In this candid conversation with Vinta Nanda, entrepreneur Sushma Gaikwad reflects on building India's experiential industry, redefining women's leadership, mentoring future professionals, and why genuine inclusion demands mindset shifts, not symbolic representation alone.

Entrepreneur, leadership coach, TEDx speaker, educationist and co-founder of ICE Global, Sushma Gaikwad has spent more than three decades shaping India's experiential communication industry. From helping build the events business during its formative years to mentoring women leaders through WomenCom and executive coaching, she has consistently argued that leadership is created through competence and continuous learning rather than entitlement. In this conversation with Vinta Nanda she revisits an extraordinary journey while questioning many assumptions about gender, power and professional growth.

Some conversations leave you thinking long after the cameras stop rolling. My discussion with Sushma Gaikwad was one of them.

Over the years, I have met many leaders who have built remarkable careers, but what struck me most about Sushma was not simply what she has achieved. It was the clarity with which she spoke about leadership and the slow, often invisible work of building institutions and people.

Building An Industry That Didn't Exist

One of the most fascinating moments in our conversation was Sushma's recollection of entering the events industry in 1993. It was a time when experiential marketing, as we understand it today, barely existed. There were no established playbooks or defined career paths. Every event demanded invention, improvisation and relentless problem-solving.

I was struck by her description of those years. She wasn't joining an industry; she was helping create one. A chance meeting led her to Wizcraft, where curiosity evolved into a lifelong profession that eventually culminated in the founding of ICE Global.

It reminded me that many of the industries we now take for granted were built by people willing to embrace uncertainty before there was any guarantee of success.

Before Leadership Came Survival

Today, we often speak about leadership and representation, but Sushma stresses that for many women of our generation, the earliest battles were far more fundamental. Working through overnight event installations, travelling alone across cities, finding safe accommodation and operating within workplaces almost entirely dominated by men were everyday realities.

Leadership wasn't the first goal. Survival was.

Only after repeatedly proving competence did leadership become possible. It was a perspective that quietly reframed how I think about many pioneering women whose stories are often reduced to success while overlooking the difficult terrain they first had to navigate.

Competence Was The Currency

Perhaps the most unexpected insight from our discussion was Sushma's insistence that, in many situations, competence mattered more than identity. She recalled clients asking only one question: Can you deliver?

Execution, creativity and reliability became the measures by which she earned trust. Rather than constantly defining herself as a woman in a male-dominated profession, she chose to define herself through the quality of her work.

It was a powerful reminder that excellence creates credibility, even while systemic barriers continue to exist.

Finding A Voice That Commands Respect

Our conversation also explored the realities that accompanied working across different parts of India.

Sushma admitted that there were situations where vendors and contractors simply did not take women seriously. She learnt to communicate differently, becoming more assertive when circumstances demanded it. She adapted without losing herself.

What I admired was that she neither romanticised those experiences nor positioned herself as a victim. Instead, she described adaptability as one of the most valuable leadership skills she acquired.

How Conversations Around Women Changed

Listening to Sushma trace the industry's evolution was equally revealing.

She believes discussions around gender became more visible only after larger numbers of women entered the profession. As participation increased, conversations naturally shifted towards representation, leadership and inclusion.

Yet she pointed out something that continues to concern her: women remain significantly underrepresented in positions of influence and on industry panels despite making up a substantial part of the workforce.

Representation, she argued, must reflect reality rather than satisfy appearances.

Inclusion Cannot Be Tokenistic

If there was one idea that echoed throughout our conversation, it was Sushma's rejection of tokenism. Appointing women merely to satisfy governance requirements does not transform organisations. Real inclusion requires sustained investment in mentoring, leadership development, confidence-building and meaningful decision-making authority.

Through her work as a leadership coach, she has repeatedly seen talented women overlooked because organisations reserve executive development opportunities for only a select few. That observation extends well beyond gender. It is ultimately about how organisations choose to nurture human potential.

Why WomenCom Matters

As we discussed WomenCom, I began to understand that Sushma never intended to become the sole mentor or central figure. Her ambition was much larger. She wanted to build an ecosystem where women could learn from one another, access coaching, develop professionally and create lasting support networks.

Confidence, she believes, grows faster inside communities than in isolation.

That philosophy resonated deeply with me because lasting change rarely comes from individual success stories alone. It comes from creating systems that enable many more people to thrive.

Leadership Begins In The Mind

Throughout our conversation, Sushma kept returning to one central belief. Mindset comes before skill.

Cultural conditioning, inherited stereotypes and self-doubt often become greater obstacles than technical capability itself. Coaching, therefore, begins by helping people recognise their own potential before equipping them with leadership tools.

I found that insight particularly compelling because it shifts leadership away from titles and towards inner transformation.

After more than three decades in the industry, Sushma remains optimistic. She sees experiential communication becoming increasingly strategic, driven by storytelling, technology and authentic human connection rather than simply events.

Yet despite all the technological change, she believes the greatest investment organisations can make will always be in people. The future, she believes, belongs to organisations that create psychologically safe environments, encourage learning and develop leaders from within.

My Final Reflection

When I look back on this conversation, I realise it was never simply about one woman's remarkable journey. It became an exploration of how industries are built, how leadership evolves and why inclusion must move beyond slogans and symbolic representation.

Sushma Gaikwad's story reinforces something I have long believed myself: curiosity and continuous learning remain the strongest foundations of meaningful leadership.

More importantly, she reminds us that true leadership is never about occupying space alone. It is about creating space for others. That, perhaps, is her greatest contribution—not only to India's experiential communication industry but to a larger conversation about education, mentorship and social transformation.

I hope readers will watch the accompanying podcast. They will discover not just a successful entrepreneur, but a thoughtful leader whose candour, pragmatism and generosity offer lessons that extend far beyond business.

HERE’S THE FULL PODCAST