Short Takes: Growing a Family and a Business

Grit & Growth

Meet Sakshi Kapahi, head of Omam Consultants, an HR consultancy in India, and a mother on a mission to balance home and work life for herself and her employees. Hear about Kapahi’s journey — the hurdles and highlights — as she grew both her family and the business her father started over 40 years ago.

In India, a country where only 14 percent of entrepreneurs are women, Sakshi Kapahi has had to grapple with all the familiar obstacles that working mothers face … and then some. “You always get these questions, right? Oh, you must be working for your husband. Or you must be building this for your father or your husband. They assume there has to be a male member that will come through later,” she recounts. Having enough time for kids and business, what she calls “her two babies,” is a constant struggle.

Kapahi says that building both a personal and professional support system is critical to juggling priorities and managing feelings of guilt. “One thing I'm still working on is you have to be kind to yourself as a woman, which is what we don't do. There's always guilt that I missed something for the team, in the office, at home. Everyone keeps saying ‘be kind to yourself,’ but nobody tells you how,” she says. Finding a female mentor with kids was incredibly helpful for Kapahi, and she strives to provide that kind of support for her employees as well, 70 percent of whom are women.

Hear how Kapahi is tackling motherhood and entrepreneurship while growing a company that does the same for other women.

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