Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Vinita Rathi, founder and CEO of Systango, a digital engineering firm specialising in generative AI – that’s very topical isn’t it – Web3, automation and Cloud solutions. Growing up in a very traditional Indian family where women weren’t expected to go out and work, Vinita wanted to make her mark and do something different. Following a passion for tech from endless nights playing Minesweeper and learning to programme on a computer her father gave her, Vinita became the first in her family to attend university and started word as a software engineer. Having moved to London and climbed the ranks at Goldman Sacks, Vinita launched Systango in 2012 with her husband, Nilesh. They’re now an Indian listed global consultancy, working with over 450 clients, as well as being a certified partner of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud. And, yes there’s more, as the founding member of the London branch of Women Who Code, Vinita remains dedicated to increasing female representation in the tech industry. What a treat you are just about to have with her here. Hello to you, it’s fabulous that you’ve come here all the way originally from Indore. You came to the UK in 2007.
Vinita Rathi
January, yes.
Elliot Moss
Does it feel like a lifetime ago, Vinita?
Vinita Rathi
100%. It’s been like eighteen years. I think my life has changed upside down now.
Elliot Moss
An Indian woman comes and makes her life in London. Is that what you thought you would do when you were a kid?
Vinita Rathi
Not really. I, I don’t think I knew what I wanted to do, it just happened.
Elliot Moss
And when you were a kid what was the, you know, you were born I think, I’m not going to give away your age, younger, much younger than me, but let’s say you were born in the early ‘80s, I’m imagining, what was life like for young girls and women in the, in the ‘80s in India? Were there aspirations aplenty for women in the workplace or was it something else at that stage?
Vinita Rathi
Well, when I was born, I think for the first five years we lived in a small town so it was not even Indore, it was like a village next to Indore.
Elliot Moss
For those people who don’t know, Indore is about an hour from Bombay, Mumbai, on the plane, slight…
Vinita Rathi
East.
Elliot Moss
… east and slightly to the centre.
Vinita Rathi
Yes. So, so we used to live in a village/small town next to Indore. Very small schools, I don’t think even that was an English medium school, it was probably a Hindi medium school. There I grew up to, I think I studied there until third standard, before my mum said that either like you know, they shift to Indore, like to my dad, either they shift to Indore or she will send me to Hostel because she doesn’t want me to study there. So I think it, it was her who made our whole family move from that small town to Indore.
Elliot Moss
And was the point of that that you would get a better education there?
Vinita Rathi
Yes, yes, I think she just wanted to make sure that I have a better life, so I had known very later on in my life that she had career aspirations when she was growing up, but then because where she was coming from, she didn’t really have the opportunity so, I think she was seeing that in me and maybe that’s why she wanted to give me the platform, like you know that I ended up getting afterwards.
Elliot Moss
Have you realised much later in life that that was a pretty special thing to happen?
Vinita Rathi
100%. A lot of things you realise after it has happened.
Elliot Moss
It’s almost like, I was saying to someone the other day, you sort of wake up as you get older because you have to in a way and you’re a parent…
Vinita Rathi
Yes.
Elliot Moss
…you’re married and you came to the UK indeed because Nilesh, your husband, came to the UK to study. Being the first I believe in your, in your family to go to university as well, you studied computer science engineering, again, what was that like at that stage to be not just the first but also, a woman, I mean this is obviously a strange conversation for some people, going ‘well what do you mean, of course there is’ you know, I don’t know what the percentages are but, ‘women go to university in India, of course they do’ but at that point in your family, that was unusual.
Vinita Rathi
So, see, growing up I think I have always seen the divide between how males were treated differently from females, right, and I think somehow deep in my heart I didn’t want that to happen to me and I think I figured that that happens probably because males usually will go out, work, earn money for the family versus like, you know women will probably run the house. I think that was my driving, I would say, motivation and that made me go out and thankfully, my parents supported that so they allowed me to go to the university and like, you know, pursue my engineering and then when it actually came to campus placement, they allowed me to do my job as well, at the time so, I think I was just fortunate and lucky and probably was in the right place at the right time.
