Careers Beyond Cubicles - Chandrika Pasricha

You know, Sangita, I've spent this past weekend working with my daughter, who's 20 on her resume because she's about to go out there looking for jobs. I remember even for us, it was like that it's so anxious. You want to make the right choice. You want to find the right company. You want them to take you. It's an interesting time in her life as she tries to make these career choices. And what is also incidentally happened this weekend is I saw this interview of Vinod Khozla's and Vinod Khozla said they are not going to have what is quote unquote a career. Oh my. They will apparently because of technology and so many changes. Things are going to be fluid for them all the time. So literally they might be having to take on new identities and new kinds of work every couple of years. So his point was, you know, you just have to be agile. You have to be flexible. You will be changing multiple careers. And I thought that's very, very different from when we entered the workforce. But I don't think this is a new concept. No, this concept of fluid careers way back in the 1970s. There was this one researcher called Douglas D. Hall who spoke about this concept of the protein career inspired by Proteus. You know, the God that can change form it will. And the idea then was about a career that is more individual driven where people took responsibility for their own learning. Of course, he was way ahead of his time. And at that point, the idea for protein career was just something you read about in books. And it wasn't a real thing. Like when you started over. Yeah. And if you're saying in the 70s, certainly appearance generation, people had the same job for 30 years. That's right. That's right. So I don't know if people really took him that seriously when he originally published the article, but certainly it's something that's relevant now. When we left college, your first job was with a very large financial institution, but you left in a few years. And for a while, you did precisely what he was describing or what Vinod Kusla's saying, which is more flexibly. Yeah. What was that like? So I left pretty early and against the advice of of my bosses, I moved out and I started as an independent consultant. I think I spent in all about 10 years as an independent consultant before we got organized and started the company together. And at that point, a lot of it was discovery. I was sort of doing it on my own. I didn't have a lot of community around me. I was making it up as I was going. And it would really have been lovely if I had the kind of opportunities that are there today, the kind of platforms that help you find consulting work that help you learn, that help you kind of engage with others who are in a similar mode of working. I can see that because I think beyond just paying you a salary, I think what work does is gives you almost a trajectory to move along a community, you grow your skills because that's what's required of work. And I was thinking both for my daughter and just 20 year olds, how do they think about all of those pieces and maybe having a platform or a community that enables that for you might be an interesting thing to look at. And recently I had the opportunity to speak to Chandrika. Chandrika Pashticha runs this platform called Flexing it. She founded it. The whole idea was that she herself came from a very typical corporate career, but wanted more flexibility in her job and exploring that she felt maybe this is a real need. She was actually my boss. Wow. First job. And then she went off and did this. I'm waiting to hear what your conversation with her was about. Hi. I'm Sangita Rajan. And I'm Swati Abhday. You are listening to El for Leadership, a podcast series by the Arts Gurshund, where we explore the changing definition of leadership in our world of constant disruption. So Chandrika, you founded Flexing it platform that supports professional gig working. And you did this 10 years ago at a time when people weren't really familiar with this concept. So it was quite ahead of its time. So tell us what Flexing it does and what inspired you to create a portal like this back then. Thanks, Sangita. Yes, absolutely. I think when I started Flexing it back in 2014, the gig economy was not really known about, talked about. And so Flexing it is a platform that helps organizations access high quality independent consultants and professional freelancers. And on the other side, we help talented professionals who are looking for flexible work who want to work more independently, find interesting project opportunities, find interesting consulting assignments. So they can build a fulfilling portfolio of work that works for them, the kind of work they want to do, how they want to do that work. We are now India and Asia's largest platform of our kind. Wow. Yeah, we have over a hundred thousand consultants who are part of our community. This is across India, APEC and now the Middle East. And we match them to projects that could be as short as two weeks, could be as long as 18 months, full time part time with clients around the world. It's been a good run. It's been over a decade now of me starting and we as a team building this and we feel, you know, we're starting to have some dual impact. And I think what led to this very honestly was personal experience. I spent a long time as a management consultant over 17 years. Most of that was with McKinsey and company. But I did segue into independent consulting of my own for a while. And that's what got me thinking because I realized I loved being able to pick my clients, pick my projects, pick my work and control my travel, which was a big parameter for me, but it didn't know where to go, where to get new clients. And so I started doing my research to see other platforms that I can tap into as a consultant to find interesting project opportunities. And this was back in 2013. I realized they