We were lucky to catch up with Anushree Mukherjee recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Anushree, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

First of all I want to express my gratitude to CanvasRebel magazine for featuring me. It truly means a lot. As you are aware from my previous interviews, that I quit my full-time IT job when I relocated to USA from UK, almost eight years ago. Soon after, I began to hunt for a profession that might fulfill both my dreams and satisfaction. I decided to work for myself – be my own boss. There is a saying that USA is a land of opportunities. But I must also mention “nothing comes free”, especially while making a life-changing decision in a completely strange land. The decision-making process for a career change involves a lot of planning and courage to overcome the confusing and negative thoughts. There are several risk-factors which at times were compelling me to give up the idea. There were times when I thought repeatedly, “What will happen if my idea of walking the quaint path fails?” I spent several nights freaking out with what I was aiming for. But once the decision was made, I did not look back. Sticking to the decision and working towards the goal take a lot of resilience and conviction. Meanwhile I fell pregnant twice. By that time I knew for sure that I must work from home and set my own hours. This directed me to become a Freelance Virtual Executive / Consultant. This role is both exciting and fulfilling because I get to work alongside the top-management of businesses or start-ups, i.e. CEOs, Founders, Directors, Managing Members or Partners. Not only that, but this role also allows me to get involved in wide variety of skills and therefor is a terrific evolving experience. This endeavor gradually opened up a stupendous opportunity for me – I was offered the role of Chief of Operations (COO) of a start up chiefgreenofficer.com , which markets green and sustainable technologies to mid-range and large corporations to help them to reduce carbon foot-print, improve efficiency and production by reducing headcounts and controlling costs. Companies using green technologies through chiefgreenofficer.com can achieve up to 10% of positive ROI sustainably within a year.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Good question. Thanks to your previous publications, your readers mostly know me by my penname ‘Shree’ as an award-winning author and film-writer, where I also talked about my home-based small business providing end-to-end solutions for digital publishing and broadcasting media. Formally, since I already have a consistent career path in the IT industry in managerial roles, I was working hard to amalgamate both my creative and technical experiences to provide multi-skilled services virtually, so that I can create a work-life balance. I did extensive research on how I would achieve this goal and came across a few freelance platforms who are in need of such Virtual Executives or Consultants to share the workload of the top-managements of several businesses and start-ups across the globe. And bingo! I got the idea to advertise myself as a Virtual Executive / Consultant along with my wide spectrum of skills I have accrued over the years of industrial experiences, across several continents. Gradually I began to get responses and eventually offers to join businesses virtually. The best part of my work is that it is 100% virtual. I do every bit of work from home. Initially it is difficult to win over several business clients. So, I began with a couple of clients and worked diligently to prove myself. Parallelly, I upgraded myself with relevant courses from reputed institutions like UC Berkeley and Harvard. Gradually my network grew because my existing clients were referring my services to other businesses. And now I can say I have enough work to keep me going. And over the past two years because of COVID restrictions, virtual careers became more and more in demand, which eventually helped me to establish my services as a 100% virtual service provider. Eventually with all these virtual experiences I mustered much courage to step into the shoes of the ‘Chief of Operations’ of a start-up, chiefgreenofficer.com where we are helping corporations to transition to zero-carbon footprint with green technologies and sustainable financial returns. So basically, out of several hats I wear (including being a mom of three little boys), I have two major careers now: 1) Virtual Executive / Consultant
2) COO of chiefgreenofficer.com – a sustainable technology solutions start-up

You will find more details in my web page https://meanderingthoughtswithshree.wordpress.com/anushree-mukherjee/

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

As a Virtual Executive or Consultant my best source are the online platforms who already have a trusted bank of thousands of entrepreneurs signed up for the need of virtual assistance to share their workload. As the COO of our startup, we are banking primarily on digital marketing and networking – both social media and personal. Our startup is specialized in linking the providers, resellers and corporations whose primary target is to achieve sustainability through Green technologies and also benefit the ecosystem by improving efficiency in production, utilizing less energy and producing lesser waste by recycling and purifying. And by implementing our vetted solutions, your business spontaneously gains positive ROI of at least 10% within a year – how about that? Hence, through this interview, I am sending the message out to all entrepreneurs to engage with chiefgreenofficer.com and review your vast business opportunities on the metrics of environmental, social and governance (or ESG) performance, which is rapidly becoming a business imperative.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

I believe in honesty, diligence, resilience and staying focused and responsible. Along with these qualities, I also try to convey purposeful communication and maintain a healthy and long-term work relationship with my clients which are the foundation of trust and work as a solid reference while onboarding new clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://meanderingthoughtswithshree.wordpress.com/anushree-mukherjee/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anushreemukherjee/
• Other: https://chiefgreenofficer.com/