YESHASVINI RAMASWAMY, the founder of CULTURELYTICS Pvt Ltd, has express your views on the subject of "Impact of COVID-19 on Startups" and "How the COVID-19 has been impacting the economy and M&A scenarios in India?"

  1. Impact of COVID-19 on Startups

Things are happening at an unprecedented level world over. From an investment standpoint, I think startups in the area of health tech will have it the best. The whole pandemic has shown the world the need to connected, safe and also educated. Tech is a great connector and if it helps lives being saved at low costs, it could be a game-changer. But overall it will be a wait and watch approach is what I feel.

The start-up vibe is built on that core team, that energy a and zeal a lot of which cannot be replaced with either tech or from work from home environments. It's a huge distraction for the startups especially running operations.

Startups will have to evolve and adapt. It will be interesting to observe how the start-up businesses innovate and also buffer funding tasks in their business plans for such contingencies. Engaging their customers in innovative ways in these times can make the difference between survival or shut down for a lot of them.

  1. How the COVID-19 has been impacting the economy and M&A scenarios in India?

Resilience is an integral part of any organizational culture and the COVID pandemic that surrounds us gives us an opportunity to reassess our relationships. Core intrinsic values are what binds us together and our clients also appreciate that. This pandemic has hit the reset button on so many levels of the way business will be managed henceforth. These are testing times for leaders and no doubt that culture has never been as important as it is today. It's all about grit, resilience and creating innovative ways to deliver value and stay connected to your customers.

Yeshasvini Ramaswamy is a Culture Transformation & Analytics expert specific to Mergers & Acquisitions with extensive exposure in leading projects for Fortune 100 across UK, US, Australia, Dubai and China. Her latest venture Culturelytics Pvt.Ltd. is the world’s first AI platform to define and measure the culture of an organisation.She started her entrepreneur journey in 2009 by founding e2e People Practices, a respected boutique consulting firm that undertakes large business transformation projects and is involved very deeply in building purposeful leadership practices across sectors.

With rich fund management experience, she has been instrumental in the setup of India’s first entrepreneurship PG program with committed funding for Jain University incubating 46 start-ups with a combined turnover of more than $ 22mn USD and creation of 2000 direct jobs. A well-known figure in the start-up world, she is a visiting faculty at leading business schools and was a keynote speaker on Women Empowerment at 99th Indian Science Congress. She has represented India among emerging 25 women leaders in the Fortune Most Powerful Women Partnership Program hosted by the US State Department. Mentioned in the best seller book “UNDETERRED: The Six Success Habits of Women in Emerging Economies” by Rania Habiby Anderson as a leading Indian Women Entrepreneur, she is very passionate about promoting entrepreneurship.

She was awarded The Super Achiever Award by the World Women Leadership Congress Awards in 2017. She has also been featured in Biz Inked a case study publication of IIM Bangalore and CII's Bold & Brilliant coffee table book on women achievers in2018. She was also awarded the Times Power Women Award (Excellence in Entrepreneurship) in 2019.

She was chosen as the "Entrepreneur of the Month" by The CEO Magazine recently. Her name also featured in the elite '50 Most Successful Female Entrepreneurs' for her remarkable contributions as a Serial Entrepreneur.

Yeshasvinihas been the co-founder of K-Arogia, a healthcare analytics company that prides in its mission of redefining healthcare practices. It has received awards from FICCI and Asian Hospital Management, Philippines for Innovation in Patient care. It acquired White Cross Clinics in 2017 making it the largest employee wellness and health management provider in India with more than 200 clinics across India. The ecosystem managed by her consists of 30k doctors, 10k hospitals and more than 2mn lives.

She is actively involved in community work through fund raising and participating on global advisory boards of promising NGOs in areas of rural entrepreneurship, education and health. She was recognised recently by ‘I Create’ an NGO, that works with disadvantaged women, unemployed youth and army veterans, for hitting a milestone of 4000 entrepreneurs and 12000 jobs.She is a popular voice in the press on women empowerment with active industry community contribution through roles in NASSCOM and CII. She has recently completed her fellowship from Vital Voices supported by Harvard.