weren't. And so I started doing some digging, started doing some research and realized that this was a trend. We are seeing around the world of professionals wanting flexibility, wanting independence. And so my gut was that we would see this happen in India and Asia as well. Yeah. And so I said, okay, let me build a product and a solution that helps these professionals find high quality assignments and the corporates that are looking for these skills, find these professionals. Yeah. And we just in a very trusted, safe space. Absolutely. So that's how we started. Fantastic. It's an amazing story, amazing journey. But I'm sure that shift was not without its challenges. I mean, starting something like flexing it, getting people on board, they buy in to say something like this can happen. This is doable. So what was some of the early challenges that you faced when you started this? So I think back in 2014, there were a lot of myths around who are these people who are choosing to work independently? I think there was at least on the corporate side, this feeling that yes, it's a great platform for women because you know, they need that flexibility. Other than women, it's probably people who can't find jobs. Wow. And also that it's great for tech and creative skills. But really, that's what it's good for you. So we can use gig workers for building websites, writing a blog or two, but more core work. Probably is not this is not a model that can help us in that. So I think that was a lot of big, big challenges in convincing clients that who's the talent that is available? Why are they making these choices and how you can get actually very, very high quality and important work done through this pool of talent? I think now sitting in 2015, that entire, you know, the conversation is shifted completely turned on its head. I think on the corporate side, we are seeing such an openness and such a recognition that there is amazing talent that is making this choice for a variety of reasons. And if you want to work with the best talent in whatever field, you have to have multiple work murders, including engaging with them as independent consultants as, you know, as freelancers as flexible talent. And in fact, we're seeing this more and more even in the newer eight skills. You know, so whether it's gendered away, whether it's performance marketing, whether it's data science, we actually see a lot more talented people in these skills, opting to work independently. And so if companies want to access the best skills, they need to be thinking, OK, how do I create projects that excite the best freelancers or the best independent consultants to come and work with me. So I think that mindset has completely shifted. But the pandemic helped a lot with that as well. We were all forced to kind of switch off and go to fully remote work. Yeah. Actually was reasonably successful for most companies. And I think so that's got people thinking that, OK, I don't need everyone to be in office all the time. I don't need everyone to be on my roles permanently. I can actually get my priorities delivered, value created and added with work models. So I think that has got a lot of people reviring. And we see a lot of large corporates not just in sectors like consulting and FMCG that were the earlier doctors, but also traditional manufacturing sectors. That is an amazing talent pool that's available for me. How do I tap into this? How do I think about my work differently, which roles, which functions, you know, our best suited in my business to attract these skills? How do I make it work well? So yeah, I think we've come a long way. So what are some of the profiles of people who are currently on flexing it? You know, what kind of jobs do they do? Over the last decade, we've seen some themes and there are a lot of different cohorts of professionals who are making this choice. All for different reasons. And you know, there's at least five or six that stand out the most. most. One is we see a lot of X management consultants. So people who worked in the large firms, whether it's Wikin Z, BCG, Bane, the big four, after a few years, a decade of consulting often turning to wanting to build their own practice as a consultant. I think so that's a theme we see a lot. The second cohort of consultants we see is what we call corporate freelancers. So people who have been in FMCG, people who have been in FAMA, people who have been an automotive, either been in marketing, supply chain, finance, and after 10, 15 years, they are like, I want to monetize my own skills, I want more control of my schedule and they go to working independently. I think that's the corporate freelancers is the second big cohort. The third cohort is we see talent from the startup ecosystem, which has actually been very interesting. A lot of startup founders in the early stages of building a business, things take time. You still have to pay your bills. So they take up projects, either do a project and then focus on a startup in parallel to building your business. And in the early stages of that, we see founders taking our projects. Or even after the startup stint before your next one. So we have a lot of interesting high quality talent that comes from the startup world. I think the fourth is what we would expect is young parents, both women, mostly women, but we also do see some men making the choice where they want more flexibility for those few years to be there for their young families. The fifth cohort we are seeing, and this is an interesting trend, particularly in the last two, three years, is a lot of Gen Z. Earlier we would see people would start off with a more traditional career and then turn to freelancing, turn to independent work. We are now seeing a lot of younger professionals say from the beginning, this is how I want to work. So over the last couple of years, we've had over 120% growth in consultant signups on flexing it and a large