International Women's Day Interview: Rashi Sanghvi, Founder, Gardner Street

Name: Rashi Sanghvi

Age: 28

City: Mumbai, India

Occupation: Founder, Gardner Street

ST: Please tell us briefly about you.

Rashi: I am the founder of an experimental tea brand called
Gardner Street. Having done a consulting stint with Ernst & Young and
completing my MBA in Entrepreneurship and Marketing from Babson College, I
returned back to India to start my company. I come from a family of
entrepreneurs, am an avid reader and have always wanted to start my own
business.

I
believe that what we truly are what we eat and therefore it is important to
understand and be conscious of what one is putting into one’s body. That is why
at Gardner Street, we source out the best quality whole-tea leaves and blend
them with real fruits, flowers and herbs that strike the perfect note when it
comes to taste and health.

ST: Who is a woman that inspires you the
most and why?

Rashi: Falguni Nayyar, Nykaa. I believe that she has completely transformed the
cosmetic and e-commerce industry in India. Being a Nykaa merchant partner, I
have not just interacted as customer but also as a vendor and every single
interaction I have with them leaves me with a feeling of pride that one of us
created this.

ST: How are you celebrating this year’s
International Women’s Day?

Rashi: Being a woman dominated organization, everyday for us
is Women’s Day! I believe it is important for us to celebrate our growth and
achievements, however small or big they may be and that is exactly what I
intend to do with my team that day. From a brand perspective, we are running
offers on all our products to provide an opportunity for people to show the
women in their life how much they value them.

ST: What is the most important message
you want to send out to all the women around the world on this occasion?

Rashi: I want to tell women around the well not to sell them
selves short. Years of soft and hard moulding has hard-wired us to believe that
there are somethings that men do better. I want to assure you that there is no
such thing. We often become our biggest enemies by thinking so and we need to
keep reminding ourselves that there is nothing we cannot do.

ST: What according to you is ‘women
empowerment’?

Rashi: Women empowerment is when women are truly in-charge
of their destiny and they feel like they can be anything they choose to be.
When we aren’t bringing up our girls and boys differently just because of their
gender and when women aren’t afraid of breaking their silence and speaking up
for themselves and for their fellow women.

ST: What would you say are the main
challenges facing women at present in India?

Rashi: One big challenge I see is a lack of role models in
their lives. That scenario is slowly but steadily changing but given the low
ratio of women in the workplace in managerial positions there is often a vacuum
for the incoming generation in terms of women to look up to and approach for
advice and mentor-ship.

Physical
safety and security

Fighting
pre-conceived notions and titles like ‘bossy’, ‘too aggressive’, and ‘abrasive’.

ST: Where do you want to see yourself in
next 5 years?

Rashi: I want to see myself as the name behind the brand
that is on the shopping list of every individual that is conscious about what
he/she is putting into his/her body. While building this brand, I also hope
that I can in my own way encourage women to believe in themselves and dare to
dream and then take that leap of faith to do whatever it is that they need to
do to achieve that dream. A cup of tea provides that quite moment of reflection
to say ‘Why Not?’ and I hope every woman takes that opportunity to ask herself
that while she steeps and sip of her cup of Gardner Street Tea.