A deep conversation with Sumeet Mehta, co-founder and CEO of LEAD group, India's largest school Edtech company with a current valuation of INR 10,000 crores! Sumeet's mission is to make excellent education accessible to every child, by transforming schools across India.

Born in Pathankot to teacher parents, Sumeet learnt innovation in education early on when his father used to teach him fractions on the dining table using a Roti. Sumeet went to Punjab Engineering college for a degree in electrical engineering, where he had his first tryst with exclusion and realization that one needs to help themselves as no one else will. He then went onto IIM-A where he really found his niche.

Sumeet started working with P&G and spent a considerable amount with the company but in 2005 took a sabbatical and travelled to India to focus and find his inner calling. During this 6 months, he tried out different things and realized that education space is the most rewarding for his ethics compass. In 2007, he quit his job full time and moved to India to dive head first into the education ecosystem. From 2007-2012 he was the CEO of the Zee Learning group. In 2012, he decided to take a break again and found his true calling during a 10 day Vipassana which helped him clear his blind spots. Soon after he started LEAD with his co-founder Smita Deorah.

According to Sumeet, the path to becoming a founder needs to go through the following-

a. To be a founder, one needs to care about a problem and persist with it. Persistence defines if one cares about that problem deeply;

b. As a founder, one needs to be open to feedback as that is the only way to continual growth and creating a worthy product;

c. As a founder, it is imperative to always surround oneself with people who care about the same problem.

Sumeet is a believer in, no failure is final, that failure is just an event and failure doesn’t define anyone. Listen in to this unique story of a humble founder.