In Conversation with Liril Gupta

“In the corporate world, people work and focus on tangible objectives that also form a basis to measure achievements. In the development sector, to measure the achievements through tangibles alone is useful only to a limited extent- It needs to be defined by the change you bring in people’s lives,” says Liril Gupta, a leading member of the Azim Premji Foundation. 

Liril Gupta started her career as a finance professional in the industry. She has worked across large multinationals – as Finance Officer at DELL, Finance Manager at HP, CFO of G.E. Medical Systems Pvt Ltd (a unit of GE Healthcare) but her conviction to do something for the betterment of society helped her merge her professional skills with her mission to serve.

Her Journey 

Becoming a finance professional was more out of convenience than a passion for Liril, as her father and elder brother are Chartered Accountants, too. 

“The foundation of my career was to simplify my professional learning. You need to apply some rationale and logic to be able to see through business accounting, commerce, and corporate laws,” she says.

In the 90s, oil was a highly regulated sector. When Liril got a job offer from Indian Oil Corporation, her curiosity about the oil sector and her parents’ approval for a secure Government job made her opt for it.

After her marriage, she took a transfer to Bangalore, but the bureaucracy at I.O.C did not appeal to her, and when she got an offer from Dell, she took it up.

IT was an upcoming sector in the late 90s. In 2002 when Gupta joined, Dell was in the process of setting up a centre in Bangalore. Being a part of the Finance team in a developing multinational organization changed the course of her professional journey.

Dell started expanding to multiple cities and engaging with multiple stakeholders was another level of exposure for her. It helped her build a good understanding of the complexity of organizations and how finance can partner with operations for the growth of an organization.

Her experiences of working in large organizations such as Dell, HP, GE as operations finance included cost optimization and operational efficiency. 

“I have had an interesting journey of 25+ years incorporates that had multiple business units and were multi-location,” she says.

A shift from IT to Development Sector

Liril’s son was born in 2005, and his innocent observations on helping people brought the thought of joining the development sector into her mind. She started thinking about how her professional skills can contribute to bringing about a change.

“At that point of time, if I had continued with GE, the professional growth trajectory could have been towards a global role, but it did not appeal to me,” she says. And then, she got this opportunity from the Azim Premji Foundation.

“I realized that being a part of this would fulfil my desire to contribute to the sector as a professional, not just as an individual,” she adds.

Azim Premji Foundation was launched in 2000 to give back to society. It has a large field team that works with the teachers in Government schools and focuses on teacher training and capacity building for better education for underprivileged children.

Liril is a part of the grants operating unit focused on providing multi-year grants to not-for-profit organizations that serve the most vulnerable and marginalized in our society. It has been in operation for the last 7-8 years with around 500+ partners.

The core objective of the team is to diligently scrutinize the proposal from NGOs that reach out for funding requests.

“We focus on finding grassroots organizations that work for / committed to the welfare and needs of vulnerable groups,” she adds.

The organizations are assessed on multiple parameters such as understanding of the issue at hand, ability to do focused delivery to the communities continuously, Organisation Leader, team members implementing the program / working with the communities etc.

Work During Covid 

The field team, university alumni (thousands of alumni across the country), and 500+ partners came together during covid across the foundation’s operating units for humanitarian response and relief during the lockdown to support the migrant workers, creating basic awareness around understanding covid, wearing masks, distributing hygiene packs along with ration kits.

“The situation was an eye-opener, and re-iterated the phrase – United we stand, divided we fall”, she adds.

Financial Planning for Startups

Liril explains that financial planning includes projections on multiple fronts – Operations (Sales, Production etc.), Cash-flows and budget. Both cash flow and budget are important pillars of financial planning and more often than not misunderstood as being the same. She emphasizes that entrepreneurs have to be conscious of the market they are operating.

“Entrepreneurs need to do their financial planning keeping in mind the market realities and their ability to carve out space. They also need to analyze whether their assumptions for planning are short, medium or long term,” she adds.

Her experiences as a mentor at STEP

When Renu, the Founder of STEP approached her, Liril was not so sure about mentoring. But she was pleasantly surprised by the capability and articulation of the STEP Team. The sessions were well planned and managed to keep the spirits of mentees high amidst the pandemic.

“I enjoy being a mentor at STEP. Mentoring has provided me with new insights on people and their capabilities,” she adds.

Liri, the person

The focused, empathetic, and lovely Liril loves to vacation in the hills, Dehradun in India and Switzerland outside of India are her favourite destinations. If she could paint, it would be a hilltop. This nature lover hopes to travel extensively to rural India and discover the hard realities of rural communities.

“Working in the development sector has given me a different level of satisfaction that is hard to explain in words,” she adds philosophically. 

Message to women

“Be firm and vocal about your issues. Do not take discrimination submissively,” is her message to women.