part of that has come from these younger professionals who are just deciding that from the beginning, one more impactful work I want to learn. And this is the path I think will help me do that. And I think the last cohort of talent that we see more and more now is the senior professionals. So people who 20, 25 plus years of experience who've been CXOs, who've been PNL and functional heads, taken early retirement or sometimes have retired also. And I still have 20 years of work left. I want to do interesting stuff. And so turning to independent work to fractional roles, interim roles, advisory roles as a way to stay engaged. So I think we see quite a few different kind of cohorts and patterns and motivations and choices do very. Okay. Now I just have so many follow up questions on all of this. But let me just zoom out a bit. Is this all happening because there is some shift in the macro level. Are we moving towards more skills based economy, whereby it's easier for people to market their skills that employees are willing to look at that. You know, what's happening at the macro level? Absolutely. So I think there are changes. I would say a proportion of professionals have always wanted independence and flexible work. And we've seen that. I think that proportion has grown significantly in the last few years. And as I said, trend has been strengthened by the pandemic as well, where we see a lot more professionals making this choice at different stages of their career, whether to do it for a few years or to work independently as a choice, you know, for the rest of their careers. We just have now a lot more people that are available with interesting skill sets that they bring to the table. I think that's kind of one big shift that we have seen at the macro level. The second also is a mindset shift amongst these professionals is that professionals are realizing that in a 30, 40 year career, there will be freelancers at some point. I think that is not what it was. Perhaps a decade ago, where people thought maybe they'll have three jobs and that's it. That's my career. But with all the business disruptions, the layoffs, the geopolitical issues, the uncertainty that we see, we see a lot of professionals now realizing that it won't be that linear career path. It's going to be a much more probably a portfolio of careers. I will be doing different things and I'll definitely be an independent or a freelancer at some point. So I need to start thinking about what are my skillsets? What do I want to build? What do I want to be known for? So I think that has been a big, big mindset shift that we see amongst professionals. I think the third thing as I mentioned is on the corporate side, there has been a complete turnaround in terms of leveraging consultants in a one off basis or flexible talent or one off basis versus looking at this talent pool as a strategic source of extremely interesting skills that you want to tap into. So thinking about it strategically, thinking about it programmatically and actually planning, okay, if I want X percent of my workforce to be contributed or made up of independent consultants and flexible workers, how will I do that? Which roles and functions will be most likely to succeed in this model? How will I attract the best freelancers? So we actually have companies now starting to think about how do I leverage this as a strategic talent pool? I think that has been a big shift. And the big four reasons we see clients leverage this talent most strategically is one is they want access to specialized skills. So to your point, the move to a more skill based world order absolutely is happening. I think clients and companies are realizing, I need to, I need this skill to get this done. It's not a JD anymore. It is what expertise and what skillsets do I need? I think so. That's I think been a big trigger. The second is agility, which was also actually very interesting for us, where organizations are telling us that there's a opportunity I need to respond to. If I wait to hire, it may take me six months to get a full time employee. I can't wait that long. You know, things we have already changed. Whereas getting an independent consultant, I could have someone start in a couple of weeks. And since I'm hiring them for their skill, they are day one consultants. They will hit the ground running so that agility, the speed, the turnaround, I think that's a big, big draw for a lot of organizations, turning to this talent pool. The third is building new capabilities. Things are changing so much. Everything is moving online. The old playbooks in many functions are transforming. So as companies think about new skillsets, they're like, as I'm learning, let me turn to using consultants and flexible capacity more till I'm sure exactly how I want to wire my function, how I want to wire my skill set. And I think the fourth reason is just being flexible because if you're piloting a new product or a new service line, you may not be quite sure what shape it's going to take. So during that tiered of uncertainty, having that flexibility to ramp up which this pool of talent gives you, I think is a big draw and a big attraction also for clients. So I think the corporate mindset has changed a lot. And I would say the last couple of in-enablers, I think technology has really advanced as well in the last few years. So making asynchronous work possible, making collaboration possible, which obviously doesn't only help independent consultants, it helps employees as well, but that I think has also been a big enabler. And I would say the last change has been, when I started flexing it, platforms like us didn't exist. So even if you had consultants or professionals wanting to work like this, it was a much harder challenge in terms of constantly doing business development, proposals to get work, whereas now you have platforms like us around the world that are helping independent consultants build