Darren [00:00:01]:

Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of One of One. I’m your host, Darren Gold, CEO of the Trium Group. Last year, Trium announced a bold new initiative to coach Pro bono the CEOs of 100 nonprofit organizations over the next decade. At the end of this year, we will be wrapping up our first cohort of 10 incredible CEOs. Today’s conversation is with one of those leaders, Vishal Ghotge, the CEO of Kiva.org, over the past 20 years, Kiva’s platform has crowdfunded over $2.4 billion in interest free microloans to over 5 million entrepreneurs around the world with a 96% repayment rate. In this episode we hear about Vishal’s origins. Growing up in Mumbai, then coming to the US for his graduate education, holding product roles at Microsoft, Groupon, Payscale and Remitly, and ultimately paving the way for his first CEO role at Kiva. We touch on the impact of Vishal’s deep meditation practice, his belief that growth at Kiva is a moral obligation, his commitment to ongoing self awareness, and the touching stories of entrepreneurs whose lives and communities have been transformed by the organization he leads. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Vishal as much as I did. 

 

Vishal, it’s so wonderful to see you. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for some time and I’m really glad that you’re here and really appreciate your time.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:01:29]:

Likewise, Darren. I’ve been looking forward to the conversation as well.

 

Darren [00:01:32]:

Yeah, so I thought you have really incredible background and I think it ties into this extraordinary organization, Kiva, that you’re now leading and have been leading for I think almost three years. Can we go back and I believe you were born in Mumbai and bring the audience into who you are, your childhood, your career that followed that and bring us to the present day, if that’s possible.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:01:56]:

Yeah, I’ll be glad to. You know, sometimes you think your career, your life is moving in random directions and it’s after a while when you look back and you say, oh, this all made sense. And you know, when I if the present day moment, I genuinely feel how I see the thread of connection what brought me to Kiva. So yeah, as you said, I was born and brought up in Mumbai and spent my childhood right up to my undergraduate years in Mumbai and growing up. I think the couple of things that have always stayed with me are my family values. Part of it was really about education and learning. So deep. That’s a thread that continued throughout my life and a big Portion of that was the person I consider one of my role models is my grandfather. And he had a big influence on my life and my career. And he was a social entrepreneur in Mumbai, and his passion was education, and he was a teacher. And then he started a whole bunch of nonprofit schools in Mumbai to help educate the underprivileged. And his mission was to uplift people out of poverty through education. And so I had seen how he had spent his life, and his life, it felt like a life that was well lived. There was purpose, there was mission, and he had a smile on his face. He passed away in his 90s. Until the day he died, he was working, but it was just. There was a. There was a purpose and mission. And I love philosophy. And one of the core Indian parts of Indian philosophy, there’s a thing called Karma Yoga, which means, you know, selfless action. And you do things with a detached, like a detachment of the outcome. You do things because the thing itself matters, and you put yourself into that service. And I saw him live those ideals, and it’s something that I’ve always felt like that’s what I want to get to. So, anyway, that was an influence, and I didn’t realize how much it would impact the path of my career. Anyway, so education was like a key thing. And so I did my engineering in India and then came to the US to do my postgrad studies. And I’ve always been a builder. I love building things. So engineering was a natural choice. However, when I did my computer science, computer engineering, and my first job out of college was at Microsoft. And although I loved engineering, I knew I was not the best coder. And I don’t think I would have cut it out as with all the other impressive peers I had as a pure engineer. And I found this, like, when I interned at Microsoft. Oh, we’re doing this new thing called program management, product management. It was quite new at that time, back in 2000s, I said, let’s try this out. And I absolutely loved when I was interned as a PM at Microsoft. This is the thing. I get to talk to customers. I got to figure out what to build. And then I worked with engineers, really smart people, and actually build this thing. It’s like, I didn’t know this existed and this is it. And I was like, I honestly don’t know what I would have done if it were not for the PM path. It felt like this is meant for me, and I really enjoyed it. And so that’s how I started Microsoft, you know, started as a PM and it’s interesting I ask you just a.

 

Darren [00:05:28]:

Little bit about that. We’ll come right back to this. But like, you know, anybody in tech right now takes this sort of the product management role as sort of a given. And you’re pointing to sort of the creation of that category just a little bit more about like, what was that? Like the emerging nature of product management. And lucky for you, you were in the right place at the right time.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:05:46]:

Yeah, it was very early days that. I mean, PM was still a decently established discipline at that time at Microsoft, but still very, very nascent. And they were still trying to figure out what do PMs do. And so it was at that time a very, I would say an amorphous role. Especially at Microsoft, it was even more different. There were within Microsoft different kinds of PMs. Like, some PMs were very internally focused, some PMs were more technical PMs and you know, trying to figure out how to. They were really engineers, but they were better at communication skills and were trying to figure out how to do cross group work. And then there were PMs who were really focused on working with customers and figuring out what to do, how, what to build. And the discipline kept evolving. Even my role, I started much more as a technical PM and then moved on to becoming much more customer focused, business focused. And, you know, that grew. And I think the PM track itself has matured over years. So I would say back when I joined, it was very, very amorphous. And I loved it because it was amorphous. You could like do a little bit of everything. And that’s the kind of, you know, that’s the kind of gigs I love where you can do a little bit of everything. You’re not like stereotyped into one thing. And so PM was just fantastic for me.