Elliot Moss
Vinita Rathi is my Business Shaper today, she’s the founder of Systango, they do clever things, they do a lot of, well actually in your own words, I’m going to say it’s software and all this and that, but you tell me what’s your pitch if you were selling to me and I was going to be a potential client. Perish the thought.
Vinita Rathi
So, we help convert your ideas into a tangible product and we help them like, you know, shape your go to market strategy, take it to the market and then help evolve it from there, based on user feedback.
Elliot Moss
And it’s all technology essentially?
Vinita Rathi
It’s all technology.
Elliot Moss
It’s software.
Vinita Rathi
Yes. Yes.
Elliot Moss
It’s development of software, it’s the user experience, the UX as it were and…
Vinita Rathi
Yep. And then we make use of all the niche technologies such as Gen AI, which is like you know quite a buzzword right now, Web3, blockchain, like you know crypto and then automate as much as possible and deploy it on Cloud so, largely Cloud native.
Elliot Moss
So, whatever it is, you will find the right technology to use to bring to life the product and the service that the client wants to bring to life.
Vinita Rathi
Yes.
Elliot Moss
And that’s across fintech, that’s energy, it’s in law, hospitality, lifestyle and you’re in London, Indore and in Washington DC.
Vinita Rathi
Yes.
Elliot Moss
And that’s, and that started in 2012 but I just want to go back to your, you come to the UK, your first job in the UK is with, is it with Goldman Sachs?
Vinita Rathi
Goldman Sachs.
Elliot Moss
We’ve heard of Goldman Sachs. And you’re working there, again in a software capacity?
Vinita Rathi
Yes. I started as a software engineer.
Elliot Moss
So here’s the thing, you, you’ve, you’ve gone out of the world, the world of the, the smaller village before Indore, Indore is not a small city, Indore is a big city but you go from there, you come to the UK, you get a job at one of the biggest investment banks in the world, you have a really stable life, you’re getting promoted and something compels you to say “I don’t want to do this, I want to do my own thing” and my question is why? Where’s that compulsion from?
Vinita Rathi
I think it probably goes back to the desire to do something different and stand out, right, so I think when I got promoted as a VP at Goldman, this was like 2011, right at the time when I was going on maternity, I started thinking what is it that I want to do next and if this is something that I want to, like you know do all my life, right. And I did those calculations, as in if I continue at Goldman for another five years, ten years, maybe I’ll become MD, maybe I’ll go to a partner, that’s it, but then there are a thousand partners that Goldman has like worldwide. Is that what I would want to see myself doing? And then it went back to like you know when I was at the university, Google was a thing at the time, I’ve always said is that Google was the company I always looked up to, I wanted to work there and whatnot, so we figured that if there is a time I should be trying something, it is, it was then and, and that’s it.
Elliot Moss
But that’s incredible, you know there’s wisdom and we mentioned as you get older you sort of get better at understanding what’s really going on in the world and your own life, did you sort of take yourself aside, Vinita, because people listening will go, ‘god, how do you get to the point where you tip yourself over and say I’m going to do this myself’, was there a moment or was it a, a process over a few weeks and months where you literally sat down with a blank piece of paper and said ‘what do I want to do with the rest of my life?’ or was it a bit less?
Vinita Rathi
I think I’ve always been an impromptu person. I’ll decide today I want to do this tomorrow and I’ll do it tomorrow, without really thinking much about it. And which is why a lot of people around me was very surprised that why am I, am I even taking this step. I think thankfully, it worked out, I don’t know if it, it would have not worked out then what would have happened but here I am.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for much more from my guest, Vinita Rathi. She’s back again in a couple of minutes but right now we’re going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions, they can be found on your podcast platform of choice. Mishcon de Reya’s Ashley Williams and Michael Rose, a senior associate at DRD Partnership, discuss how companies can navigate there AI strategy.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your favourite podcast platform. I won’t judge you. My guest today is Vinita Rathi, founder and CEO of Systango, a digital engineering firm specialising in Gen AI, Web3, automation, Cloud solutions and many other things too around that space. So, we were talking before about you know you just do stuff, Vinita, and you made this decision and maybe you didn’t overthink it, you just said, ‘I know that I don’t want to work at Goldman Sachs for the next ten years’, you kind of got to that point and it could have been ‘insert name’ of any other company. When you set your thing up, was there ever a sense of ‘what have I done?’ or was it plain sailing from Day One?
