Episode 52: Deepali Vyas
Episode 52: An Interview with Deepali Vyas, Founder and CEO of Fearless+ and Senior Partner of Korn Ferry
Join Lori and her guest, Deepali Vyas, as they talk about democratizing access to education for the next generation. Deepali is the founder and CEO of Fearless+ and also a Senior Partner at Korn Ferry. She shares how her extensive experience in executive search has helped a passion project turn into reality. What’s the story behind her wanting to give back to the next generation? Stay tuned!
Here are the things to expect in this episode:
Here are the things to expect in this episode:
What is Fearless+? Who is their target market?
What makes great leaders great?
Giving back to underserved students in particular communities.
And many more!
About Deepali Vyas:
With over 20 years of diverse experience, my work includes executive search for strategic AI, Data, Advanced Analytics leaders across industry sectors, with a particular expertise in private-equity backed organizations and financial services firms. I provide executive assessment and coaching services of C-Suite leaders and team assessment and team coaching services for top teams. I have my professional certifications in executive assessment, a range of psychometric tools, executive coaching and team coaching services.
My leadership consulting work includes succession planning, talent management advisory, and organization consulting. In the area of Diversity and Inclusion, I advise my clients on best practices particularly with respect to women and underrepresented minorities in STEM fields.
Connect with Deepali!
Website: https://fearlessplus.com
Connect with Lori Kranczer!
Episode Transcript
00:00
You're listening to the Positive Impact Philanthropy podcast where we share the journeys of everyday philanthropists as they incorporate philanthropy into their lives. Philanthropy is a personal journey and through the stories we will share here, we hope that it sparks something in you, and how you can make your own philanthropic impact in the world. I'm your host, Lori Kranczer attorney, philanthropic advisor and legacy giving strategist. Together we're going to explore what it looks like to be an everyday philanthropist and make a positive impact in the world. Before we get started, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a new episode posted on Wednesdays. So I'm really excited today we have Deepali Vyas. She is the Senior Partner of Korn Ferry heading up Global Head of FinTech and she is also the founder and CEO of fearless plus. Welcome to Deepali.
00:50
Thank you, Lori. Appreciate you having me on the show. Well, it's
00:53
great to have you here. So please tell us more about you.
00:57
Well, I've had over 20 years of experience in executive search and leadership coaching. I've conducted over 40,000 executive interviews and work with the top Fortune 500 C suite leaders in the boardroom focusing on the next generation of talent and search and strategy and leadership development. I also turned my passion project into something very real which is Fearless Plus. And Fearless is an ed tech platform that's really reshaping the way young people prepare for the future. I really wanted to figure out a way where I can distill my experience and give back to the next generation and how do I empower them and how do I give them the power of choice? You know, I grew up in an immigrant family. And when I was growing up, I'm an immigrant myself. And going back to my high school days, I really just felt like I didn't know what I was doing. And moreover, I didn't have a lot of access. And so in my seat today, having so much access to you know, global companies and worldwide leaders, I just felt that there is an opportunity here to democratize that access For that young generation. So that's why I started when I started passion project to reality, and this is where I am today.
02:31
So let's dive in a little bit more on the passion project which became a reality and is growing and so how long did it take you from concept to launching and who helped you along the way? Talk a little bit more about that?
02:47
Absolutely. You know, I've been thinking about this for a couple of years now. But it really came to fruition during COVID. So during the pandemic, we were all at home and I was observing my young son about how he was learning things in school and you know, he goes to a great school but I felt that there is still a little bit of a disconnect from what young people are learning in traditional education to what they actually need in sort of real life. Right. So I started figuring out there, there's a way for us to be able to impact these young people and teach them all the stuff that's not taught in school. And that became Fearless. I really wanted to curate a lot of these, you know, skills and, and everything from you know, videos and podcasts and everything around leadership and life skills and put that into a box and be able to ship that out. And when the pandemic hit I really wanted to create this sort of subscription box type of type of company and, you know, with supply chain and this and that we decided to pivot into a completely digital platform and that's where I met my partner who actually puts the tech in our ed tech and we now have Fearless as a digital subscription platform for these young people to learn leadership and life skills. And that's how it really, you know, came to fruition. So we are alive and we're helping all of these young people really prepare and reshape the way about how they think about where that whether they're going to pursue college or whether they're going to try to take on an internship over the summer or if they're going to go straight from high school to a job. So that's that's what we're all about.
04:43
So you're working with children of the say middle school and high school level. And yeah, so
04:50
we are actually specifically focused on high school students at this time. We think that is the, you know, sort of target market for us and those high school students are, are probably a little anxiety ridden at this point saying, Alright, well what am I going to do with my life? You know, do I want to go to college is the ROI on college there? Do I want to have insurmountable debt and come out on the other end and what am I going to do? You know, do I take a gap year and all of these things so it's a really transformational period for them. And we really want to set in sort of, you know, what, what does real life look like, you know, do you know how to do your taxes? Do you know anything about personal finance? How do you communicate, how do you present the core skills that are actually needed when you're on the job versus, you know, learning how to code which I deeply appreciate. And I think that there's so many wonderful opportunities for someone to go to a coding boot camp and learn that. But when you think about where I am in my seat and what makes truly great leaders great. It's really those skills around emotional intelligence. And adaptability and rationality. And that sort of that missing link where I found that my experience if I distill that insert sort of a framework where these kids can really pick up on that earlier in life. We can really be creating the next generation of leaders.