 

Darren [00:07:00]:

Great. Okay, so continue with the part of your Microsoft journey.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:07:03]:

Yeah, I’ll tell you, Microsoft. Like the thing I remember was I started in the Windows, like hardcore Windows group at Microsoft. And I think second manager I had at Microsoft was the person whose textbook I studied at grad school. So I’m working with people who are in the history books. Like, I’m literally down the hall from Dave Cutler, who’s like the father of Windows nt. And it’s like these people walk on water and I am right here, fresh out of school, getting to work with all of these people who are just amazing. And so I think it really felt like being able to work and not just felt like I think I did get to work with. I think some of the smartest people on the planet. And it’s just, it’s a very different experience when you know that there are people who are smart, like they’ve done really thoughtful, intelligent work and you can get to learn with them like side by side as peers. Right? And that’s just, that’s phenomenal, like somebody coming out of school. And so I really enjoyed that. And you know, Microsoft had this thing of like, I just was thrown in the deep end of a lot of things. I remember six or seven months into starting my job at File Systems in Microsoft, they sent me to Japan to represent Microsoft in some consortium and I was representing Microsoft, I said, why? What are you doing sending a kid over there representing Microsoft? And but I, you know, I like Richard Feynman, I love his books. And you know, some place there was a quote in his book, I’m paraphrasing it, killing it, where he said, hey, if someone’s going to pay me to do something, what the hell do I have to worry about? I’m just going to do my best. And that’s it. Like they, if they think I can do this job, then I’ll just, I’ll do my best. And so, you know, that’s the attitude I take. Okay, I’ll just go do my best and say, you know, I got thrown in a deep end in a bunch of places and learned to swim that way and it was great. I think one thing I feel I learned at Microsoft was really building complex software at scale. And it is underappreciated how hard that is. Right? And you’re talking about the software we build apps and this whole bunch of user mode software that’s built and it’s hard in its nature to figure out what the customer need is how to build it. But when you’re talking about system software, it has its own massive complexity because you’re building something on which other things are built, right? And so you’re building the foundations and those are hard to build. And so building that at scale in the right way, it’s just complex and you know, thousands of engineers working on something that you have to coordinate. So it’s a different kind of art and skill that Microsoft and other like many other large organizations have mastered. But it’s hard. And so I think I took that away just working with smart people and then also building things at scale that impact billions of people. So it’s fun, Fun journey 

 

Darren: And you were at Microsoft for how long? 

 

Vishal: I was Microsoft for 12 years and it was great. I loved a lot. I learned A lot. But in many ways, Microsoft felt like, at least for me, for better or worse, when I look back, it felt like I’m still in school. In some ways you’re kind of in a protected environment. In some ways you can fail, but I think you can fail only so much because there are layers of protection around you. And you’re also. You can be isolated in the. Like, you build a product and build a damn good product and you know how to build products, but then you throw it over the wall and then somebody goes, sells it, things happen. Like it just happens. I built this and just get. It got marketed. It just worked. And. But you don’t see the machinery at all because it’s so massive. And you know, going back to the learning thing, like, one of the things that I felt like, I just felt I want to see more of how things get done and, and I want to experience it much more. And so in as much as I loved it, I said I just need to continue my learning journey. And I found Groupon. I think it was the most incredible place I could have landed at. I know people at Microsoft at that time said, wait, you’re going from building Windows and Windows Phone to Groupon? Like, what’s the connection? I think what I want to do is learn how messy things are outside. In some ways, real world works. I’m going from school to on the street. And really some ways, not really, but that’s what it felt like because Groupon was this massive E commerce marketplace. When I joined, it had already scaled quite a lot still, I won’t say very early days, but still hadn’t completely matured either. So it was like lots of messiness and you were right there in the business and you could again dip your fingers anywhere. Not just in the product, in the business, in the marketing. And it was really exactly the kind of experience I think I needed. Again, bringing my product experience, but then learning so much about how things actually work in the real world. And so it was fantastic experience. I love, you know, I had lots of my lots of career highs and lots of lows and it was a great experience at Groupon. Learned. I think I learned more about how to build consumer products at Groupon than anywhere else because I was surrounded with really wonderful designers, product managers, who knew this is now the art and science of building good consumer products. And I really learned that in my five years at Groupon. It was wonderful. Yeah.

 

Darren [00:12:22]:

And from there, where did you go from there?