Vinita Rathi
Oh no, all the times, all the times, especially because it was me and my husband doing together, right, and there were always these conversations that we would have at the dinner table that made both of us uncomfortable because I think I’m very difficult to handle when it comes to work and I have high aspirations, I have high ambitions, but then I’m also very demanding and so…
Elliot Moss
Of him?
Vinita Rathi
Of whatever I do. So…
Elliot Moss
That would be of him as well. Poor Nilesh. Yeah.
Vinita Rathi
Yeah, and so, so I think there were times when I really doubted my decision but I think with like anything in my life, I just kept going, I just kept doing and again, in the end it worked out.
Elliot Moss
And what, why do you say you’re difficult?
Vinita Rathi
Because I, I have certain standards that I always wanted to follow and I always want to be the better version of myself every next day, which means lot of reflection, which means lot of retrospection and which means like you know every day I won, I grew and so I expect that from everyone around me and, which makes life a little difficult.
Elliot Moss
And where do you think that’s come from? I know you’ve spoken in the things I’ve read about your father in incredibly glowing terms and you’ve just mentioned your mum too, this work ethic and all that but this drive, you know people often ask is it nature or nurture? What do you think for you, where’s it from?
Vinita Rathi
I think it was nurture. I guess it goes back to how my childhood was and the, again the desire to make myself known and get that respect.
Elliot Moss
What is that ‘known’ thing? What, that’s really interesting, I mean look, India is a huge country, huge and yet you’re going, ‘I want to be known’. What is, what’s that about? I find it fascinating because I, it’s, it’s not normal. I mean a lot of people want to do well in life and they’ve got, they were at the Goldman Sach’s of the world, they go ‘fantastic, settle back, carry on, manage my life’ but for you there was, there’s always something else.
Vinita Rathi
There’s always, as I said, I want to be a better version of myself every next year, right and what that means is, whatever I’ve done until today is not sufficient for me and, which means that I have to do something different, like you know next year when I wake up.
Elliot Moss
And in terms of coming here in 2007, was that the change that you needed do you think? Do you think that was the perfect antidote to where you were at in your life?
Vinita Rathi
Yes, 100% because again, I’ve never gone out, outside of my city on my own, you know, so the first time I managed to, and then Nilesh was not there with me when, and when I actually flew from like you know Indore to London, it was just me by myself…
Elliot Moss
And you’d never been here before?
Vinita Rathi
…in the flight. No, no. So that was my first time flying out on my own, with nobody else and outside of the country, you know. So, it was…
Elliot Moss
But how were you feeling, I mean that’s, all those things, that’s an extraordinary number of firsts, you know, it’s, you could have said “well I flew from Indore to Mumbai, it was a, Bombay, it was a pretty big shock” but here we are, you’re talking about coming to the UK, you don’t know anybody, you have no family and you’re about to make your way in life. What was that like in your head?
Vinita Rathi
I think at the time I just wanted to be with Nilesh because we’d just gotten married in December, he was here and I wanted to be with him so, we just decided I’ll fly here and then we’ll see. And going back to what I was saying earlier, I think I’m quite impromptu person so, we decided we want to be here, we just came here and again, it worked out.
Elliot Moss
Don’t overthink things. That’s what’s going on over here.
Vinita Rathi
No, what I say is, if you think you want to do something, go for it. I think if you have the determination and if you have compassion, like for people around you, it will just all work out for you.
Elliot Moss
So the businesses has grown exponentially, you took the company public in 2023, why? Because I, again, I have this conversation with people who are, they’re happy, they own their own equity, they might get a little bit of venture capital at the beginning, they might get some private equity in the middle, yes, there’s a progression to public but at what stage did you decide that was right for you?
