Noble anytime. Amazing. You'll have a copy of the book in your hands. I'm gonna go onto Kickstarter after this. Yeah. Yeah. Get my pre-order. I mean, big, big thinking, right? Like, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's amazing. That'll be fantastic. We would love to have you. I would love each and every c- person who believes leadership should be democratized, they should be part of this program. Oh, great. Mm. Mm. I'm curious, so in terms of what you're describing around the iconic leadership and what's required, what, what do you think the most dangerous assumption that early-stage founders- Mm make about leadership? Mm. And what are the signs? So how does, how does getting that wrong show up in the way that they build their teams and their culture? Wow. Such a deep question, so let me see if I can answer. Um, the assumption is, um- Leadership is easy. Usually they're like, "Yeah, I can just... If I know if I have people, I can lead them." But it's not, because when you are thinking about leading, this is how I look. If the leaders are instilling fear, then they're not leading. And if the leaders are instilling faith, then they are leading. That means people are excited, they're coming to work, they are excited to do what they need to do. And leadership is all about, uh, unlocking their ultimate potential t- for their greater goodness, and you need to do that. Uh, not telling them what they should be doing and why they should be on this planet. You really need to unlock it. And if you do it really well, each and everyone who's coming to the table are bringing the best version of their self. Uh, so when you are l- when you are leading, um, when you're under stress, your darker side of your, uh, you know, darker side gets activated, and that starts to create fear. Uh, and your language is to create fear. So, um, it's, it's hard to move from darkness to lightness. It's better to always keep your lightness at all times. So for me is the assumption people make is leadership is easy. Um, it's actually not. It's probably the hardest, um, I think skill to master because you have to master yourself on how to lead yourself, then you can lead others. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's very much a personal thing, right? Yeah. If you're not, and y- 'cause I think if you're not doing well by yourself- You start to point the finger at everyone else and you start to project, right? Yeah. I mean- Exactly that's pretty- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it goes back to that thing about entrepreneurship/ well, I guess leadership is the, the best personal development tool on the planet, right? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. You know, I was gonna jump you right into- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right, Chai, you, you hold a Guinness World Record. Oh, I am so curious about this. You know, for col- for col- for collective action, so I've got a couple of questions around that. One, when do you ever sleep? Yeah. But, but, but two, can you walk us through the mechanics of what it actually took to organize that? Um, because every, you know, behind every record, there's all the logistics and the coordination problems that, that no one ever sees. So can you walk us through that process? Sure. My God, that one was, uh, an amazing experience. I've done total of four Guinness World Record attempts, so- Hang, hang on. And- Wait, hold on. Did you say four? I started with... Yeah, so four of them. Wow. And, uh, the first one was with my kids and a group of 600 people where we were trying to do the largest, you know, kind of collage of, uh, paintings in one single place. We didn't win, by the way. We didn't. But it was v- amazing. It was as p- as part of the festival. These were, like, five to seven-year-old kids and the families coming and painting. It was just beautiful. I, I saw what a collective action looks like when you can do a Guinness World Record. Then I actually participate as a participant in a, another Guinness World Record, and it was absolutely phenomenal experience. They didn't set the record, but I got to participate in it, so two failures there. Then we did the third one, which was, uh, the number of vision boards we want to create, and we started. It looked great, and then we had a cyber hack, and we had to stop the whole Guinness record. Three strikes. It was a bad one. The fourth one, I think we created so many backup plans after backup. We had seven backup plans- to get the Guinness World Record. And we said- We just are going to do one attempt, three hours, and we are going to do... And everyone sees the plaque, but what people don't see is the spreadsheets that goes behind it, the tracking sheet, the behind the preparation, which is the verification process. My God, it's probably one of the hardest verification process I've ever done. So because when we had to do our vision boarding, we had to have the people on the screen, so they couldn't be dark. Like, they cannot switch off their camera. They have to be there through the three hours to make sure that they're on the screen. They had to submit their vision board, and then they had to make sure there were certain names and things we had to do. So there was a lot of verification that was, was going on. We needed timestamp documentation of when they submitted, at what time, because you cannot go back into the timestamps and change it, so it has to be shown from a documentation. We also had to have a geographic spread requirements of how many people will join from which country and how they are joining, which channel they're joining. There was a compliance rule book for Guinness record itself, because that one was, like, a 200-plus checklist of items. Uh, we had to do a lot of volunteer co-coordination, making sure people don't drop off, because people was joining in a group on the camera. People were joining individually with the kids. It was, it was like the craziness. What we learned was, like, the