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:12:26]:

My next place in the learning journey was an organization called PayScale. It’s again a great mission driven organization, helping people understand how much they should get paid and you know, solving that problem, both for employers as well as employees. And apart from being able to like do the product definition, everything, this was my first C level job. So I was reporting to the CEO and I got to witness a bunch of things that are beyond just building products and beyond just running business. It’s working with a board. It was a private equity owned company. So like how does that work? We did a massive M and A with our closest competitor. I got to like, oh, this is how it works. And I saw what goes well and what doesn’t go well and again, the highs and lows of what that means and the implications on people. So it’s just again a fascinating learning journey of building the strategy and vision and product for the entire organization and then actually getting to see the inner workings of how things work at the board level, how things work with investors and like, so this whole bunch of wonderful, again learning, like lots of growth. So that was a fabulous experience. And then from there I went to a company called Remitly. Remitly is probably a really, really meaningful part of the journey that really helped me become the CEO that I think is needed for Kiva because Remitly is a genuinely, authentically mission driven organization. For those who may not know Remitly, it enables immigrants to send money back home. So cross border remittances. That’s what Remitly does, but it does it in a way. It’s now massively scaled company. Matt Oppenheimer, who’s the CEO, a really good friend and mentor. What he showed me over there while I was at Remitly was how running a really good business and keeping things mission oriented and customer centric are not at odds. In fact, how they fuel each other and how it stayed consistent even though the company has gone through a massive scaling, how that continues to be a core of the company. So again, fabulous experience. I got to be a unique experience of being a part of exec team that took a company public. So I got to be at NASDAQ when we were listed and got to ring the opening bell. Oh my God, what an experience. So that was lots of learning over there, lots of fun. And after that I took a break. I took a sabbatical. So it was 20 years of work. And it’s like before I do anything new, I just need to take a break. And I think that probably was a really meaningful part of the journey as well. We can spend an entire episode talking about meditation and mindfulness, which is what I gained at that break. It’s been a transformative experience for me and actually helped me a lot in my leadership journey. And I took that break. Then came Kiva. So.

 

Darren [00:15:22]:

But yeah, let’s definitely come back to that, because I want to both meditation and mindfulness, how important that is to you and your leadership, but also how to use a sabbatical wisely and just your experience with it in general. Right. A break from. So we can come back to that. But I do want to. I do want to get to Kiva. I’m sure people listening are eager because they’ve either heard of it or they’ve contribute to an entrepreneur or. And by the way, I’m definitely seeing the threads between your grandfather’s story and this tremendous two decades of career. It’s starting to become much clearer why you’re the perfect CEO for Kiva and why you chose it. But tell us a little bit about that decision and then also introduce the company to us.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:16:09]:

Great. Yeah. I was on my break and then finally decided, okay, I need to get, like, I need to work again. And as they say, good things happen incrementally and great things happen all at once. And this felt like that. I got a call from the Kiva, the executive recruiter at the board, and they said, hey, we’re looking for the next CEO for Kiva. I said, I know what Kiva is. Why are you talking to me? I mean, I’ve never been a CEO before. I don’t have nonprofit experience. Why are you talking to me? And then they explained more about what Kiva was. And I mean, it’s really, we’ll talk more, but it’s a fintech company that is nonprofit. And, you know, when I looked at it, felt, oh, I’ve been on a 20 year internship for this job. Because what they’re looking for, they said, you know, we need somebody who understands fintech, understands marketplaces, can build software at scale, and is mission driven. And I said, check, check, check, check. And this brings me back to what I’ve always wanted to kind of be at for following the footprints of my grandfather. And you must be aware of the Japanese concept of ikigai, of, you know, I really felt like this is the place where my passion, what I’m good at, what I can get paid for and what the world needs all combined. And I’m at the center of that Venn diagram. And I genuinely feel, I don’t think everybody gets to experience that in their career. And I am just so grateful that it’s like, this is it, this is it. Like, when you see that there is no saying no, if you want to have me, then I am here. And so thankfully they said yes, and here I am. And I’ve always felt that it’s been three years and there’s been ups and downs, lots of things that I still question about, like lots of insecurities and everything, but I have never felt like this is not the right place for me. And it’s just been great.

 

Darren [00:18:03]:

Yeah. Well, congratulations.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:18:05]:

Thank you, thank you.

 

Darren [00:18:06]:

It’s great for you. It’s great for the organization when that happens. So for those that aren’t really aware of Kiva, tell us, what is kiva?

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:18:13]:

Yeah, so Kiva is a. Kiva is a nonprofit organization. And our core belief is the big problems we see in the world are not really unsolved, they’re merely unfunded. And what we believe is like, if we can get capital in the hands of the people who are. And when I say people as like, entrepreneurs, low income entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of these crises, we can solve these problems if we invest in their livelihoods. And when I mean low income entrepreneurs, I’m talking about farmers. A farmer in Kenya, a fisherman in Philippines, a refugee in Jordan. These people know how to solve their own problems. They just need access to capital. They need a $500 to buy seeds for their farm, or they need $600 to buy a new boat or a few dollars to get supplies into their store. They know how to run a store, they know how to make a profit, but they don’t have access to that capital. And if you can provide access to that capital, they can succeed and they can solve their own problems. And through that, more systemic problems can get solved. And so we make access to that capital happen. And the way we make that happen is through crowdfunding. So it’s people like you, me, putting 25, 50, $100 and providing that access to capital to that farmer, that fisherman, that store owner, that refugee. And not as charity, as an investment, as a capital that they will repay, and they do repay when they’re done, that you can then give to somebody else, or rather lend to somebody else. And so that’s really the concept of how KIVA works. So if you go to www.kiva.org, you will see profiles of thousands of entrepreneurs across the world in 80 different countries. And they will have listed their. These are real people will have their real need for what they’re going to use the money for you can read that up and then you can say, oh, I relate to this person or I want to invest in this person’s livelihood. And here’s my 25, here’s my 50, $100. We crowdfund pool that, make a loan happen to that person through a partner in that country and again, when they are done, the money comes back, flows back to you. And we’ve been operating now for 20 years. This is the 20th year of Kiva and we have made $2.4 billion in loans over these 20 years, reaching over five, close to five and a half million people. And through that period, our repayment rate from these low income entrepreneurs has been 96%. So $0.96 on the dollar comes back, which is just phenomenal when you’re talking about the kind of adversity most of these people are facing and the access to education or access to resources that they might have. And the money comes back and it keeps failing. So that’s what Kiva does.