Vinita Rathi
So, CB bootstrapped our company, we never took any external investments whatsoever. I think in 2023 there was a moment when one of my friend from school, he reached out to me and he said, “What is it that you’re wanting to do next? Where are you taking Systango?” and I think we were at a point where we were actually exploring what is it that we want to do next, what can we do differently, especially in a saturated market where we are, right, and it just happened to us where we thought that if we go public, Number 1, I think we will probably be able to differentiate ourselves because then we’ll have a lot of compliance, like in a lot of governance and build within our organisation and probably our customers will take us more seriously when it comes to like you know deciding between one company versus another, so I think that was our first motivation. Our second motivation probably was we wanted to, because we wanted to grow the company, we felt if we were to go down the path of inorganic growth, which is like you know go out and acquire other companies, then probably this will allow us unlock the value of equity that we have because remember, me and my husband kind of like have 100% equity between us so, we thought that maybe this will unlock the value of equity that we have and we will then be able to use our equity as currency when it comes to like you know doing these transactions and I think we are on that path where like, you know we are finding that other companies who we are very interested in, we want to merge with or acquire them, they are interested in the equity of the company now. Also, because like you know India is a growing economy and everybody knows that like you know if, if you want to ride the wave of the growth then you want to be in the middle of it and getting a share of a listed company in India allows like, you know other companies to be able to do that. So it kind of like solved two purposes.
Elliot Moss
It made perfect sense basically.
Vinita Rathi
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And, and the growth of your knowledge of what it took, there’s one thing being a fantastic practitioner in the world of technology and I’ve read about you describing yourself as a kind of a tech person before an entrepreneur, but you are an entrepreneur obviously because you’ve not just set up this business but a number of other entities and businesses as well. But in terms of you understanding what to do next and focussing on that versus being a practitioner, have you enjoyed that journey?
Vinita Rathi
Oh yes. In fact even the listing process. In the hindsight, I think it gave us lot of discipline. See, as, as the solo founders or as like you know husband and wife as the founder, you don’t really get used to being accountable for what you are doing, right, you don’t have to answer anybody, you just do whatever is right, you feel right for you, right.
Elliot Moss
Sounds heavenly.
Vinita Rathi
Exactly. But when you list yourself, there are investors who starts asking questions and that means that you have to really start thinking of what is it that I want to do in the next six months, what is it that we want to do in twelve months? So I think that process itself gave us like you know a lot of discipline now and lot of aspirations and lot of inspirations as well.
Elliot Moss
And you like that discipline because you, you must have enjoyed the freedom, Vinita, before the public listing because again, having looked at public listings very, very closely, there is a hell of a lot of compliance and a lot of governance as you said but for you it sounds like you’ve enjoyed that, that’s benefitted the development of your business.
Vinita Rathi
I think it goes back to having the support system in my opinion that I have created around me, right. So I told you this was my friend came to me, asked me what is that you want you to do with Systango, it happened that he ran the whole listing process for us so, like you know the moment we decided we want to list, which was in August I think, we had to move our headquarters to India because our headquarters was UK. It took us like six months to list, you know, and I think for a lot of people it was an achievement that how can you just do that in six months.
Elliot Moss
That quickly. I was going to say, that’s, that’s rapid.
Vinita Rathi
Yeah, so, I think having that support system where a lot of our friends, I’ve said this a number of times, like you know we’ve been lucky to have people to help us raise our kids as well so, I think all of that has actually helped a lot.
Elliot Moss
I’m going to talk more about your support system and a little bit more in my final chat with you, Vinita. So, you’d better be ready for that. It’s Vinita Rathi, she’s my Business Shaper and staying with me despite that, that I just said and her fear in her eyes thinking what’s he going to ask me. We’ve also got some music from Ezra Collective, that’s in just a moment here on Jazz FM, don’t go anywhere.
Vinita Rathi is my Business Shaper just for a few more minutes. That support system that we were, you mentioned and I wanted to bring up, you’ve talked about, ‘we have nannies’, ‘my husband’s been incredible’, again, women unfortunately still, the paradigm is ‘ah, a woman needs lots of support because you know it’s different when a woman runs a business’, of course you don’t talk about men having support systems, but for you, you have managed it. What have been the keys to success of the support system?