06:15
And just give us a little taste of some of the curriculum regarding leadership, like what is what is some of the different components that you're teaching?
06:25
Yeah, really great question. So you know, we start with so the frame the success framework that we built is EQ which is emotional intelligence, plus R Q, which is rationality quotient, plus a AQ, which is adaptability. And then IQ, which is what they're learning in school, and we do all of this. So the curriculum includes, you know, self awareness, positive mindset, verbal and nonverbal communication, the art of storytelling, productivity, how do you you know, have the tools and strategies to increase productivity, personal finance, how are you you know, savings, budgeting, emergency funds, you have to think about this as you're kind of preparing for real life. College Prep, what's the future of school, how do you differentiate yourself? How do you you know, get an edge on college essays? You know, so we have a whole you know, vast curriculum that is, you know, offered in these modules, self paced modules. But I think the really fun part of what we do is I almost call it edutainment, right. We don't want this to feel like school. We want kids to we know that high school students in particular have a very, you know, small window, in terms of, you know, between sports and homework and all this. We don't want it to feel like homework. And so what we ask is 15 minutes a day, that's it in 15 minutes a day, you're learning aspects of these sorts of soft skills that we're trying to teach you. And all of these are offered in different modalities. So it's not like as if you're just watching a boring video for 15 minutes every day. We switch it up. So there's videos, there's podcasts, there's articles and if you think about what, you know, a sort of, I'm gonna say executive or a leader in any job. You're doing things in different modalities. You're on the phone, you're on video, you're presenting, you're reading, you're doing all of these things you're writing. And so we do this in this way, but we only take 15 minutes a day of these young people's time. And so over time, you know, we're measuring how these experiences are helping really develop their EQ, and we know this that we know that emotional intelligence having higher EQ, you are 400% more likely to outpace your peers with lower EQ. Right? And that's like being college ready, being career ready. And so that's what we want to how we want to impact these young people.
08:57
So I want to talk a little bit more about this and then want to get more into about you. So the so where are where are these students coming from? Like, are you focusing on particular area or?
09:11
Yeah, we are so it's we want to have every single high school student around the globe be on our platform. So we are, you know, available and accessible to all high school students. The philanthropic piece for us is that for every five subscriptions that we have, we give one away to an underserved student. So when you think about the communities that we really want to help, whether it's, you know, underserved students in particular communities, and we're starting with places in the Bronx and other boroughs, particularly because we are, you know, New York based, but we try to make sure that we're we're able to give back to those students that again, do not have that type of access.
09:59
Great, great. Okay, so I want to go now, a little bit more into your background and talk about your philanthropic intent and inspiration because it doesn't just happen when you're older, right? They just can just like hit you out of the blue things happen during our childhood and school. So I want to go back to that and can you think about when you first started to feel inspired to be philanthropic?
10:26
Yeah. I probably want to say around high school. I was a very active student, and it was it was, you know, again, when you're in high school, you have very idealistic goals. And I think that idealism really, you know, stays with you if you're able to do highly impactful activities and for me, you know, I did a lot in high school where and it wasn't even looking padding my college resume. It was really about what can I do for the school? I really love my community. I really love my school. How can I do better and how can I give back and so one of the things that I did was, I went to Alameda High School in Lakewood, Colorado. That's where where, you know, most of my adolescence was and where I grew up, and, you know, the community was a very blue collar community. And so I, all of our high schools, high school students, we were able to go out to lunch off campus. And what we would do is go to the local Taco Bell, Burger King, whatever. And I noticed that you know, a lot of us were kind of leaving the place not so great. It was messy little trip, you know, trashing these businesses. And these are local businesses that were really thriving just because of the student population and the local population. So what I did was I started I know you've sort of seen those Adopt a Highway programs. So for my school I started an adopt a business program as a way of community service. And so what we did was, you know, anybody that was in the adopt a business, you know, program that wanted to have their community service hours met, we would go and please help clean up these businesses after school and you know, that got a little bit of an attention from our local community. And there were some news outlets that covered it, and I felt really good about it. I felt really good. Especially because I come from a small business owner family, right. My parents owned a motel when I was when I was younger, and I grew up in the motel business and I was running our motels since I was 12 years old. And so for me, it's like, you know, as a small business, my parents were small business owners. The last thing we wanted is someone kind of trashing our property or, you know, doing something like that. And, you know, my heart really went out for those business owners and that's really where my sort of you know, philanthropic or impact efforts started.
13:00
And then in the certainly pull through and with everything else that you're doing. So let's let's go into also how you got involved and doing what you do professionally. Yeah, yeah. A long time.
