Courage Talks

Taru Mateti to the guest on this episode of Courage Talks!

Taru is a true embodiment of perseverance and passion. A devoted fauji wife and mother to a successful Engineering Director, she embarked on her remarkable ultramarathon journey at 50 in 2013. 🏃‍♀️✨

After a distinguished 32-year career spanning IT, teaching, and eLearning, including a leadership role at Cybage with a team of 250, Taru made a bold transition in 2017 to pursue her love for running and fitness.

Her impressive track record includes conquering a 100-miler, multiple ultramarathons, and securing over 75 podiums! 🏅

Not only is she a formidable runner, but she also excels in fitness training and has been featured in the Women’s Glory coffee table book and various articles.

Her hobbies include dot mandala painting, learning Spanish, and reading. 📚🎨Taru’s fitness mantra, “Age no Bar,” truly resonates through her achievements and dedication.

Tune in to hear her inspiring story and learn how she balances it all with grace and strength. 💪

#CourageTalks #FitnessJourney #Ultramarathon #Inspiration #AgeNoBar #WomenInFitness #PodcastGuest

On this episode of "Courage Talks," we’re joined by Shivani, a dynamic corporate professional in the perfume industry and a dedicated mother to her 7-year-old son.

Shivani has been an athlete for 17 years, and fitness isn't just a hobby—it's a way of life. She emphasizes the importance of strength training and leading a sustainable lifestyle, setting an inspiring example, especially for young working mothers striving to balance family care and personal well-being. Her Instagram is a go-to source of motivation for fitness enthusiasts.

Shivani’s disciplined approach to life began in her early years at Welham Girls' School in Dehradun, a residential school where she learned the value of structure and focus. She later graduated with an MBA from NMIMS, one of India’s premier institutions, driven by her parents' strong emphasis on education.

A major influence in her life is her mother, a retired CBI officer now practicing as a lawyer in her 70s, who raised her to be fearless and resilient.

Navigating the male-dominated sales field in the fragrance industry for the past 15 years, Shivani has faced significant challenges.

She shares how her fitness regimen has been key to maintaining the mental strength needed to succeed in this environment, constantly proving herself and carving out a respected image in her profession.

NEW SEASON!!! - FITPRENEUR SPECIAL

The focus this season is all on FITNESS. I invite guests from the FITNESS space to talk about their story of courage.

The First guest is JITENDRA CHOUKSEY.

Jitendra Chouksey, better known in the FITTR community as JC, is a first-generation entrepreneur.

He founded FITTR, a unique community-driven online health and fitness platform, from a simple idea: he wanted to help his friends and family get fit.

The community started out over WhatsApp and Facebook. Today, it is a multimillion-dollar enterprise known around the world and has even been featured by globally renowned vlogger Nas Daily!

From the start, JC’s unwavering vision has been to offer a safe and judgement-free fitness platform that welcomes everyone.

JC’s goal is for FITTR to transform the lives of over 50 million people and create 100,000 jobs in the fitness industry.

Here JC's stories of courage, what challenges he faced while growing up and what made him take up fitness so seriously.

Logesh is a second-generation entrepreneur with extensive experience leading diverse consumer businesses at a group level, generating 250 crores in revenue.

Solution Architect with solid product orientation in the retail tech sector at BestBuy, Accenture, IBS and Effitrac.

Logesh has over 10 years of hands-on experience in solutioning SaaS products for Offline and online retail, plus launching an Amazon-exclusive brand in the US market

Logesh is now building ProfitStory.AI, a RaaS (Result as a Service) company dedicated to providing targeted recommendations for Amazon FBA Sellers to improve their revenue and profitability.

Hear some deeply personal and highly emotional stories of courage from Logesh.

Varun Gera is the Founder & CEO of HealthAssure, a leading company in India at the confluence of HealthTech and FinTech.

Gera founded HealthAssure in 2011 to and over the last 11 years the Company has build the largest ecosystem of primary care delivery across 6,500 medical centers in 1200 cities and serviced 3 million customers.

Over the years, many lines of business verticals are built on HealthAssure’s rich Medical Network;Insurance Underwriting, Corporate Benefits and first in market OPD Insurance.

HealthAssure services most Insurers and many large Corporates in the marketlike Niva Bupa, Cigna, ICICI Prudential, Birla Sun Life, HDFC Life, SBI Life, etc.and corporates like GE, Deloitte, Loreal, Deutsche Bank, Yahoo, Marsh, etc.