that portfolio of career more efficiently. So I would say a lot of these things have changed at the macro level. Clearly when you're talking about gig work, there are some different skills that are required. Correct. So when we join a job in a more traditional format, the company sort of takes care of our learning and we progress along a predetermined path, but in a gig sort of a setup with you pitching and negotiating, you have to plan your own financial security, you have to be responsible for your own learning. So there's a whole bunch of things that you need to be able to do, which was not the case before. Correct. So what are some of those skills? I mean, if somebody who's starting a career in gig work asks you, what would be your advice to them? So, you know, I think your spot on being an independent consultant is actually very much like being a business person or being an entrepreneur in a way, right? Because you are planning your own PNL. You need to focus on the revenues on the top line. So making sure that there is enough pipeline of projects that you have line of sight in too so that you're in the next few years that you're taking care of, you know that your marketing so that your brand is being built for the next set of assignments and the next set of clients that you need to get, you have to monitor your costs so that you're actually earning an income because this is your source of income and also that you're continuing to, as you said, invest in your own learning, invest in your own future because you're responsible for your career, you're responsible for your skillset, and in fact more than an employee, an independent consultant or a gig worker's hired for their skill. So you're constantly having to demonstrate that. So honestly, I always tell consultants when they reach out that you have to think of yourself like an entrepreneur like a business person and you have to have that line of sight that I'm managing my own PNL and I have to plan that ahead a few months if not a couple of years. And interestingly, data shows that more independent consultants start businesses than people in jobs. So it's actually for many people even a path towards entrepreneurship and the first stepping stone that you take here so that's interesting. It's a good observation now. Yeah. And in terms of someone who's exploring a career as a gig worker, also we actually use the word independent consultant because we find that gig work can even include the gray and the blue collar versus on the white collar side. I think the kind of work that kind of skills were quite different. So but I think for people who are exploring this, I would say a few things. First is the goals should be clear. Are you doing this for flexibility? Are you doing this to learn new skills or are you doing this to earn? That because you feel I can get more return on the skills I have built and I can monetize them better as a consultant versus as an employee because I think the choices that you make will be very different depending on what you're solving for. And I think it's important as a consultant to be clear what am I solving for? If I'm solving for flexibility, then again, make sure I'm clear on what does flexibility mean for me because for some people we see it means I want to do a three three month project, then I want to go be able to travel. And then I'll take up another project. Whereas for others, it might mean I need to work 60%. So I don't need the brakes, but I need that 40% flexibility in a working week. Right. So then the choices on the types of assignments, the types of clients that you will take up will be quite different. I think the second thing we always tell our consultancies plan at least for the first six months to a year in terms of where will your projects and clients come from. Again, that our own data also shows is that the moment you crack your first couple of projects as an independent consultant, then the cycle repeats because you know there's a relationship with a client with the platform, there's feedback so that the virtual cycle, you know, happens. So plan for that first six to 12 months, which is okay. Either I know who my clients are going to be and I started those conversations or what we also tell our consultancies build out closer partnership with the platforms that you're working with. So if it's let's say flexing it, let us know what kind of assignments you want so that we're able to match the right projects with you. So obviously those are the two things and I think the third thing which is kind of related is sharply define your areas of expertise and solutions because you are genuinely being hired for a skill set. You're not being hired for potential. You're being hired for actually performance. Sure. So I think you really need to be able to show. So if you're a consultant, let's say direct to consumer marketing is is a big area and demand. These is right. Demonstrate that through your profile, through your case examples of prior work. I think you need to sharply identify what are the three or four things that my experience till date has given me in terms of skills. There could be functional skills. There could be soft skills. It could be a variety and a combination most likely. But sharply define those what are there for the solutions or frameworks you can offer clients because that is what we get you in front of them. That is what we get you selected for a project. So I think those would be the three things I would tell anyone exploring a career in independent consulting. Thank you. That's that's useful to think about it that way. I'm just curious. I would have thought that women participation increases with this much of flexibility. But I recently learned that it's not really the case at least at a very macro level. So what is the pattern that you see? Do you see a lot of women opting for independent contractual work? Actually much less than we had hoped to