Akanksha Sharma— brilliant, beautiful and brave. Bravery, she says is essential for constructing a sustainable development narrative to things as sensitive as people, planet and profit. Shattering the glass ceiling, she has received numerous recognitions for her ground breaking work of more than one and a half decades in the corporate world leading businesses to address the most challenging global sustainability issues.
But, there is more to this charismatic business women and author of For the Greater Common. Besides being globally acclaimed for her work on Sustainability, she is not just an icon to the growth of sustainability among the Gen Z, but also of women leadership in tough and male dominated industries like supply chain and logistics. On breaking the glass ceiling she says, “The glass ceiling is just a metaphor for invisible systemic barriers that women face and need to break through to fly. Today, the world is full of opportunities for everyone, but courage is something that we really need to foster in our women—courage to ask, courage to say no and courage to stand up and rise each time we fall. As a daughter, mother, wife and a committed professional it has been a challenging journey for me too but the light that one sees at the end of the tunnel is the ultimate reward. Because that light is meant to show way to many other such women who do not have access to opportunities. Also, I think that my work is extremely interesting where every day I come across opportunities to address issues related to pressing global problems and make this world better is a compelling enough reason for me to break all kinds of ceilings and realize my highest potential for many others.”
Born in Jaipur, Akanksha lives with her husband and a son between Delhi and Dubai. She says that for long she has been intrigued with the larger question of - What all happens in the name of Development? “The journey of seeking answers to this, was full of wandering and wondering. I have navigated through a wide spectrum of development issues in my work– inequalities of many kinds, cries of hunger and poverty, struggles for basic healthcare, education, clean water, and also global emergencies like climate risks. The fact is that all of them demand urgency. Therefore, my book is the outcome of those questions that have perturbed me for years. This kind of exposure has also made me break the invisible barriers that you asked about earlier in my work because when you are working for a bigger purpose you have no option but to breakthrough whatever comes your way.”
Akanksha has extensively worked on an array of global development issues says, “we are not just living in complicated, but also alarming times. Pandemic and its several after-effects including growing inequalities of all kinds and climate disruptions are pushing us into a dangerous future. “We must reboot our imaginations and explore ways to embrace the multiplicity of many worlds, many perspectives, many ideas and many stories.” Known for developing innovative approaches on CSR, Sustainability, Business- Government Policy, Climate Action and more, she has developed blueprints and led diverse organizations on Sustainability cutting across the industries including FMCG, metal-mining, telecom/ IT and logistics.
Incandescent in her brilliance, when asked about her book she said, “For the Greater Common Good is about embracing many worlds. Both within and beyond, which is fractured into infinite things of all sorts — lie many other worlds waiting to be embraced. The book aims to liberate hope that’s colonized into our fragmented world.” The elusive cover of the book has many unidentifiable people as a metaphor. She says with an elegant smile, “My work has mostly made me look at the marginalized and explore possibilities to bring them to the centre. This is what the book is about. I look at the narratives of development as a futurist not as a victim. Our fascinations with exclusivity have led us to discriminatory settings. My aim is to tell the stories of an inclusive world.”
“The book has travelled a long way with me.” She adds, “It is a natural progression of my work of many years and how I imagine the possible solutions for a better world. I feel it’s really difficult to compartmentalise one’s purpose into forms like serving, writing, etc.- all of them eventually converge into ‘the common greater good’. For me, writing is mostly fluid, but then it is an art too, and during the process, one evolves with every written and unwritten sentence.”
She devotes her success to her parents and their bringing up. Her parents were leading lawyers in Rajasthan. Her father in particular has been an animal lover and a naturist. Reflecting on her personal loss, she talks about empathy and compassion, “The loss of my mother who was an ardent believer of the greater common good, has changed my views on life and world deeply. Loss in a way teaches us to navigate through life without any after-maps and maybe for that reason it makes us more humble, more compassionate and more empathetic.”
Akanksha’s journey also speaks volumes about the fact that women leaders contribute towards creating more inclusive organizations as evidently under her leadership organizations emerged as sectoral leaders. She has championed some most groundbreaking initiatives on product innovation like developing world’s first eco-labelled optical fibre product in the world assured by an external agency. She has also led the organization achieve world class status on environment standards of waste, water and decarbonization, social and community development and corporate governance.
Today, Akanksha is part of a new generation pushing for social change in India, driven by young women leaders. On being a role model for youth, she said, “It’s extremely important that we teach our youth especially young women to be self reliant, resilient and dreamers to make this world a better place.”