Prior to becoming Entrepreneur, he was the India CEO for UnitedHealthcare, a Fortune 10 Company.

Previously, Varun has worked with other MNCs like E&Y, GE Money and ICICI Bank.

He graduated from University of Notre Dame, U.S.A. with an MBA and has Bachelors in Economics, Honors from Delhi University, India.

Chinmoy Mishra is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of HooLiv, one of India’s leading student housing ventures.

Prior to HooLiv, Chinmoy founded AllizHealth, a preventive health venture and was instrumental in taking it from an idea through execution and eventually to a successful exit.

Apart from being an entrepreneur, Chinmoy has over 22 years of professional experience having worked with leading organisations such as AETNA US Healthcare and Infosys Technologies.

Chinmoy mentors several start-ups and loves to shares his experience at various start up events and conferences.

He has a MBA from the prestigious Babson College, Boston, where he was awarded with the Rising Star Alumni award, Global Student leadership award and a Babson fellowship.

Chinmoy loves to cook and if not been an entrepreneur, he would have definitely tried his hands at being a chef."

The Guest for this special episode is Akshay Chaturvedi

Akshay founded Leverage.biz (that today operates flagships Leverage Edu, Fly Finance & Fly Homes) in early 2017, which today is the leading platform in India for student who want to study abroad.

Akshay was listed on the Forbes India’s 30Under30 list, and then subsequently on the Forbes Asia’s30Under30 list, both in early 2020. He became a CNBC Young Turk, named eponymously after India’s top business/ entrepreneurship show, in 2019. Later that year, he also won the TiE EntrepreneurialExcellence Award.

Under Akshay’s leadership, Leverage was listed on the reputed Deloitte Tech Fast 50 list in 2022 as one of the “50 fastest growing companies” in the country.

Alumni of the prestigious Indian School of Business, Akshay was part of the core team at Babajobs before starting Leverage.

Hear some never-shared-before stories of courage from Akshay.

#couragetalks #entrepreneurship #entrpruenerurialmindset #againstAllOdds

The Guest for this episode is Nishita Agarwal

Nishita is co-founder of Papa Pawsome and is a dog lover at heart. She has turned her love for dogs into her profession by founding Papa Pawsome, a celebrated and award-winning pet grooming brand that has garnered numerous accolades.

An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur with an MBA degree, she went on to work at Tata Motors in Business Marketing. In her career, she has worked with various brands like DB Corp Ltd., TCS Consultancy Services, Ogilvy & Mather.

Her passion for dogs and commitment to excellence makes Papa Pawsome a distinguished brand in the pet industry.

The Guest of this Episode is Vinay Singhal, the founder of India's largest regional OTT platform, STAGE.

Vinay had earlier founded the content platform WittyFeed, which went on to grow 200mn+ users, before being shut down overnight, in a tragic set of events.

If there was ever a collection of stories of coming back from wilderness and growing a second time, Vinay's story will surely be RIGHT UP THERE.

Coming from an extremely simple background, growing up in a village, son of an ordinary shopkeeper, Vinay does not have big dreams, but also taking lot of steps towards fulfilling many of them.

Hear some really heart wrenching and awe-inspiring stories of courage from Haryana da puttar, Vinay Singhal.

The Guest on this Episode is: Yashish Dahiya

Yashish is the CEO and Co-Founder of the insurance aggregator and global technology company, PolicyBazaar.

He co-founded the company in 2008 which altered paradigms in the insurance industry by shifting the power of information to end-users.Ten years since the company’s inception, it became the largest insurance aggregator in India and is valued at over US$1.65 billion.

Yashish Dahiya received a B.Tech. in Textile Technology from IIT Delhi in 1994, a PG Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad in 1996 and an MBA from INSEAD in 2001.

Mr. Dahiya is an avid sportsperson and is the Indian masters swimming champion and represents India at world masters swimming championships regularly.

He holds the 3rd fastest half ironman timing and the 5th fastest Ironman timings amongst Indians across all age groups and has the fastest timings in his age group.

Before starting his entrepreneurial journey with Policybazaar, Mr. Dahiya was the Managing Director of ebookers.com, a leading pan-European online travel distributor and worked as a strategy consultant with Bain & Co. in their London Office.

He exemplifies exceptional personal discipline and considers running and swimming as two of the biggest joys of his life. Despite being at the helm of one of the hottest enterprises in the country, he believes in frugal living because it helps him reduce clutter in his life.