 

Darren [00:21:08]:

Incredible organization. I’ve been on your platform, it’s incredibly easy to use and very dynamic. You came on board, the company had been in existence for 17 years. I’m always curious and certainly curious here. What did you see, what did you love and what was the vision for the kind of imprint that you wanted to put on the business over the next three, five, ten years? And where are you today in that, in that vision?

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:21:35]:

Yeah, a great question. I mean, once you come in. Firstly, for such an incredible organization that’s been around for a long time, I think at least my. I wouldn’t say, I won’t give any advice, but I think my approach was first, I just want to learn and know. And because there’s always a perception you have of how things work and then there’s reality and there is a firsthand lived experience that you need to gain before you can do anything. So you need the organization to change you before you can change the organization or the impact. So I think my first period was just meeting people, learning and helping understand. I’m honestly still on that learning journey. Just still every day I learn something new. But at least the first several months was just learning. Listening to so many stakeholders across, but mostly the two main parts of our organization, which is the entrepreneurs, the borrowers who we are in service of, and then our supporters, our lenders who are putting their capital onto the platform. So listening to them, hearing from them, and again, just being inspired. Like it’s just so inspirational. Every story is inspirational. And also visiting people where they are and Seeing it firsthand is just so much, so much so different and it changes you, changes your perception. So that’s what the first, I would say first phase was trying to understand and then really trying to have my bring my opinions, my values, what I see we need to do into bear and like, and then mixing the two and saying, and laying down the vision of where we need to go over the next decade or so. So that’s what I did. I think where we are headed towards one thing is very clear. Like, the impact is absolutely evident. Clear and there’s impact, a lot of impact has happened. But there’s also clear, like, there is so much more need. Like, it’s like it literally is the tip of the iceberg. We know it works. We know it transforms people and societies. We know that’s a way we can solve some massive problems in the world. And so it’s our, I call it our moral imperative to be able to do more. Like, why should it not be 10x more? If I are reaching 5 million people, why can’t we reach 50 million people? And on the same side, I know whenever I talk to people, they feel, oh, this is great, this I, I think this concept makes sense. And then I asked the question, why is it that there are about half a million people on KIVA on an annual basis who are lending just phenomenal. But why is it not 5 million, why is it not 50 million? Like, what is the unlock that gets me to 10x more people? And here the growth is just. Growth is because the scale of problems we need to solve is so high that growth is, I would say, a moral imperative for us. And so that’s the problem, honestly, we are trying to solve. It works. How do we get more people onto the platform? How do we support more people in solving their own problems?

 

Darren [00:24:34]:

Any theories that have come up or any sort of vision for unlocking that?

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:24:40]:

Yes, I mean all of these are hypothesis and that we are playing through. As you know, it’s all about what do you think works? And keep experimenting. But one of the things is we have an internal vision that we have four pillars that we are working on it. The first one is what I call reframe, which is when Kiva started, there was this movement around microfinance where people really like Mohammed Yunus, who’s the father of microfinance, won the Nobel Prize at that time. And so everybody was there, people knew it. And as things go up and down and different concepts come in, it’s not the same as it was back in 2005, where you could walk on the streets and people would know, oh, I know what microfinance means. I know Muhammad Yunus. And so, however, what I see is the microfinance, or the way we are investing in the livelihoods of people, not only solves their individual problems, it actually helps us solve systemic issues. Right. When you talk about not just poverty, but we talk about things like impacts of climate change, impacts of human displacement, gender inequality, all of those get solved when you invest in people’s livelihoods. And one of the things we are doing is reframing and start talking about, if you care about climate change and you feel that’s a big, enormous problem, how do I contribute towards it? The solution is, you don’t have to feel paralyzed by it, but you can help this farmer who is trying to buy a biodigester, help him get that biodigester. That’s the way you can actually meaningfully solve the impacts of climate change. You care about gender inequality. You help this woman who’s trying to put her daughter in school capital so she can start that shop that allows her to do that. That’s how you solve gender inequality. You care about displacement, you care about refugees. You help this tailor who’s come from Syria, in Jordan, knows how to start a tailoring business but doesn’t have access to capital, Help him start his business. That’s how you solve displacement problems. So I think each of these can be connected to a real person. And you can, like, you can solve these big, what might otherwise feel like massive hard problems. Juggernauts. You can actually make a dent by taking the first step, taking a small step, and having a meaningful impact on an individual person’s life. So that’s one part is like, how do we reframe what you’re doing so that it connects authentically to the problems people see today?

