In Conversation with Swati Shah Gupta

“We need more women in the workforce as they bring totally different perspectives, thought processes, and solutions to governance and decision-making in organizations, ” says Swati Shah Gupta, Social Impact strategist, Founder of Excellerate Solutions. She is also a mentor at STEP.

Professional Journey: A decade at CRISIL

After graduating in Urban Planning from the Delhi School of Architecture & Design and MBA, Swati joined CRISIL’s Infrastructure Consulting Team. She worked for 6 years in Development finance advisory. Her role involved advising Government and Development finance institutions like the World Bank, ADB, USAID, etc to utilize public and private sector finance to solve urban infrastructure issues, especially those in the WASH sector. Designing a state’s water policy or the capital requirements for providing water to a group of municipal corporations are some examples of her work. Her work took her to many big and small towns across the country.

“Almost every project involved a large municipal corporation or State Government. I had not studied economics or policy-making, and learned a lot in these 6 years, ” she explains.

Thereafter, she moved to Customized Industry Research and Risk Analysis for 5 years, where she led a team of analysts and consulted mid-sized and large corporate organizations to assess project feasibility or valuations.

The journey after CRISIL

After a decade in CRISIL, Swati took a maternity break of a few months when expecting her second child. This was a time of reflection for her, and she joined the fundraising team at Teach For India.

“I wanted to explore what I really wanted to do,” she says.

After working for a year, she joined an investment bank and NBFC in the financial inclusion space- Northern Arc Capital.

Her role involved analytics for their 200+ borrowers- financial inclusion focussed organizations, microfinance institutions, affordable housing finance, and commercial vehicle finance. She also set up processes for deal tracking and investor relations to drastically improve business productivity.

“I traveled to various cities and discovered the level of poverty at the grassroots and how innovative financial products and a community-based approach can be life-changing for millions,” she says.

Around this time, she came across various qualified women who had taken a break from their professional life and wanted to return to work.

“Their problem struck a chord, and I moved out of the corporate world to set up Excellerate Solutions,” she says.

Swati started getting consulting projects and helped these qualified women return to work in these projects. She also initiated a mentorship program for them.

“Around 15 women moved back to full-time work, and 30 received mentoring,” she adds.

In 2019, Swati joined UPenn to study Social Impact strategy for building businesses that drive change. This gave her more tools and frameworks to evaluate the business model.

“Remote work was a criterion for most women, and bringing that change at the industry level was proving difficult,” she discovered after deeper research.

After 3 years of running the setup, she realized that the organization was not scaled up in line with her expectations and paused its operations.

She decided to focus on impact measurement aspects of social businesses. After briefly working with Avishkaar, India’s most prominent impact investment institution as its head of Impact and ESG, Swati started working with consulting projects with several impact funds, incubators, and accelerators. She is currently working on projects led by USAID, Asha Impact, and Unitus Capital.

“Impact measurement in the investment context is new and very complex. Every project is an opportunity to learn and stay true to my sense of purpose,” she adds.

Work done by Excellerate Solutions

Swati aims to deepen impact-driven entrepreneurship and investments in India through Excellerate solutions. She assists the development sector entrepreneurs by engraving the skills of impact measurement and mentoring them. She helps impact investors in the selection process by evaluating the proposals that come to them from both business risk and impact perspectives.

“Working with both the stakeholders in the ecosystem helps build empathy for both sides,” she explains.

 A passion for Gender Equity

Swati is passionate about the cause of gender equity. She believes it is a takeaway from her childhood, as her parents were staunch believers in gender equity.

“I try my best to hire women who want to return to work, “ she says, “I am also associated with incubators like STEP, where I get to work with women entrepreneurs.”

Just recently, she was selected for the first cohort of the ” Women on Boards” program, comprising 24 members from diverse fields of the corporate sector and non-profits. This immersive WOB program was launched by ISDM jointly with Dasra and Governance Counts. The highly selective program aims to bring women leaders to the change-makers table. Swati feels it is an opportunity to work with women nonprofit leaders.

“This is the first time I discovered that almost all development-related problems affect women disproportionately. At the WOB program I got to learn what governance with a gender lens means,” she says.

Dos and don’ts for development-sector entrepreneurs 

• Stay true to the path, even when the going gets tough.
• It is a lonely, exhausting, and difficult journey. Build your tribe of people who will be your cheerleaders.
• You have to fight at par with the rest of the startup world. No one is giving any discounts just because you work in the development sector. 

Experience at STEP

Swati is a mentor at STEP, and it has been an excellent experience for her.

“When I see a cohort coming in, getting trained, and graduating, I feel immense happiness and pride for my contribution to their development,” she says.

She feels that she is an integral part of the STEP community.

“I have made good friends here, had great conversations with them, and leveraged their amazing work,” she says.

Swati takes pride in the achievements of her mentees. 

“I have felt the respect of people when they come to know I mentored these awesome women,” she adds.

Swati, the person

Swati is a passionate, energetic, and talkative person.  She draws inspiration from her mother, who turned adversaries in her life into opportunities.  Her motivation to get out of bed is her work as a change-maker. She plans to do her doctorate from an Ivy League college in the near future and dreams of building a house in the hills.

The mantra of her life is ” Focus on your actions and intentions, and the results will follow.”