Vaishnavi Muralidharan

Focus areas : Executive Coaching, Wellbeing, Stress and Tension Release Management, Training and Facilitation, Human Resource Consulting, Communications

Vaishnavi is an Executive Coach, Trainer and Facilitator, TRE (Tension/trauma release exercises) practitioner and Human Resource consultant.

She has experience in business, Human Resource management and consulting. She also has a tested capability in communications and writing.

Vaish has worked with top management or board level management in multiple large engagements as a Human Resource consultant and is well versed in the area of leadership development and assessment.

She is a trained assessor and has designed and conducted Assessment and Development Centres for various levels of management. She has also designed organisation structures and reward programs for diverse organisations.
She has a strong interest in wellbeing and works with her clients on approaches to stress management at the workplace and beyond.

She is passionate about working with NGOs, especially in the area of awareness campaigns, training and empowerment of the socially/economically challenged individuals. She also volunteers with organisations which support children and adults with special needs.

She has worked across multiple countries and cultures in Asia such as India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and the Middle East. Companies she has worked with include Mercer Consulting, ICI India and Tata Motors. She is based in Dubai.

Why I want to support women : One of my earliest standout memories of supporting a woman was when I stopped a homeless man from beating a woman on the streets of Chennai. He claimed she was his wife and he could beat her if he wanted to. A !3 years old me yelled at him to stop and stood between him and his wife. He put his hand down and walked away. I was trembling, angry and empowered all at once. Really, it started at home when we moved into a joint family and my grandmother excused my brother from clearing his plate. The outrage from his sisters silenced that move forever.

Fast forward and I found myself in the wastelands of Bihar for a sales stint in my first job after management school. It was unsafe, I weathered it and these life experiences have stood me in good stead to deal with the implicit and explicit biases which I encountered at work and life. I thought of all the women I did NOT encounter in Bihar – and wondered how that experience would have been if some of the ticket collectors, the auto drivers, sales folk and customers had been women. Would I have had to stay up the whole night on the train with a suitcase against the door of the first-class coupe?

A career break to raise a baby brought me to a crisis. How unwelcoming and limited the opportunities were for a returning mom, a decade ago! While at the PTA in my son’s school I met other wonderful energetic and giving mothers who would often question their worth, and fill up their time with important volunteering at the school. But the cloud didn’t lift.

Working with NGOs which celebrated the girl child helped soothe the itch in me to work at grassroots to support families understand the need for inclusion and diversity.

And. Strangely enough, although not intentional, I found most of my coaching clients tended to be women. We truly attract what we seek to be part of in the world!
(in short, these experiences are why I would like to support other people who happen to be women 🙂