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Aaroha charts a new course with desi twist on modern leadership
MUMBAI: In an era where chaos is the new constant and ambiguity is a daily affair, a Hyderabad-based startup is turning eastward for answers to leadership. Aaroha, launched today, is on a mission to reshape leadership development in India through a human-centric lens rooted in Indian philosophy.
Founded by Kalpana Sinha, Haritha Kandalla, and Ketaki Kadekar industry veterans with over 70 years of collective experience, Aaroha brings together wisdom from the Vedas with practical frameworks to help leaders navigate the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world and its newer cousin, BANI (brittle, anxious, non-linear, and incomprehensible).
“Traditional leadership models tend to emphasize the individualistic leader, while Indian philosophy talks about a leader as someone who takes the collective along, and that is the need of the hour given the VUCA-BANI world we live in,” said Aaroha co-founder and managing partner Kalpana Sinha. “Our approach redefines a leader to harness their natural strengths of adaptability and flexibility and also embrace an other-in approach towards leadership, which can enable organizations to create sustainable growth, retain key talent and foster innovation in increasingly complex business environments.”
Aaroha’s launch is backed by insights from its India Business Leaders Survey 2025, which drew responses from CXOs of both family-run and professionally managed firms more than half of which clock over 1 billion dollars in revenue. The top concern? Talent acquiring it, retaining it, and building a culture future-ready enough to keep it engaged.
The report revealed that leaders are struggling with tech adoption, accountability, and driving change, even as business expectations evolve faster than annual budgets. The call for leadership that goes beyond KPIs and job descriptions is growing louder.
Aaroha’s flagship offerings include leadership assessments, coaching, capability workshops, and organisational culture interventions. At the heart of it all is a proprietary framework that melds ancient Indian thought, think interdependence, self-awareness, dharma with modern tools for measurable business results.
The firm also focuses on fostering intergenerational collaboration, empowering next-gen talent, and addressing attrition by making purpose and learning part of the everyday leadership experience.
By tapping into India’s philosophical legacy and applying it to modern leadership challenges, Aaroha is scripting a new playbook, one that balances heart and hustle, vision and value. It’s not just about climbing the ladder anymore; it’s about knowing which one to lean on.
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Rakesh Menon joins Paytm as avp – lending
Fintech product leader takes on new role after building digital lending, payments and credit products across fintech ecosystem
MUMBAI: Rakesh Menon has joined Paytm as assistant vice president – lending, taking on a new role focused on strengthening the company’s lending and credit products.
Prior to this, Menon worked at Profectus Capital Pvt Ltd as chief manager – payments based financing and digital lending.
At Profectus, he designed and launched digital credit products for merchants with variable cash flows, including overdraft-linked and revenue-share lending models. He led end-to-end LOS–LMS API integrations with payment partners and aggregators, enabling real-time underwriting, disbursal and repayment workflows.
He also worked on funnel optimisation initiatives using journey analytics, improving onboarding, KYC and disbursal conversion by 35 per cent. He developed ecosystem partnerships for transaction-data-based credit assessment and automated settlement systems, and collaborated with credit and data science teams to strengthen risk models and early delinquency detection.
Menon standardised partner onboarding and API frameworks, reducing go-live timelines by 40 per cent and improving digital scalability.
Before Profectus Capital, he worked at PayU as senior manager – presales lead – enterprise business from August 2022 to August 2023. He set up a national presales function for fintech and digital commerce clients, aligning solutions such as EMI, BNPL, BBPS and offer engines to merchant requirements.
He also helped improve conversion rates by around 15 per cent through merchant persona mapping, demo frameworks and structured sales playbooks, working closely with product and go-to-market teams.
From April 2019 to July 2022, Menon served as business unit head – SMB – direct acquisitions at Worldline, where he built the SMB online payments vertical from scratch. The business scaled to Rs 2,500 crore in annual transaction volume, growing at 45 per cent year-on-year.
During this period, he introduced paperless onboarding processes including eKYC and eSign, developed partner dashboards and CRM automation systems, and integrated platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Tally to expand merchant adoption.
Across roles, Menon has worked across digital lending, payments and merchant financing, with experience in product development, ecosystem partnerships, API integrations and fintech-led growth strategies.
At Paytm, he will focus on scaling lending products and strengthening digital credit infrastructure within the company’s financial services ecosystem.
His appointment comes as fintech firms continue to expand their lending and embedded finance offerings in a competitive market.
