Sujatha Ramani has had a senior corporate career in multinational tech companies in India before becoming an entrepreneur creating companies in education and hospitality. Becoming a Director for The National Entrepreneur Network, a new initiative to helps startups grow and scale the business, fuelled Sujatha’s motivation and drive to support emerging enterprises create new employment. For the last 3 and half years Sujatha has been the CEO of the non for profit, Pollinate Group. Founded by 6 Australians, the Pollinate Group’s impact model is committed to solving the global energy crisis by providing access to life improving clean energy products, empowering women and creating micro entrepreneurs by addressing poverty in India and Nepal. To date, this ground-breaking program has reduced carbon emissions by 1.5 million tCO2e, empowered 1822 women, and impacted 697,000 people in these communities. Plus distributed over 239,000 clean energy products which have helped these communities save over AUD 31 million with a significant positive impact. In this episode we explore; • Was philanthropy fostered by Sujatha's family culture or was it just something that her spirit really connected to as a child? (6:20) • The challenges facing female employment in India. (8:30) • How the Pollinate Group started in 2012 and their progress in educating women and creating micro entrepreneurs. (13:25) • What is the impact model of the organization? (15:39) • How to empower and empower women on a larger scale through community connection. (20:33) • What’s in store for Pollinate in the future? (23:23) • Lessons from the pandemic that have an incredibly positive impact. (28:52) • Exploring the Pollinate principle that when you invest in a woman, the results are guaranteed. (31:14) And so much more! You can reach Sujatha at [email protected] and [email protected] To support the Pollinate Group go to https://pollinategroup.org/donate/