 

Darren [00:27:18]:

Yeah, I think these big systemic problems can feel overwhelming, and you feel paralyzed by it. So it’s a really powerful reframe. You said there were some other things that are in the works.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:27:30]:

Yes. Other is how do we. What we call amplify, which is there are lots of people on Kiva who have told me, like, hey, I love Kiva and I contribute towards it, but I would love to bring others onto Kiva as well. And it sometimes can be challenging to help somebody else understand what this concept is. So we are making it easier for advocates on Kiva to be able to bring others onto Kiva through creating their own, what we call giving circles, giving funds, so you can say I care about this cause and I’m starting this giving fund on my own. Join me in it. So your task is less about understanding some deep mechanics of things, but join me in doing that. So we’re helping our people who believe in Kiva and are sold on. This is the way to transform change, to actually bring others on in an easy way and not just spread the word, but also actually bring more dollars onto the system, which is what we can help spread out. So that’s like guiding and amplifying, guiding people so that they can amplify their personal impact and make it even bigger. That’s the second part. And third is what we call scale, which is we’ve had a really interesting part of our business which is working with corporates and working with organizations, bring their employees and their stakeholders onto kiva. So we’ve run really successful campaigns with organizations like Visa and Bank of America, remitly Zora, whole bunch of organizations want to work with us and they, they can serve a really great dual purpose of not just doing good in the world, but engaging their employees in a meaningful way. When we work with Visa has been one of our long standing partners. And when they run a Kiva program within Visa, their employee participation rates are as high as like 82%. 80. 80% of the people at Visa make a loan to somebody on, on Kiva through their organization. So it just helps spread much more awareness and helps the organization do a dual purpose of doing good, but also engaging their employees. And that’s something that we are investing in and really building a platform where organizations can come in and use it like as a B2B SaaS software and say, oh, I want to do this. How do I deploy this in my organization, put dollars and engage my employees. So kind of scale it for wider impact. So those are the things that we are working on, investing in, which continues the same ethos of how do we get individuals helping individuals and changing the world.

 

Darren [00:30:06]:

I’d love to talk a little bit about your leadership, your leadership philosophy, how you found these first three years as CEO. It’s your first role as a CEO. Tell us a little bit about what you found and what you’re discovering about your own leadership philosophy and maybe some things that are unique, unique to the way you lead. In particular.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:30:27]:

I would say I’m still discovering and it’s like it’s a journey to use the cliche, but I found the role to be, again, just talking personally to be quite revealing of who you truly are. And I think the only way you can meaningfully be a successful CEO? Whatever success means with successful CEO is by first truly understanding who you are, what your values are and then authentically being that person. Because otherwise it’s just, I find it really hard to. I’ve tried to like emulating somebody else or it’s just hard. I think you need to bring your true self as much as possible that like, that lets you be the best CEO you can be by being as authentic as you can. So I think one of the things that I’ve found and which is it goes back to my time in my sabbatical is like truly spending the time to be self aware and understand what your true values are. How do you want to show up? I think that is really, really important to being a good CEO. I think so from a leadership philosophy perspective, I think there’s some simple things I just believe, firstly, just be a good person. I think it’s underrated just being hard to define that. But you know what good is and just be good. You can treat people nicely. There is, you know, if you’re making hard decisions, you can still do it with being gracious and dignified. So I think just be nice. It’s like, it’s one of my mantras is just be nice. I would say the second one would be I think it is a. The journey is the destination. And that’s what I believe, to be honest. Like, I think there are massive problems we are trying to solve, but are we not going to solve all of them? Right? It’s not like it’s ended, it’s like, oh, we solved the world’s problems. It’s done. It’s not. There are going to be new problems. It is. So I want to make sure that we, myself, as organization, everyone, the people involved, can all enjoy and celebrate the journey itself, the hard and the good moments, and not wait for like, oh, there is this thing, that’s this goal that we’ve set and when we reach that goal is the time when we’ve achieved because you know, there’ll be another goal and there’ll be something more. And even, even for whether it’s like material possessions and stuff we’re talking about or even these aspirational goals in service of something, there’s still always going to be more. And I think so making sure that you are on this journey, I think that is a key thing that I try. It’s hard sometimes, like it’s really hard. But I think it’s important to take a moment and pause and make sure that you are Truly enjoying the journey. I think that’s a philosophy that I bring in. And then I think probably what I mentioned earlier is like being able to be genuinely authentic, vulnerable and bringing your true self as much as possible. It’s hard being, especially being a CEO, that you have to balance that. I can’t go and tell my team like, oh, I have no idea what we’re doing here. But there are times when you will have adults and being able to being authentic and connecting with people. So that’s, I think how you build trust. And that to me is important as a part of being a good CEO is just building that trust with your organization. And that comes through being authentically vulnerable, which I think has been a part of how I’ve tried to lead.