see. Because totally agree with you. So Geeta that in my view and in our view as a team flexible work independent work can be a great way for women to stay or come back into the workforce. But we are not seeing that and I think we all see the following labor force participation particularly in India, which is obviously very worrying. And so if I look at our own data on flexing it about 35% of our consultants are women. We would have wanted it to be 50% if not higher because around the world actually more than half the freelancers are women in India. We still don't see that happening yet. We are seeing some ray of hope like for example in the last years 38% of our new sign up. So women. So hopefully that percentage is kind of inching up. But not fast enough. Also we see a huge drop of mid career. So we still see that younger professionals and younger women are signing up. But after that 12 year window. There's a huge drop off that we are seeing. So they are not staying and they're not leveraging kind of freelancing enough. So what can they do to leverage this format of working more? Is there something they can do differently or uniquely to navigate the space? So I think a few things. One is I do feel awareness about the platforms that do exist. Will be one thing that helps a lot because a lot of them may not know. I know where to go if I want to full time job. But if that's not what I'm looking for, where do I go? What's the trusted solution? What's the trusted platform that I can turn to? So I think that's at an overall ecosystem level. Something that we need to do. But as a woman, what I would say is a couple of things. One is, you know, if you're taking a break, see if you can minimize that break to the extent possible because again data shows that the longer you're away. The tougher it just gets to get back. Both in terms of you know the environment has changed. Skills have changed. But also in terms of your own mindset in terms of your own confidence gets impacted. I think if the one would be think about how can you minimize that gap that you have if you do have a gap. I think the second thing is when you're looking to come back focus on what you know well because again, you know, if you're coming back after a break, there'll be a lot of other things changing. You're trying to figure out the support mechanism to make it possible for you to come back. And so you want the assignment that you take on to be something that you know you can deliver well. Focus on that skills that you already have. I think that's usually a good path to success. The third is deliver well because again, we know that positive loop works even more in this case because if you're coming back, you're not sure. Taking a short assignment that you deliver well builds your own confidence to do more next time around. And what we also tell companies is that they need to actually rethink their return to work programs a bit more because we still find many of them focusing on. Getting them back full time, but very often women may not be ready for that because you had a let's say a couple of years break, you may not fully have your support system figured out you may even move cities. Nothing is 9 to 5 anymore. You know, so you may not want to jump back in into a full time commitment till you're sure that everything will hold and the family will be taken care of the work will be taken care of. And we keep hearing from them. We would like a lot more flexibility in the first let's say 6 to 12 months. So we also think companies need to think a little bit differently about their programs of women and structured a little bit more flexibly than having kind of a one size fits all which many of them have right now. She think maybe a little bit of a runway to her full time career might be helpful. Are there any other systemic or structural changes policy changes that you think would help women participate more as they look at the ecosystem. There's a few players or stakeholders one is of course there's the corporates who are a key player in this. I think one thing for them is just structuring their programs a little bit more flexibility to give that runway. As you said, the second suggestion that we have is again, make the work interesting because what typically tends to happen is very often a second careers program or a return to work program. The assignments, the projects may not be strategic. They may not be the highest impact. So when women are looking at that, they're like, will I really learn will I really enjoy this. So I think the companies who do this best are actually trying to make the work interesting that's a talented professionally or bringing back. She just needs flexibility for a while. And it could even be men, but more often than not, it's the women who in this stage of their careers or their life that they need the flexibility. Make it interesting because they're all extremely talented. They can contribute. I think that's the second thing. And the third is I think for companies think about it more programmatically. Not as a pilot initiative that we're doing, but much more as a business priority that needs to run like my other business priorities. So as an HR team or as a business team, like I have other hiring priorities, I have a priority around how do I structure these projects in a way that I attract the best women who are looking to come back to work. And we are seeing companies start to think about it this way. I think at the industry level awareness building is what's the most critical around what women can tap into. I think companies very often talk about their own programs, which is great. But I think they should also talk about other companies programs platforms and other ways for women to come back to work because I think this is genuinely a challenge that all of us are solving for. It's not one company on its own. And also celebrating more diverse career paths so people who maybe may