Madhubalan Viswanathan, Professor of Marketing at Loyola Marymount University, has built a career by asking a question most mainstream marketing frameworks overlook. What do markets look like when consumers live under chronic scarcity?

Rather than focusing on affluent segments or high-growth categories, he immersed himself in low-income communities across countries, studying how individuals with limited financial, educational, and institutional endowments make everyday marketplace decisions. Out of this work emerged the concept of the Subsistence Marketplace, now recognised as a legitimate and growing subfield within marketing scholarship. It reframes people living in poverty not as passive beneficiaries, but as active economic participants navigating complex trade-offs.

Beyond theory, his work translates into practice. His marketplace literacy programs have reached tens of thousands of low-income entrepreneurs, especially women, equipping them with tools to price products, manage cash flows, evaluate risk, and negotiate with suppliers. The emphasis is not on charity. It is on capability building and decision-making power.

In this episode, Prof. Madhu speaks with Vidya about why he chose a path that diverges from the conventional metrics of academic success. He reflects on the structural constraints that shape the lives of those with low endowments. Limited access to formal education. Weak legal protections. Informal credit systems.

The conversation pushes further into what a meaningful opportunity really means. When policy, institutions, and intent align, markets can become vehicles for dignity and upward mobility. When they do not, they can reinforce vulnerability. His perspective challenges both scholars and policymakers to rethink how inclusion is designed, measured, and sustained.

As Professor of Strategy and Innovation at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, and having completed a term as its Director, Rishikesh Krishnan has observed institutions from both the classroom and the corner office. That dual vantage point shapes how he thinks about leadership, innovation, and access.

Through influential works like From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation and the award winning 8 Steps to Innovation: Going from Jugaad to Excellence, he argues that improvisation alone cannot power a nation’s ambitions. Systems, processes, and culture have to evolve together.

In this episode, he reflects on his own journey through academia and public leadership, asking which of the “Es” truly matter. Is it early environment. Is it education. Is it exposure to ideas and mentors. Or is it the ecosystem that rewards certain kinds of risk taking.

He also examines the responsibility of institutions. How do business schools design admissions, pedagogy, research priorities, and faculty incentives so that opportunity is broadened rather than concentrated. What does it take to move from pockets of excellence to widespread capability.

His conversation with Vidya is thoughtful and unsentimental. It recognises structural constraints, yet insists that institutions can choose to redesign themselves. Not with slogans, but with deliberate shifts that expand who gets to participate, lead, and innovate.

From a small town in interior Tamil Nadu to leading one of India’s key payment infrastructure platforms, Vasanth Emmanuel Jeyapaul’s journey cuts across worlds that rarely overlap. Today, as CEO of CAMSPay, the payments arm of Computer Age Management Services, he operates at the core of India’s financial plumbing, enabling digital transactions for mutual funds and financial institutions at scale. But his beginnings were far removed from fintech corridors.

A science graduate who first moved into the media sector, Vasanth built his career step by step, learning to adapt across industries before stepping into technology and digital payments. In this episode, he reflects on what those transitions demanded. New skills. New networks. New mindsets.

Through the lens of the 5 Es, he unpacks how early environment, education, exposure, effort, and enabling institutions shaped his trajectory. He speaks about the discipline required to move from regional beginnings to national leadership roles, and the quiet confidence it takes to reinvent yourself more than once.

His conversation with Vidya is ultimately about mobility. Not just economic mobility, but intellectual and professional mobility. About how backgrounds do not have to dictate ceilings. And how India’s expanding digital ecosystem is creating pathways that did not exist a generation ago.

From early schooling in Bihar to leading boardrooms across India, Mitu Samar Jha’s journey is built on deliberate choices, not chance.

As Founder and CEO of Eminence Strategy Consulting, she works at the intersection of reputation, leadership, and long-term credibility. Before that, she held senior roles at CRISIL, Aditya Birla Capital, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, and The Great Eastern Shipping Company, shaping communication and strategy at scale.

In this episode, she speaks candidly about growing up in one of India’s most economically challenged states and navigating institutions that were not always designed for women from modest beginnings. She reflects on how access, language, confidence, and networks quietly determine who advances and who stalls.

Through her work with the CII Western Region Women Network’s 100 Hours of Change initiative, mentoring over 150 women and young professionals, she has seen firsthand how small interventions compound over time.

Her conversation with Vidya makes one point clear. Self-determination is not motivational jargon. It is a long game. And when paired with discipline and opportunity, it can rewrite where you start and where you finish.

In this episode, Vidya speaks with Sirisha Bhamidipati, a Fulbright Scholar, IIM Ahmedabad alum, and Carnegie Mellon University fellow, whose work sits at the intersection of strategy, systems, and inclusion. Sirisha is also the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Align By Design, where she helps organisations think more intentionally about culture, purpose, and how design choices shape behaviour.

At the age of 13, Sirisha was paralysed from the neck down. What followed was not just a personal journey of recovery and resilience, but a gradual awakening to how deeply exclusion is built into everyday systems. As she navigated education, public spaces, and professional life, she experienced first-hand how accessibility is often treated as an afterthought rather than a foundational principle.

In this conversation, Sirisha reflects on growing up with parents who believed fiercely in possibility, the role that access to world-class education played in reshaping her future, and how these experiences informed her advocacy for disability inclusion. She makes a clear and compelling case for viewing accessibility as essential infrastructure, not charity, and for designing inclusion into systems from the start, rather than adding it on later.

What emerges is not just a story of personal grit, but a broader reflection on how societies choose who they make room for, and what it truly means to design for dignity.