communication cascade we need to do for recruitment, promotion for the Guinness World Record was as important as communication during the event and also right after the event and then the celebration. So there was zero ambiguity in the process from Team A to Team Z to the participant. It was transparent communication. And, uh, I would say this is what a collective action at scale looks like. Um, it was, it was very inspiring for people who were seeing it, but behind the scene it was Excel spreadsheets, checklist, lot of communication. I wish we had AI during that time. It would have saved a lot of time. We had to really write every copy. Um, but what I learned was, um, how many people had faith in themself that they can create their vision board. Um, they had a faith in us, and when we set the record, um, that celebration moment was absolutely thrilling. And we finished that. Microsoft came and said, "We want to do a Guinness World Record. Please tell us what you did." So we kinda gave the blueprint, and any group that comes in, we're like, "Here is a blueprint." If you can do, as a founder, if you can launch a Guinness World Record You will learn some of the backend skills, the boring skills like tracking, verification, communication cadence. All those big ideas, you can make it happen because you know what it takes to do big idea, what does it take to do scaling. Yeah. Wow. And, uh- Hmm that was my learning from that whole thing is like, I'm not afraid of anything now after- Guinness World Record. Well, I, I don't think you were afraid of anything anyway, but sure. I, I'm not sure you are, yeah. So- That's incredible yeah, so to, to be clear on that, are, are you happy to share that, that, um, blueprint with people, are you? Oh, yeah. We, we do. We have shared the blueprint. I, I want everybody to do it. It's such a beautiful process. Okay. Wow. So reach out- Yeah to Chai and, yeah. There we go. Yeah. If, if you wanna do a Guinness World Record attempt, there you go. Fun. Hmm. Yeah. I'm all in. Whatever you need, I'll show up, whatever you need help with. There's that giving element, right? Yeah, yeah. So, Chai, you have a very colorful portfolio. I mean, you're a published au- I mean, do we have time for me to list all of them? No, yeah, no, we don't. Yeah. A patent holder, a CEO, a CFO, and a filmmaker, and a mum. Yeah. Um, when a business owner looks at a portfolio like that, it can feel a little bit overwhelming. Hmm. And, um- Yeah not really sure where to focus. So how do you personally decide what to say yes to and what to protect your time from when everything feels important? Oh, wow. That's such a great question. So- Um, w- with the portfolio that I have built, I see more as an adventure in my life because I'm an adult. You need adventures because when you are young, you would do field trips, you would have, you know, concerts, and you can do a lot of fun thing. But when you become, like after 35, what are kind of those adventures? That kind of starts to move away, and you need to have it within the, the business environment. So, um, all these projects that I do is to really bring adventure and a conversation people can have at their dinner table. That's all it is. Like, when people say, "I was part of Guinness World Record," everybody's like, "How did you do it? I wanna know more about it." It's like a whole conversation in there. So I like is creating a conversation at the table. So m- when I'm looking at the overall kind of game plan of where I need to say yes, I look at from a p- place of, um, am I building just these one-off things, or I am focusing on building a cathedral so that it kind of puts everything together and the body of the work kind of connects with each other? Because I'm a go-to-market expert, so I look at every activation has to build for the next step, for the next step. And knowing that I have a billion dollars of economic access to be created, I kind of focus on what are the incremental things I have to build to get to that, um, a billion dollars, and what kind of activations are required to create it. So for example, something is, um, you know, in, in today's economy, everything feels very bleak and I don't have any opportunity kind of stuff, so you need to create a spark in the ecosystem. So we said, "Let's do a book launch," because everybody gets to light up. They want to be part of it. They are part of something cool. Create ambassadors and create, uh, economic opportunity where they can run a city club, where they can run their own programming and generate revenue. It's a very different way of thinking about an activation. So mostly around is depending upon if you're br- if you're gen- if the companies are coming and ready to give the funding to do certain things, we'll do that because it focuses on the transformation. But let's say in the world when there's no funding available, then you need to create the energy and the spark, and that allows everybody to light up. So that's kind of how I look at is what kind of conversations will light up people to move to the next step so they are really able to take action. And if they can take action, then I am ready to take action. That's kind of how I look at it because li- time is very, um, finite and I need to drive people to take action quickly because by the time you realize you're in your 60s and you're like, "Oh, I didn't do much." Everyone wants to do a lot, and you, you need a engine to help make them possible. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. With that then, do you, how do you map that in your brain? Do you go, "Okay, I'm working towards this big vision- Mm-hmm that I've got here," and do you work backwards? Or do you just kinda go, "Oh, I wanna try this 'cause I'm on an adventure." It slots in. Yeah. This'll be fun. Good question. How do you, how does your brain work that out? I usually look at, uh, my lens is usually around access lenses. What kind of access are we creating, and for who and why? And that allows me to really focus my energies. If it's not creating access, then I don't even touch those programs. Uh, if it is creating, um, like 10X more access than what I have, that means it's worth spending time on. Um, so I, I, I wish I had, like, a magic formula to do, um, but everything that I do is, is it moving the economic stability for someone? Is it driving economic mobility or economic prosperity? So those are my three, uh, lens of creating access for each and every individual, and making sure that as they're going through that journey, it is fun. It's cool. It's like elevating their energy rather than dragging them down. It cannot be like, "Oh my God, it's so exhausting to do this program." No, no, it should be like, "Wow, I am so glad I got to do it." Even if they have to walk on those blazing coal, they felt like it was exciting. So for me, s- that's kind of how I think about transformation. Yeah. Mm. Wow. It's just that big thinking. Yeah. You just have this big- Yeah lens on, and you're just seeing the bigger picture. Yeah, yeah. I think it's incredible. So y- you mentioned exhausting just then. So other than movies, Chai, in your, I think it'd be small amounts of free time- what, what do you do to get away from work to relax? Um, as you know, I already talked to you about, like, I love dancing, so I'm l- learning how to dance. So I'm learning a lot of Latin dances. I was, uh, trained to be a classical Indian dancer, but you know, it's good. Then I learned how to do Bollywood. Then I'm like, yeah, it's fine, but now I want Latin dances because it's very beautiful and, um, interesting because it's a lot of steps you have to remember. And as you get older, you forget, um, sequence and steps. You cannot be just, like, dance whatever you want. So kind of like having something there. Second is I like to bike a lot, so I spend a lot of biking. Um, and I got a electric bike, uh, so, uh, even if I have to go on a hill, I can go. So I started with, like, three miles per day. Now I can go up to 25 miles a day. Wow. Wow. Um, and over the week, I can do, like, 70 to 100 miles, uh- And it's been really fun. My kids love it that I'm able to do those kind of things, which I couldn't do. Um, and, uh, watch movies, I love that. Uh, spend a lot of time dining out and experiencing new restaurants with my kids and my friends because my older one is like a food, uh, critique, and he loves it, and I just enjoy him deciding which restaurant to go, and we get to talk about a lot of cool things. So I- I like to work only 40 hours possible, but as an entrepreneur, that never happens. Yeah. But I do try to balance my life, and same thing with my team, is you have to have good sleep, you have to have good health, you have to have a discipline f- uh, in how you make decision. And once you have the decision criterias very fast, it's very easy to say yes, no, yes, no, and you can move forward. And I don't make-- I don't have guilt if I made a wrong decision because 99% of the decision can be reversed. So I'm like, "Okay, I'll make a decision, and then I can reverse the decision based on the information I get." Yeah, wow. Yeah. Mm. Yeah, uh, one quick question- Yeah if that's all right, yeah? Um, in terms of getting, getting a foot in the door, you know, you- you've spoken in some big rooms and to, to big groups. Have you got any tips for entrepreneurs who may wanna follow that path, or at least tips about how to open doors that might seem like they're closed to you? Give me an example of what you are looking for. Oh, okay. So, you know, you- you spoke at the United Nations and TEDx and the G20 and so forth, so there was a process to get to that level. So if I'm- Yes, yes an entrepreneur and I wanna get to a certain group or a certain, um, a certain person, I will ha- you know, I'll have to go through some sort of a process. So how do I- Yeah open doors that seem closed to me, I guess, is probably the, the shorter question. Okay. So when you're thinking about opening doors into any of the rooms, the credibility is what is mattered. So your credibility travels before you do, or anyone's credibility. Um, so to gain the credibility, there is a very structure process that I do. It's like first one is solve something small and real. Publicly with evidence, right? Like, not a big vision, but a documented outcome. It can be an article you do. You can be like, do a customer service. You can be a speaker manager. I don't know, do something for the, that group. Like, show up as a volunteer. Uh, s- the second step is let the people you helped tell the story for you. Mm. Right. Right? So it's a third-party proof always outweighs your self-promotion. So the founder saying, "I am impactful," is usually a noise because then I'm like, "Yeah, I don't want to hear." But if someone, they said, "Hey, she unlocked access to this particular opportunity," is a signal. So someone who can actually tell the story and that gives a signal. And, uh, step number three, which most of them break down, like they don't do it, they don't... You need to show up consistently into the rooms that you want to belong one level below the ones you actually want to. If you wanna be in G20, you need to be in UN. If you wanna be in UN, then you need to be in the industry because these are all connected, uh, infrastructure. And then over-deliver where you, uh, are before you even pitch for a bigger stage to get access to or a bigger room. Um, so if you want to speak on a UN stage or like a TED stage, then you should be speaking on lot of the community rooms before you can stand on the G20 stage or a industry network And the step four is when you actually build your narrative architecture. It's a consistent story with the numbers, your stor- you know, human story, and a clear thesis, really a paradigm shift, uh, that you are creating. So when the Google, when people are googling about you, the story is extremely coherent about you. Uh, and your invitation to those stages becomes automatic. It's not a cold outreach. People are actually reaching out to you because they saw your name as a proof multiple times in different rooms, and even in multiple contexts. So thinking about as a funnel and a metrics of trust, not followers on LinkedIn. So that is kind of how I have seen people do it. I have also done it personally. So it's ne- you have to contribute first, and that's why the law of generosity comes in, law of influence comes in, law of value creation comes in. You have to activate your iconic leadership laws. And when you do it consistently, you don't even have to knock the door. People actually will invite you into the room. So that's how you do it effectively. Do I do it every time right? No. I miss multiple steps in my own s- framework, but saying is when you do it consistently, it works so well. But showing up is very important. Yes. Yeah. Right. Showing up. Mm. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you. So before we dive into our quick fire questions, I just have, uh, one more, uh, burning question for myself. So if every business owner is listening today took one action this week that moved them from competing in isolation to building something that creates access for others What would that action be, and why does it matter beyond their own bottom line? Ooh, that's such a good question. If, if I have to give, um, a founder an advice, I would say make one introduction that costs you something, uh, and benefits you nothing directly. Mm, that's a good one. Mm. Okay? That's, I mean, that's so doable, right? So connect- Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So connect two people in the world. You need each other more than either needs you. So that particular single action beyond your bottom line, uh, will be very powerful because it is the sm- smallest possible unit of opportunity economy, and that economy value moves through the circulation, not through hoarding. So I've seen my grandmother do it. I've seen her, how she did it, and it is all about kinda creating access for each other. And, uh, isolation will always feel safe because it, you can control it, but isolated businesses are extremely fragile, and to a, uh, to a point that they can fail at a... Because you are a failure point. But when you can make the connections work, um, uh, it becomes a very integrated infrastructure, and, uh, it is, I would call it as it's a risk management which is dressed as a generosity, right? You do it once a week and do it the next week, and in five years, um, you won't even remember, you know, most of the deals you closed, but you will remember exactly the growth you have created for everyone and, and everyone will come to you say, "Oh, she or he opens up the door very easily. I wanna go to her because warm introduction happens easily," very generously. Yeah. That's great advice. Mm. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. All right. All right. Quick fire time? Quick fire time. Yeah. Okay. So Chai, to get to know our guests a little bit more, uh, we ask you 10 quick fire questions. We'll fire them off one at a time alternately and ask you to answer in a sentence or less. Are you ready to go, Chai? I will try my best. All right, here we go. So lay this off? Okay. All right. All right. So would you rather build or buy a business? Uh, neither actually. Depends. I may just do a leverage model that someone has built it, and I will collaborate with them and make it happen. Mm. Perfect. Course you would. Yeah. As if you didn't know that, right? I know. Yes. So, uh, revenue or profit? I would go with profit, very important. Yes. Um, because that allows me to invest in future opportunities. Mm-hmm. Yes. Growth or stability? Neither. It should be access created- Mm for others. Thought that might drop in. Ag- again, we should have known, right? Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yep. Uh, hire fast or hire slow? Hire right. Oh. Oh, good answer. Um, okay, take the money or keep control? G- give generously. Okay. Bootstrapped or venture-backed? I would say community-backed. A big idea or great execution? We need both. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect product or first to market? First to market, actually, for me. Mm-hmm. Mm. What's one piece of advice that you wish someone had given you at the age of 25? Do warm introductions generously. Mm. That's a good one. Mm. What's one business mistake you'd happily make again? Work only 30 hours a week. Mm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep. All right. Yep. One final question, if business truly is a game, Chai, what's your definition of winning? Everyone is cheering at the end of the game, and we have won the championship. Ooh, I love that. Mm. What a great answer. Yep. So- Thank you where can our listeners find you and your business online? They can find me on LinkedIn. Um, and that is the easy way to contact me, and if they want to learn about Women in Cloud, they can go to womenincloud.com. Mm. Great. Mm. Thank you. Well, this has been an incredible- Yeah conversation. Absolutely. I don't think you're allowed to pick favorites, but this is probably up there for me. This has been incredible for me, so thank you so much. It's like, like your children, right? You can't say you've got a favorite. Well, yeah. But, yeah, you know, sometimes you tell someone, you know? Yeah. I've really pulled a lot from this conversation. Yeah. So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Really appreciate your time. Thank you, Chai, and good luck with your book launch in- Yes in September as well. Yeah. Looking forward to reading that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for having me today. All right. Well, that's all we've got time for. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to The Business Game and check out the playlist for the level of business that you're currently playing. Because every founder is somewhere on the game board, from zero all the way to $50 billion. Choose your level, and we'll see you next time. Whoa. This is The Business Game