Vinita Rathi
So, I just want to touch upon what you just now said. Look, it’s a fact and I think that’s nature, where women are wired differently and when I say they’re wired differently, meaning we are very emotional deep at our heart. We have this forever guilt, where we feel that we haven’t done enough for our kids and we aren’t doing enough for our family because we are focussing on our career which probably is not like you know something that we should focus fulltime on. Having said that, because that’s something that I always wanted to do, I wanted to create my identity, I wanted to have my mark, I think I started reading books, this was probably back to my manager at Goldman 2008 where he gave me, he lent me a book and said, “you should read this”, right, that’s how I started reading books. And I ended up reading the book of Indra Nooyi, she was the one who said in her book that it’s very important for women to create a good support system around them, largely because of how we are and who we are and what that means is we shouldn’t just try to do everything all by ourselves, we should look to people to help us out in different situations and for males, it’s largely females who help them out, right so, every husband has a wife who looks after them, who looks after the family and whatnot. As a wife sometimes, it’s very difficult to get a husband who just looks after the family and especially in our case because we both were working and I think it became even more important for us that we create the support system and thankfully, we had like you know ladies who supported us in raising our kids, again because we are in UK and we had no family at the time.
Elliot Moss
But very structured again, you thought it through, that you gave it, I mean you know yourself I guess is what I’m thinking, is you, you said you acknowledge that women are wired differently and I think that’s, for me what’s unlocked it for you because you go ‘yeah, of course we are, no big deal’ and I mean I think people get hung up on difference and think that there shouldn’t be any but of course that, that can’t be right. There’s something else about the, you and the business obviously, as a woman running a business which is now publicly listed, you’re the boss, you walk in and there’s, you’ve now got three, about 350 people that work for you, about 25% are women and obviously I know you’ve said aspirationally, you want to get that 50% and that must be right, but your, your background in terms of your family and the Marwari, how do I?
Vinita Rathi
Marwari.
Elliot Moss
Marwari group in India, famous for business. Do you still feel the generations behind you as you, as you kind of approach life? I was asking about nurture and nature. Actually, there’s something genetic isn’t there?
Vinita Rathi
100%, yeah. So my dad originally was a farmer, when he came to Indore, he started setting up his own business, he tried different business so he started with being a grain merchant, he then became a distributor of Castrol oil, afterwards he became a seed merchant and then he, right now, he runs factory that produces different kinds of attas and like you know meals in Indore and the nearby like cities. So I think that…
Elliot Moss
Atta is grain, atta is grain?
Vinita Rathi
Yeah, grain, exactly. So that entrepreneurship actually comes probably like you know from him, that work ethic I think also comes from him. I’ve seen him coming back home at 6.00 o’clock in the morning after watering and irrigating like you know, fields, and I think, I guess that has just come in naturally to me as well.
Elliot Moss
It’s been so nice talking to you and hearing this, I now realise, quite natural progression in a funny way even though it doesn’t look like the line was straight, you’re just going to keep on doing stuff and we didn’t even touch on some of the other businesses which you’ve founded, but if you want to go and have a look at Women Hack for Non-profits, which is the, you founded that business, you are the co-founder of Women Who Code, the London Chapter, there’s that over there, there’s Studio Fintech, there’s a Sh…, how do you say it, the wealth management?
Vinita Rathi
Shootih.
Elliot Moss
Shootih, which is another platform for Indian wealth management for businesses. It goes on. I have a feeling that by tomorrow you’ll have another five. Thank you so much for spending time with me, Vinita, it’s been great. Just before I let you disappear, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Vinita Rathi
So, it’s Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon. I think it just resonates my personality and that’s what I want to be and want to do.
Elliot Moss
Fly Me To The Moon from Mr Frank Sinatra. The song choice of my Business Shaper today, Vinita Rathi. She talked about the importance of her parents and the role that they played in her becoming who she is today, whether it’s her mum pushing for brilliant education or her dad being an incredibly hard worker and trying a whole bunch of stuff. She talked about the art of doing things and she said if you want to do something, you just need to go for it. And finally, whatever she did, she focussed on that important point around compassion, have compassion for others and everything will work out just fine. I love that. That’s it from Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.