We recently connected with Meena Das and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Meena, thanks for joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.
I measure the success of my consulting practice differently than most businesses. I have designed my unique metrics that allows me to
1. look beyond revenue
2. build community of my own
3. center my why – of data + equity, and,
4. focus my own continuous learning
Designing such unique measures of success, in turn, enables me to apply a similar lens when I work with nonprofits. For example, for a food bank, one of my question is – does having more people to serve food – is that really success of the program? If that’s not, then let’s discuss what is.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a first-generation immigrant woman from India. I moved to North America seven years ago. Throughout my life, I have moved a lot. Having three advanced degrees in data and data science, and been part of working life for almost fifteen years, I realized early pandemic that none of my professional avenues allow me to bring my lived experiences to the data. Most of work involved leveraging my learned experiences. So, I set out to ask one question – how can we do good with data by leveraging both our lived and learned experiences?
Practicing that everyday became my work. I am proud of building a practice that is designed to be sustainable (emotionally and mentally) for me and all my collaborators. I consult, speak, train, and write on data equity, data and AI ethics, data collection…and all such areas where data needs to seen with purpose.
Anyone interested can reach out at namastedata.org to learn more.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Six years ago when I got into my first job in North America, I met an accident. I was three months into the role. One day I was going to take my lunch in the cafeteria when I fell through the stairs in the workplace. I lost my front teeth and ability to speak for three months. My organization did not pay for my surgeries because my accident happened at the cafeteria. As an immigrant, I neither understood health care nor my legal options as much. I paid everything out of pocket and made my health a priority. At that point I realized I want a different job, a different industry. I left that job, took up some part-time roles until I landed my first nonprofit consulting job full-time.
I still keep the papers of my accident. Not as a reminder that I could not win a legal battle. But as a proof that if I could survive that, I can build healthy life out of all kinds of situations.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
After working for more than decade for different orgs and industries, I always though success meant to “fit in”, to confirm to certain standards, to be judged on the specific metrics. Only upon realizing if we intend to build our work by centering our joy for long-term sustainability, our ideas of success needs to update. They cannot be linear. We need to be comfortable in standing out with my uniqueness – from voice and accent to knowledge and skills.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.namastedata.org
- Instagram: @namastedata
- Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/meenadas