under the bait and ended up as a leader as opposed to someone who's always kind of been a very, very linear career path. That's something that would serve the ecosystem well. Also, I feel for the women themselves. One is, you know, as I said, try and see how you can minimize your gap as much as possible. But more than that, our data shows that women are very circumspect about what they apply for. And I think there's global data as well. It's not just flexing a data that shows that only if you feel that 100% of the skills are a match, you will apply for that job or that project. If you're at 80% fit or a 70% fit, you will not apply. And that's not the case with men who will apply for a lot more things because they feel they meet the brief. I think one is that. The other is they also asking for less. And this is systematically we see women when they quote for projects, they're quoting less because they're quoting from a position of probably weakness as opposed to strength. And I think that needs to change. And going armed with data around what are the fee levels, what are the salary ranges right now or the compensation radius for consultants in my field. I think we'll just build a lot more confidence for women to go out apply for more projects, put their proposals together, ask for what is due to them. The other thing I would say again, I see some women do this well is collaborate with others. If you're a let's say you are a person collaborate with the technology person bid for projects together. Nice. That will also give you confidence. You know that you have a team that you're not doing this alone. But also I think gives clients confidence that you know you're coming with the solution. But I do think this collaboration can help a lot amongst women professionals. Yeah, you're right. I have noticed that meant to do this. They tend to collaborate and they do it quite lightly. They'll collaborate on one thing with one someone and then on something else. But women tend to look for I don't know maybe more long term options or but there is something there. You don't something. That's one thing that we're also trying to do more and more office putting teams together. because we feel that can really benefit the people. client because sometimes you may need a different set of perspectives, a different set of skills, and one person may not be able to deliver, but it also just makes it more fun for the consultants, and also builds confidence that, you know, yes, we are doing this as a team, we're delivering this together, and this is also something we think will actually work quite well for younger freelancers is that, you know, working with the most seasoned professionals so that you're also getting a apprentice, you're learning on the job, you know, with him and her versus only through online courses, but yeah. So you're saying you also put teams together and clients will sort of hire the whole team together for a project, yeah? That's right. That's I think a new solution we've offered. I think most of our work is still individual consultants or professionals is delivering on projects, but increasingly, you know, we saw clients getting more comfortable with this model, and so coming to us with a broader scope of work and saying can you help? And so in those cases, in about 10% of the cases, we actually put a whole team together, and we've done this in a variety of situations. One could be any kind of go-to-market strategy where you're looking for both consulting as well as industry expertise. A lot of marketing projects, in fact, because you need different skillsets. You need a market research skill set. You need an insight skill set. You need a branding skill set. A lot of technology projects as well, where you need the developers as well as the designers to come together. So yes, what 10% I would say of our work is now teams. The other big opportunity that has opened up for talent from India, which even, you know, women, but all talents you tap into is, you know, the remote work now is just so acceptable that there's suddenly a whole new universe of clients that has opened up. Indian clients are always there. If you're sitting in India, but now you can work with clients in any part of the world and deliver projects for them. So about 25% of our work is fully remote. And again, consultants also appreciate that because that gives them true flexibility of being anywhere, being able to structure their days, the way they need to structure their days, and still get work done. Wow, that's interesting. So clearly, things are changing. There's a lot that's changing and changing faster, I think. Are you also mentioned this work point about fractional CXOs, senior folks? These are folks who've likely grown up in more traditional careers, but are now sort of finding this world of being an independent contractor. So what does that work like? What's driving this move at the leadership level? How is it reshaping the idea of executive work? So it's been a distinct shift that we've seen over the last few years where there are a lot of very seasoned professionals who've been CXOs, lead functions in traditional companies, large companies, and are now in their 40s and 50s, opting not to go back but work independently and on their own. And I think the companies are actually really welcoming this because if I'm a small company, if I'm a startup or a midsize company, I'm getting access to a pool of talent that I could not afford otherwise. And a quality of talent that I could not afford otherwise. And here, you know, I can get them maybe a couple of days a week to come and really help me do foundational work when it comes to setting my systems and processes in place, guiding me in terms of my business and what shape that should take. So I think the smaller companies and midsize companies love this, right? Because suddenly there's a lot of fantastic talent that's available to them that they can