Lavanya Nalli

I’m Lavanya Nalli, Vice-Chairperson at the Nalli Group of Companies, and this is how I Lead from Within

Lavanya Nalli is the Vice Chairperson at the Nalli Group of Companies and is the first woman to join her family business. During her tenure, Nalli has doubled its revenues, and increased its store count from 14 to 21. A former Mckinsey consultant and an HBS alumna, Lavanya is also a great supporter of women’s leadership and an advisor to Shenomics. This is her story, and how she leads from within…

My Professional Journey

I started off my career in the family business in a rather strange way. While pursuing my computer engineering degree, I decided to do an internship with the family business. I was looking at the supply chain operations. I got completely absorbed into it. I loved the consumer and retail aspects of it, so much so that I decided to go back to the family business after I graduated. Those four years were quite formative for me because they were my first four years in the business world, as well as the first four years of my career overall.

That said, in contrast to my friends, who went on to more structured workplaces, I got into a rather unstructured environment because, while the family business was a well-run business, it didn’t have any defined roles or paths that I could follow. I didn’t know much about retail or about business. I had never even worn a saree before without help. That was unnerving for me. However, when you’re starting out, you don’t know what you don’t know. A combination of my enthusiasm and my ignorance turned out to be a big boon. What helped was that I had my ear to the ground. I was able to learn from people who had been in the business for many years and were very giving of their time and their counsel. When you don’t know much, you’re less curtailed, and more open to trying different things. That kind of energy to do something and make a mark means you will end up doing something right. Fortunately, I had a supportive environment to work in. So, that was definitely my first big formative experience.

The second formative experience for me was getting an MBA from the Harvard Business School. I knew I wanted to do an MBA abroad, and not in India, because I wanted to get a very fresh and different perspective. I think the school teaches you many things, and you also very quickly learn for yourself that you’re not in a narrowly focused competitive environment, i.e., you’re not fighting with the person right next to you, but rather, you’re in a competitive environment on a macro scale where everybody wants to win, and so it strikes you suddenly that when you take the macro view, there’s enough room at the top and collaborating with strong players will help you get ahead much better than competing with them. That brought about a huge shift in the way I thought about business. It really broadened my mind. The school exposed me to a very different class of leaders that is rare to find. It was a very inspiring group to be around.

The third formative experience for me was working in McKinsey’s Chicago office. I was influenced by a strong set of Midwestern values, which are all about not being showy or flashy, but having a strong work ethic, a spirit of community that encourages people to help one another, and being friendly and welcoming. Those values were there even in McKinsey’s Chicago office, which is one of their largest offices. That strong American work ethic really shaped me, and how I went about my career.

My Superpowers

One big super power for me is having a strong work ethic. That value has been more deeply ingrained in me with every experience I’ve had from working in the family business to being at HBS to working at McKinsey.

Another super power for me is having a strong sense of self. I’ve been fortunate to experience and cultivate that thanks to the way I’ve been raised, my family, my husband and the people that I choose to spend the bulk of my time with. I think you’ve got to have an unshakeable sense of self to be able to take certain calls in life. That has grown stronger for me after having a child – partly because I know I only have a finite amount of energy, and therefore, have learned to prioritize the things that are most important to me; everything else I just don’t have time for. That has been a very liberating thing. When you know yourself, you know what you stand for and you have that strong sense of self, all of your decisions are so much clearer.

A third super-power of mine is self-acceptance. Self-acceptance leads to greater resilience, which then leads to more grit. If you fail, self-acceptance and resilience allow you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and say, “Okay, I’ve had this setback but it’s fine; I’m going to keep going.” You have to allow yourself to fail. There are times when you are going to fall and when that happens to think that it’s fine and then get up and do it again because you know now you’ve got a greater chance of succeeding since you’re not going to make the same mistakes. You cannot take risks and also say, “But, I can’t fail”. Something has to give. I’m okay with telling myself, “I’m not perfect and there are going to be cracks in the surface but that’s alright. I’m a work in progress.”

On Having it All

The first thing I would say is you can’t do it all. If anyone says they can do it all, please don’t listen to them, and secondly, if they can do it all, more power to them, but please don’t feel compelled to attain that yourself. We have a finite reserve of energy and we have to respect that. It’s important to focus on things that are energy replenishing rather than depleting. It’s important to take time out for yourself, whether that’s socializing, playing tennis, reading a book, anything that you enjoy, because that is what will bring your energy levels up. Especially if you are trying to juggle work and motherhood and ten other things, this is the time when you’ve got to look at extreme prioritization.

Second thing is, something has to give in order to make room for something else that has been added to your plate. Motherhood is a huge thing, and if that gets added on, then a few other things have to fall off your plate. You have to be okay with making certain tradeoffs. For me, the kind of person that I am, my career is more than just a career. I look at it as an opportunity to make a huge impact in the world by virtue of the position that I am in, the business that I am in, the number of people we provide employment to, and the number of folks that we can upskill. For me, it’s important that I continue to do that. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to be an absent mom, but it does mean that I’m going to pick and choose the areas where I’m going to be an involved parent. There will be other areas where I may choose to not be so involved, knowing that my son is going to be just fine. I am fine with making those tradeoffs. If there are people who judge you for that, let them. You can’t please them all.

On Leading and Succeeding as a Woman

To be honest, being in a family business is far easier, because you get indoctrinated into the family business from a very young age. Also, I have been lucky to have parents who have been very encouraging and supportive through all the different stages of my career. In the early days, there would be small things, such as people asking, “Ah, okay, but is your brother here or is your father around?” They wouldn’t want to do business with me directly. I was clueless as to why that was the case, and I would pretty much respond with, “Yeah, I’m here, so why don’t we just close this deal right now and then we can move on.”

For women to succeed in the corporate world, I believe it is essential to look for mentors and sponsors, and there is a clear difference between the two. A mentor is someone who may be in a position to guide you, but may not necessarily have a strong hand in influencing your career. They can give you words of advice or even be a good sounding board. He or she may give you constructive feedback, and even open up their rolodex and say, ‘Hey, look, here are ten people you can call and they’ll help you’. They could be a good cheerleader for you when you’re down. But none of those kinds of mentors can necessarily create career opportunities for you, the way a sponsor can. A sponsor is the person who, whenever they have an upcoming project that is high-profile or high-visibility, thinks of you as their number 1, 2, or 3 person to give that opportunity to.

What a lot of women lack today in the workforce is a good sponsor. We keep emphasizing the need for women to get more mentors, and while having access to a right set of mentors does help, what really makes or breaks women’s careers is having strong sponsors. You have to find someone who can take you under his or her wings and basically create opportunities for you. There will be far fewer women who lean out of the workforce if that were the case. I’ve actively cultivated sponsors towards the later part of my career and eventually found them, and they really helped my corporate career. Even in family businesses, a lot of women don’t necessarily get that kind of support. It is a huge testimony to the kind of person that my father is and the kind of eco system that he has built within Nalli that being a woman in the family business has not actually been difficult for me at all.

On Living Mindfully

I have come to value exercise as a way to practice mindfulness. I did a lot of prenatal yoga and pilates. That allowed me to increase my awareness of my body. I find when you are doing pilates or yoga, you become very aware of the sensations in your body. Your attention is in the here and now; you’re focused on what’s happening in your body right now. You also get a great workout in the process, but it’s a very mindful workout. That has helped me a lot in living with greater awareness.