 

Darren [00:33:52]:

Yes. And any particular aspect of the role that’s been challenging for you or maybe to ask it differently as you think about your next chapter of growth as a CEO, what would you point to? Like, what is the next evolution of Vishal?

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:34:07]:

I think it is, it’s still getting to know myself better. I find my biggest obstacles are when I have doubts, I have fears I have. I avoid doing the things that I feel need to be done. And those are all, in many ways they’re not real and they are things that are imagined. And I need to spend time to continue to understand myself better. And then if I can solve the problems or issues that I have in my progress, I think that is what I feel I can bring the best to the organization because often I do a bunch of writing and thinking about it always comes down to, oh, I didn’t do this because I was afraid of something. It’s like, why were you afraid of something? And it always is something that you are imagining, which is not true. And you need to get to the core of that. So that’s. I would, if I had time to spare, I would spend it honestly being selfish on myself and understanding myself better and getting the core of some of these things because I think that’s how I can bring the best of myself.

 

Darren [00:35:15]:

Yeah, thanks for sharing all of that. There are a couple of things that come to mind. I’m just going to throw them out there to get a reaction from you. One is a deep philosophy of mine and our firm Trium, which is a company’s a perfect reflection of its CEO. And as you talked about what is the unlock to get to 10x lenders entrepreneurs on the platform? My instinct always goes to it’s something about the CEO. And that is not a criticism, that’s a Pointing to the highest point of leverage in an organization. So I’m tying to what you just shared. It’s like what are the things that are getting in the way of, of unlocking myself? Because I can’t unlock a company if I’m not unlocking myself. So does that resonate for you?

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:35:59]:

100%. 100%. And you had earlier asked what are the things that you find challenging or you’ve discovered. It is interesting. We all self critical. You always look at what are the things I could have done better. But as a CEO especially anything that goes wrong, I can find a direct thread of that towards me this happened and if I had done this, this could have happened. And there’s always a direct threat. And you have to learn to both be self aware of that, but also not let that be a reflection of that means I am bad or I’m not a good CEO. But it is 100% true as a CEO that you can always draw that thread. Then being able to figure out like okay, if this really matters, if there’s something I need to change, then what do I need to change in myself so that I can make the these changes. And so that I find is a unique aspect of the CEO role where it does tie to you and it is important. Yeah. And especially as a CEO of a nonprofit, a charity like nonprofit where we are fundraising, it is even more evident. I mean this is one of the revelations I’m just realizing is how much they never told me about this when I was talking about the job as well is how much people will look to spend talking about donors and lenders or took to not just what the organization does, the impact, but who I am. And it was just surprising to me. It’s like, oh, it matters. At least in this. It may not matter as much in a for profit organization it might, but you know, the product is good, service is good. Sure makes sense. I think here it is both. Yeah, of course your impact needs to be. But what kind of person are you, Vishal? And it matters. And so I feel good that you know, I can authentically talk about with passion what we are doing and why I am here. And it helps but. But it increases in some ways the level of importance there is in me understanding my true self, my value so I can genuinely and authentically talk about it.

 

Darren [00:37:50]:

Yeah. This idea of like you’re the chief evangelist, you know, kind of popped in my mind which I think is very true for this kind of organization. Maybe this gets us back to your sabbatical because what We’ve just been in a conversation around is a lot of self reflection, self awareness, inner work. And I imagine there’s some tie there to how you spent your sabbatical. And we promise to go back to that, talk about that break because a lot of people have the good fortune or they land up, they land in a place of, of time. How did you think about using that period of time? How did you use it? And then, yeah, I’d love to. I think some of it will probably talk about your meditation practice.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:38:32]:

Yeah, I actually expressly did not want that to become like, this is my goal for the sabbatical. Like I’m going to walk the Pacific Crust Trail or I’m going, like, I, I mean it just becomes another thing which kind of like, yeah, that’s another. Like I didn’t want that. And I approached it with much more. Like, I’m just going to kind of be. I’m just going to be and just spend time with, doing the things that I enjoy doing and spend time on myself. I did not think that I would start and discover meditation, mindfulness in that time, but I ended up doing, which has been transformative. But I started initially which was with just, you know, three years ago and my kids were, I mean they’re still young, but they were even younger. It’s like, I want to spend time with my kids more. I just make the breakfast and lunch and drop them to school and pick them up and just be around or say more yes to things, which is somebody I haven’t met in a while would say, hey, Vishal, do you want to meet for coffee? And I would say yes, because I have the time. I can meet you. And so more yeses to things. Get back to things. Like, I used to play squash a lot and it just got dropped for like years. And they say, oh, I’m going to start playing squash again and just go in the middle of the day and play squash. And so I think not having any goals is being just truly trying to be was great. I initially thought whether I would. I did worry first, like, oh, am I going to feel like I need to go do something? And like, how much how would I. And I realized like I could actually do, I could, I could do this. Like, yeah, that’s fine. No, I need to go back and you know, actually earn money. That’s important. But I could, I could do this if. So I, it was, it was revelation for me personally. And then I really got into reading and like I always been interested in philosophy. I used to Read up a lot. And I went down the mindfulness meditation path, and it was absolutely transformative for me. I think that practice has been a cornerstone. I have a daily meditation practice and the impact of that on who I am as a person, who I am, I show up as a leader, has just been. I cannot understate how important it’s been for me. And I still feel I’m like, very early in the journey, if you will, and there’s so much more to do. But I think I’ve learned to pause, learn to be able to be present most of the times, maybe 50% of the times. And it just changes how you react and you build a relationship with your thoughts. And I think that is genuinely transformational because I think every moment we are with this person who won’t. Who will be there with us whether we want or not, talking things that. Whether we want to hear or not, and we just don’t know how to deal with this person. And I think meditation, mindfulness gives you this way of like, oh, what is your relationship with that thought? Should you not identify yourself with that thought, who you are? So there’s a. I think it’s a tool unlock that I wish everybody has access to. You know, who was it Blaise Pascal.

