When an eChai evening became the start of my founder journey

I still remember that phase of my career. At the time, I was working at Quess Corp Limited, handling everything in HR. My boss had encouraged me to attend events where I could sharpen my skills, so I began looking for sessions that would broaden my perspective. That is when I came across my first eChai event, a session on “How to Increase Sales by 10x” in Ahmedabad, with Pankaj Bhimani as the speaker.

That session gave me courage, but not enough to immediately start something of my own. I decided to spend more time in the corporate world, learning and expanding my role. While working in an executive search firm, I was managing critical mandates and CXO-level hiring. What changed for me was how I approached it. I started spending more time with founders, visiting their offices and production houses to see the environment firsthand. I wanted to understand how they were building their companies, what opportunities they were chasing, and why they needed senior leaders at that stage. It made me realize that CXO hiring was never just about filling a role, it was about connecting with a founder’s vision for growth.

Then COVID happened, and along with that, some personal instances slowed me down from taking the leap. I decided to continue my journey in corporates, spending time across Ahmedabad, Gurgaon, and Pune. Eventually, I returned to Ahmedabad and joined Cadila Pharmaceuticals, where I continued to strengthen my HR experience. Around the same time, I also began attending eChai events again. Listening to founders, hearing their journeys, and being part of those conversations gave me the final push to stop waiting for the perfect moment and to begin.

That is how I started my journey of building Hummingbird Consulting. The courage did not arrive all at once. It came slowly, one event, one conversation, one founder’s story at a time, until I was ready to take flight on my own.