onboard at the intensity and capacity that they need. Even larger corporates are actually welcoming this because there is so much transition right now that's happening. And I think the data that shows that there's a lot of churn not just at the CEO level but at the CXO level, but you know, you need business continuity to happen such periods particularly at the mid to senior levels have crossed six months. Now you can't have the procurement function not have a head for six months or you know, the finance or the tax team not have a head for that long. So even larger organizations are really seeing the value and bringing a seasoned person who has done this in a large organization in a similar organization to come and hold the fort for a few months. So I think we've seen just a lot more openness and a desire to tap into this because as I mentioned the long search times that companies have as well as smaller companies startups SME saying, why I have this fantastic talent available. And the kinds of models we have seen the senior advisors play as a few things. One is interim roles have become a lot more common. So an interim, you know, head of sales, interim, CFO, CHRO. Sometimes in some cases they might even lead to that person joining as a full-time person if kind of it all works out but interim roles have become very common. For mid-sized and smaller organization, fractional roles as you mentioned. So and again, could be a fractional CFO, could be a fractional head of marketing. HR actually very, very common where part-time CHROs, fractional CHROs are being leveraged very, very effectively by clients. So I think fractional roles have become very common. The third would be I would say advisory roles. So more strategy, business direction, where should we go. And I think the fourth which is also new is mentorship. And I'm separating this from coaching which is different but this is much more kind of mentorship just founders, promoters, CEOs, CXOs having people to talk to about challenges that they are facing and getting that problem-solving help not as a formal assignment but much more as a business mentor, as a business problem solver, a sounding board. So I think we are seeing these four kind of distinct models of opportunities or models of work emerge for these senior professions. Then of course, I think the last one would be as deep experts. So oftentimes interestingly and this is something consulting firms use them a lot for which is I need an expert who understands this industry extremely well or this function extremely well so that my team can use them as a sounding board or as an advisor. And I think that again is quite a common pattern with the private equity or consulting firms teaching out to them as kind of deep experts. Maybe even an aftermarket. This is almost as you know for these more senior professions and I think they're loving it. Yeah, it's certainly an opportunity that never existed before. And yeah, we've seen this with many startups that we work with. They do bring in senior folks to advise, support the CXO team. Yeah, we've seen this happen and a lot of value out of that. I just wonder what happens to competitive advantage? You know, when if your talent pool is not carefully God, which is the old paradigm, they're not carefully guarded and what happens to competitive advantage. So I think there are two paths to this. One is aspects like confidentiality, data protection, conflict of interest. So I think those aspects, these senior professions actually are very, very cognizant of and we as platforms when you're matching them to assignments are also very cognizant of because you know, we have multi-year relationships with our clients. You know, we want to make sure that none of these issues kind of crop up and even the independent consultants themselves are well aware that for a healthy portfolio of work, you want at least a certain amount of repeat business. Yeah, and that won't happen if your client feels that you're just there to learn and suck that inside which you will take somewhere else. So I think both from the consultant's own mindset as well as through solutions and guardrails at BS platforms like Flexing your put in place. I think the those issues actually are not as much of a concern. I think the bigger concern is how do you make sure that as an organization, the most talented minds want to work with me? You know, I think that is I think what the more forward-looking companies are thinking about. And while yes, your hope is most of them continue to want to work with me over a long period of time that can either be structured as a permanent employee or it could be structured as advisors. So I think companies are realizing that just having a formal employment agreement versus a consultancy agreement doesn't guarantee that ownership that the person brings and that longevity of that relationship. And I think that's healthy because you're wanting the person to stay engaged with you because they're enjoying the work. They feel for the value system that your company has. They feel for the vision. They believe in it as much as you do. And whether it's structured as an employment contract or as a consultancy agreement, I think matters honestly less. And that's what we are seeing. More and more and we see that as well that you know when projects go well, they get extended. Even if you don't need that person as much, you may need that person with a few hours in a week or a few hours in a month. But I think clients and consultants both then find a way to stay engaged. Thank you. That's a fair point, I think. Coming back full circle, I started by asking you, but your journey and how you started flexing it and it began with your need for more flexibility and managing travel and things, you transition from a career to start this little business and then it's grown and then now you're a full-fledged entrepreneur. And being an entrepreneur is quite demanding. I