 

Darren [00:41:41]:

Had said, yeah, man sitting in a room by himself.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:41:44]:

Right. Like, most of the problems in the world is because man can’t sit in the room with himself. And I think if just people could do that, oh, my God, I think we could solve half the world’s problems. Yeah. So it was. I’m lucky also. I feel like it is a thing that I feel. It’s hard to tell, like, oh, do this. Like, you can’t. I think it is at the right time. It’s like, oh, this is. I get it. And it’s a realization that people need to have on their own in some ways. But I’m happy that I chanced upon it and then kept up with it and hope to keep with it for the rest of my life.

 

Darren [00:42:17]:

Yeah, I have a meditation practice of my own and understand for myself the impact it’s had. But for you, particularly in the role of CEO, practically speaking, where this capacity to have a different relationship with your mind, to create separation from thoughts, not over identify with them. Not that we’re necessarily doing it for benefit, but where does the benefit of that appear for you in your leadership?

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:42:43]:

I think mostly I’ll see what comes most to mind is I have had a lot of. We can go into an entire episode talking about it where, how much. I have associated my self worth to what I do at work and looked at every failure as my failure, like a work failure. I was like, that’s just mean. I am not good. And it’s not been healthy. Especially as a CEO, that can be extremely. If you don’t deal with it well, it can be mentally very challenging because as I mentioned, everything, every single thing that goes wrong can be a threat to you. And it is. And like you can like, if you start like associating your self worth with that, it’s not, it’s not a good journey. And it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be self aware or critical, like what needs to change. But being able to distance that, saying, oh, this is work, this is me. And having that, I’m observing this, creating that distance allows you to both be well and do the best you can do. When that association becomes all muddled and you say this is who I am, it just, it’s hard. And then you actually can’t do your best. So that distance, and I don’t think there was anything else other than meditation or mindfulness allowed me to create that distance. And the same thing with thoughts as well, which is like a thought, you can’t control your thoughts. Just something pops up and then if it pops up as a problem, then the only, only thing after that is solving that problem. And then you are solving that problem. But I think meditation was, mindfulness is the only tool which allows you to not solve that problem, not ignore that problem, but just observe the problem and create that distance and not identify. I think to me it’s, yeah, I don’t know how I could do what I need to do if I don’t create that distance separation. So yeah, that’s how it’s helped me as a person, but definitely as a leader because otherwise I would just be looking at every single thing that’s going wrong. And not that I don’t do it, I think, I mean, as I said, it’s probably 50% of the times I can be mindful. Probably 50% I’m not. And I still, oh sh. Why did I not do that? But then it allows me to then take a pause and say, no, no, no, let’s take a pause. And that is a way out, I would think.

 

Darren [00:45:06]:

Yeah, you mentioned the first few months and I’m sure you hear stories of entrepreneurs all the time and stay close to them. Is there one story in particular that comes to mind that you’d be willing to share to bring to life the magic that’s created Akiva.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:45:23]:

So many, so many. I can’t stop at one. It’s hard. But I’ll tell you. Let me tell you a couple. How about that?

 

Darren [00:45:32]:

Okay, great.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:45:33]:

The first one, I’ll tell you because this one is. It’s truly the epitome of ripple effects that can happen through, like, small, very small investments. So it’s a story of this amazing woman called Ferong Shadung. She is from Cambodia. And, you know, growing up, she was just any average girl, you know, growing up in large family, parents didn’t have a lot of resources. When she became of marriageable age, their parents said, like, that’s your next step. You gotta get married. And she’s like, no, I want to study. I want to do more. They said they’re supportive parents, but had no access to funds. Like, we can’t send you to school. Like, that’s our options. Either get married or, like, figure out how you’re going to go to school. Thankfully, she was able to get access to a $1,000 loan from our partner WEDU, that’s in Cambodia, through, I think 21 lenders lent that $1,000 loan. That loan was the reason why she could go attend her bachelor’s in Cambodia. After that, she went on to do her master’s in public policy and came back and became the executive director of an organization. It’s called Bante sri. It’s called Citadel for Women. That’s what it means. Which helps other women who are at risk, who are otherwise don’t have access to starting their own lives, supports them, gives them funding so that they can create their futures. Hundreds and thousands of such women so that one change of, like, having access to that capital that she otherwise wouldn’t have had allowed her to go on to do the what she wanted to do and came back and created ripple effects that’s impacting hundreds of other women. So it’s just. And I met Fei Rong. I was in Sydney, where we had asked, called her for a conference where we talked about the impact that it has had on her. And I asked her, like, how important was that particular loan? And she said, I’m not just saying it because you’re here, Vishal. That was the make or break. Like, if I didn’t have access to that, I would not have. My life would have been different. And so it makes a massive difference in people’s lives. And for those who want to have the ideas and have, like, have the desire, as I say, talent is universal, opportunity is not. And this gives people the opportunity. And when you prime it again, it’s shown like you have the opportunity. People go on to do the things on their own. So Fei Rong’s story has just always been. I always say that because it’s just. It deeply touches me of how she was able to bring it back and create ripple effects.