13:13
Yeah, exactly. So you know, almost nearly 23 years in executive search and recruiting. I think my job really lends itself to my personality. I help people every single day. I help people get jobs. And it's an extremely rewarding career. You know, I get to change people's lives. Every day. I do live with the burden of if I placed them into a job that they don't like, you know, that's on me, right? I've convinced them to move from one one place to another place and you spend whatever 70 80% of your time on the job and 20% at home if you really think about it and so, when these individuals wake up in the morning and they go to work, you know, I have a large part to do with it if I put them in that seat, but it's exceptionally rewarding getting people to navigate their career, get them promoted, get them you know, salary increases, and I feel like my whole career has been around this and yes, you know, I have made a very good living, you know, in this career, but I think it's it's especially more fulfilling because I'm able to help people.
14:34
So I'm just jotting down my notes because I can already start to see all the patterns that are forming here. And and how you're philanthropically inclined, but I also want to ask, because, you know, there's within recruitment, you know, just in general, there is so many different areas. And so why did you choose or gravitate towards FinTech and that area?
14:55
Yeah. Look, I think that FinTech in general has a very, you know, disruptive notion, right? You are trying to, you know, some of the companies that I work with are helping serve the underbanked and so when you think about these fintechs that want to make it easier for banking and payments and, and even the whole crypto revolution, democratizing access to money and and being able to seamlessly transfer money and, you know, not be bound by you know, certain you know, certain aspects of the financial system, right. You know, how do you get a mortgage easier? How do you make payments easier? How do you send money back home, if your, your, your family's in a different country, so on and so forth. So I think you know, Fintech is is equally disruptive. And helpful to to the underbanked and underserved, specifically when it comes to money. And I also run our applied intelligence practice, which is all around data and analytics and, and, you know, data is the future. It's a data driven revolution and I think young people, you know, sit on the board advisory board of a company called Correlation One. And what they've done is they've put together free training programs for the, you know, minority and, you know, women in STEM and other things that I participate in, and they get free training. And they get matched to jobs within this whole data and analytics spectrum. And so, you know, we're really creating opportunities and career pathways for all these people, which is, you know, truly rewarding.
16:42
So, we're getting to our last question I and I already have a sense of what I think it's going to be. So, you know, when we get to this part of the interview with Deepali, we always ask, What do you want your legacy to look like?
16:57
Yeah, that's a really great question. It's a hard question. But I think the legacy that I want to leave is that I have helped democratize access to opportunity to the young generation to my generation and to generations even before me. I think democratizing access and opportunity is you know, really the pinnacle of my career professionally. And philanthropically and this is the entire reason why I've started Fearless. I want the young people of the next generation to be fearless about their future. Have the power of choice, but really have access to these opportunities that, you know, someone like me did not have growing up. At least I didn't know what the system was. And I want to be able to to help inform really great decisions and help them be prepared as they walk into those opportunities as well.
18:03
Okay, so I absolutely love that and it's so I'm going to reveal I don't do this that often, but I'm going to share my notes with you. So, as we were talking, these are the things that I wrote down I wrote down access I wrote democratizing, I wrote ease of use underserved leadership talent, and that is absolutely what I see when you're talking about your legacy. So I think that's incredible. So, so know that you have a pattern and and it's one of my the fun things about doing these interviews is I get to uncover people's patterns. So. So with that, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your journey. Can you just share with us how people can find out more information about you and Fearless Plus?
18:48
Yes, absolutely. Well, we were online so you can find us at your list. plus.com And the one thing that I want to say is that you know, we are putting together an amazing eight week virtual summer program this summer for high schoolers, and it's from running from June 13 to August 5. We are going to be putting out you know all of the information and there's going to be a signup deadline. We want to try to get everybody in there's very limited slots, there's 100 slots available. And there's a one time fee of five venue five, but it's an amazing virtual summer program where you're going to all of these teams are going to really get these leadership and life skills that I was talking about, you know, from psychology and emotional intelligence and personal branding and personal finance and college prep, all jam packed and we have a summit with you know, the leaders that I was talking about the democratization of access we have industry experts from SpaceX and Google and CNBC and, you know, professional athletes. So this is going to be a super cool summer program for those teenagers that you know, might not have signed up for any summer camps yet. We are trying to bring all of that to them and it's going to be virtual, and hopefully it's going to be really awesome, but you can find more information on Fearless Plus.com
20:08
It sounds great, especially for my 14 year old who can code but he can’t make sandwich so
20:18
we're doing it all.
20:20
So I'll be in touch about that. So for everyone listening thank you for joining us. We hope we provide some insights and inspiration that you can use for your own philanthropic journey. See you next time. Thank you, Lori. Thank you for joining us. I hope we provided some insights and inspiration that you can use for your own philanthropic journey. You can tune in every week on Wednesdays when new episodes are dropped. We'd love to hear your feedback. So leave a comment and a rating about what you liked and what you'd like to hear more about. And if you liked the episode today, make sure to share it to raise awareness about the story to inspire other women to take action. I'm Lori Kranczer And until next time, you can make a positive impact through philanthropy every day. Thanks for listening. You're listening