imagine there's not a lot of flexibility that comes with being an entrepreneur is what I think I imagine. But you need to tell me what the shift looks like for you personally, how have you kept your purpose alive through all of this? That's a great question. And I think what you said at the end is what has made it work for me. I think there is a purpose that we are building towards that I am building towards but also the senior team. We genuinely are solving for this problem of making work work for professionals who want to have more independence, more flexibility. So I think that purpose has stayed true and the fact that we are making progress towards that purpose is actually what gives us energy and gives us new ideas and what can we can do better to solve either for pain points of the professionals or of the clients. So I think that purpose and the feeling of progress against that purpose [BLANK_AUDIO] both have been critical to kind of keep the NSU alive, to keep the passion alive. In terms of flexibility, I think the life of a entrepreneur is definitely intense, very rarely do switch off. Even if it's a weekend, you're still thinking about a new product, you're thinking about a problem. So I think it is intense. But what I do find is that I do have the ability to structure my days and to structure my weeks. And that is honestly what I always wanted. And I think that is what a lot of people always want. Because work is an important part of many people's and most people's life. And it's not work or life. It is work in the context of life. So for me as well, I think what's been actually very freeing is that I have control over how fast I want to move. But also there are some weeks and some months that are very intense. But then there are others where there is more time. And if that means I take time to go meet a friend or to a clear game of golf that eats into a couple of hours of the working day, I can do that. I can't do it every week. But I do have the flexibility to structure my schedule, which to me has been-- that is my definition of flexibility. So it has, I think, it has worked. But as I said, what has kept me going and kept me energized actually is the purpose and the progress we are making towards that purpose. And having a team around that believes in that. I may have started as a single founder. But now we have an extremely talented team at Flexing It. We are around 55 people as a company ourselves. And there's been a lot of stability in our senior team in particular over the last few years. And that, I think, just gives us the ability to move faster. But also gives me a lot more flexibility to also structure my time direction for the company. Think about a lot of those questions, which I important. Wonderful. This sounds fantastic. What next for Flexing It? So we feel as a team that over the last three, four years, we put a lot of the foundational elements in place. And we are now pushing hard to scale. And that, for us, means a few different things. One is, of course, working with a lot more clients in India. That's, I think, something that has happened. We'll continue to happen. But we are now expanding internationally. So both the Asia Pacific and the Middle East are markets and geographies where we're building out the entire Flexing It ecosystem. So on consultants as well as clients, so we're able to solve for the same issues we were solving for in India in those geographies as well. So I think international expansion is a big focus. The second big focus for us is the remote piece that I talked about. How do we take Indian talent to the world? Because I genuinely feel we have such depth of and breadth of talent available here that can add so much value to clients in other geographies. So solutioning for that and how do we make sure that that is something we can do at much more scale that we're currently doing, I think, is a second priority. And I think the third big focus for us is how do we further enhance the life for our consultants? Because our focus initially was and continues to be getting the access to interesting projects. Because that we think is what they care about most from a platform like us. And making that process as painless as possible by ensuring contracting, invoicing payments are all sorted. So I think that's kind of the base or the hygiene piece which needs to be in place. But now we're saying, OK, now what else can we do for our consultants? So many of them have reached out and wanted support on personal branding. And so that's an initiative that we have going that how can we amplify their thought leadership through our channels so that we help them with their marketing with their personal branding. Also, solutions around the teams that I mentioned, collaboration, structured approaches to that that we can put in place that can benefit more of our consultant community. I think so that is again a few things that we're thinking about. Also, solutions that hopefully will help at the ecosystem level as well. So we're thinking about other benefits. Like how do we ensure that freelancers can get easier access to things like health insurance? Super. Yeah. How can they get credit cards? Because for everything right now, you need that employment letter. So we are trying to see other innovative partnerships that we can strike so that our cohort, our community, then they need it, has access to some of these solutions as well. So I think I would say those are the three big focus areas for us. And all of this we try and do as much as possible through technology. And so building out the products and solutions that will enable a lot more people to use us is always the goal. Thanks for listening to Health for Leadership. This is Sangita Rajan, and I'm Swati Upty. If this episode sparked something for you, share it. Carry it into your team, your boardroom, and your circles of influence. 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