 

Darren [00:48:08]:

Yeah, you had another story?

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:48:09]:

Yes, I had. We could do a whole thing about stories, but this one was very interesting because I recently went to Nairobi where we visited a whole bunch of our entrepreneurs. And I met this woman, her name was Nancy, and she was running a bookstore. And she had taken a kiva loan and she was running, like, for supplies and everything else. And we talked about. I went and we talked about her business really well, and she was so, like, she knew exactly what was happening, and she’s running a business really efficiently, and it felt like a really good business. And I said. I asked her, like, why. I’m not sure, like, why are you looking? I don’t know why you’re looking for these loans right now. I just feels like your business is running quite well and what is the need for this extra access to capital? And she said, oh, yeah, I could run this. But what happens is I work with the government and the school government systems. And the way it works is I provide them the supplies. She’s providing supplies to schools a lot, and so provide them access to these supplies. I give them. And way it works in here is like I. I had to invoice them and I get paid back like maybe a year afterwards or several months later. And it was mind blowing to me, which was like, she is providing services and she is the little guy here, and she has to wait for months, up to a year to get money that she’s owed back from the government. And to be able to do that, she has to get loans that are expensive for her. And it’s like, wait, this is. This doesn’t make sense. It should work the reverse way. But she had this smile on her face that this is how it works and we can do this. And time and again, I saw that talking to entrepreneurs, especially in Nairobi. It was access to working capital that they needed because the system was completely reversed and it favored the big organizations, big corporations who could pay back on their own terms. And these people had to figure out how to, you know, how to get access to capital. Even, like people paying school fees for kids. I talked to some parents who were taking loans for school kids fees, and I was like, wait, how is this going to work? This is not A productive loan. How is this going to. Actually because most of our loans are productive and I had worried like, how is this productive? Oh, it’s like I can pay the monthly, but the school needs the fee, lump sum at the start of the year and I don’t have that cash. So if I. That’s what I’m getting from Kiva, I can then pay that lump sum and then I can pay it monthly. So if the school allowed me to pay monthly, I wouldn’t need a loan. But that’s what I need over here. Oh my God. This is, this is like. So anyway, we take these access to capital so for granted in like staying in a place like this. Yeah. If I want to buy a house, I’m going to get a mortgage. If I want to start a business, I’m them, I’m going to get funding. These basics are just not. You can’t expect that. And so it’s not at all talent. It’s really there is basic resources are not available. So yeah, if we could solve that problem, I think a ton of other problems can start solving themselves.

 

Darren [00:51:22]:

Yeah. It’s becoming so much clearer to me why you chose this organization and how magical it is. We’ve covered a lot of ground before we wrap here. Just wanted to give you an opportunity. Anything else you’d want to share or even highlight something that we’ve already spoken about before we wrap.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:51:41]:

Oh, we covered so much. This is a great conversation. Darren.

 

Darren [00:51:44]:

Loved it.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:51:45]:

Thank you.

 

Darren [00:51:45]:

Likewise.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:51:47]:

Yeah, really felt like having a conversation with a friend. So it’s awesome. I would say if I want to leave with something, it would be again, an insight that I’ve had from meditation, mindfulness, which is you can always begin again. And I think that’s just again, something that has helped me a lot, which is anything like every moment, every day, every moment is where you can say, ah, this is something I didn’t want to do. But you can just stop and say, okay, this is a fresh day, a fresh moment, I can begin again. And I think it’s just, it’s having that attitude, having that realization you can genuinely do that. It’s helped to me and I hope it’s something, an insight that can help everyone.

 

Darren [00:52:28]:

Yeah, it’s almost something that you’re probably entrepreneurs carry with them, that kind of entrepreneurial spirit as well. It’s been a wonderful conversation. Congratulations on the 20 year anniversary. Congrats on approaching three years as CEO and thank you for all you’re doing and all your organization is doing. And for this incredible conversation, really enjoyed it.

 

Vishal Ghotge [00:52:51]:

Thank you Darren. Take care.

 

Darren:

What’s most clear to me from that conversation is Vishal’s commitment to deepening self awareness and his authenticity as a person and leader. His story is a testament to the power of aligning values, purpose and mission. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of one of one. And until then, I hope you live and lead with courage, wisdom and above all, with love.