Transcript
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My invitation to you is to scale smart, not just scale fast. So the question we need to ask ourselves is not how do we grow fast? But how do we grow smart without losing what makes us great?
Welcome to Scale Tales – the business storytelling podcast where entrepreneurs, executives and experts share firsthand accounts of those magical moments when they achieved something bigger than even they could have imagined.
We’re recording from Media City in Doha, Qatar. I’m your host, Alicia Butler Pierre and that was Archana Shetty you heard earlier. We’ve featured over 30 stories so far of how people, just like you, have scaled. For some, the scale happened organically, for others accidentally, and for some it happened so fast they can barely remember the details.
But one thing is for sure, as Archana said earlier, there is a danger in scaling too fast too soon. This episode is a bit of a departure from our normal scale tale because it goes behind the scenes of what it takes to scale from a leadership, company culture, nd mindset perspective. Archana and I sat down in Doha to have this conversation. Her story is fascinating. It’s one of empowerment, resilience, and persistence!
Her story begins as a young woman who relocated to Qatar over 25 years ago with her husband and their two young sons due to her husband’s job transfer into the country. Rather than me narrate her journey, it’s best if she tells it.
This is Ep. 36: How Archana Shetty’s Smart Scaling Framework Helps Companies Scale Smart, Not Just Fast
So, hello, I’m Archana Shetty, a certified PMP digital transformation strategist. I’m an executive leadership coach, a startup mentor, and someone who has led transformations inside out. I’m currently located in Doha, Qatar, and this is my scale tale.
It all started in Jan 2000. I often say that scaling a business or running a transformation in these rapidly changing times is like building a jet midair while flying in the storm with passengers on board and then ensuring they don’t panic.
Today, I will take you behind the scenes of what looks like an overnight success story into the real trenches of scaling on three different aspects – personal, professional, and business. So, started out as a programmer, and now I’m a VP in one of the largest banks in the EMEAregion. I lead a portfolio of over $20 million payment products. And I’ve seen the unglamorous, messy, chaotic side, the breakthroughs, the missteps of scaling, of transformations. I’ve also seen the proud moments, the breakthroughs and the success
stories that dramatically changes human lives.
And along the way, from leading large transformations to coaching executives, ambitious leaders, to executive success, what I’ve learned, that real transformation is not just about growth. It’s about human impact. Today I would like to share three defining moments of my scale journey and what they have taught me. And I hope these inflection points of scaling, what I call as the high, the low, and the defining moments can shape the way you think about leading, about operating and innovating.
My kids were growing up, life is good until one afternoon as I was coding in my desk, someone tapped my shoulder and handed me an envelope. What was inside really shook me to the core. It said, “Please meet HR for settlement.” I was asked to pack up. No warning, no signals. And I was shocked. It was very, very painful. Because it wasn’t about performance.
It was about politics. It was about favoritism. And that wasn’t the only time I kept encountering this painful experiences and encountering this larger than life charismatic leaders who looked really amazing from the outside, but from inside, they were gas lighters. They were bullies, they were credit takers. And those incidents really hurt me. I started questioning my self worth, my value, my expertise, my experience. And unconsciously, I started playing the victim. I left in that space of why me? Life is so unfair. There’s nothing that I can do.
Until one evening, as I was watching YouTube, an interview changed my life. It was Brian Elliott who was sharing his struggles, his helplessness with Seth Godin, who listened to him very graciously and very patiently. And towards the end, he said, “There is no Prince Charming. There are no rescue boats. No one is coming to save you.” Oops! That incident, those words pierced my heart. I realized that I too was playing the victim card. I was waiting
for some prince to come and rescue me. At that moment, I felt like Seth was telling me, “No one is coming to save you.” And that night decided I will rescue myself. And I realized sometimes life takes away from you what you cherish the most not to punish you, but to prepare you. So I stopped playing the victim card and I stepped up into my agency, into my power, and moved from being a shy introvert behind-the-scenes coder into a confident public speaker, a coach and started building leadership programs rooted in curiosity, character and courage. Breaking my own mental barriers has been instrumental in my scale journey. I often remind myself what is possible when we step up and own our space
The real limits that we have, whether in business or in life, are the ones that we place on ourselves. And if we can break those limits, we can break through. So when we can step up, step out of that victimhood and step into our power, into our agency, into what we can control, we actually begin scaling. This has been one of the lessons for me in my personal transformation journey.
And what a powerful lesson it is. That painful experience represents what Archana
describes as the low point in her career. But that low point served as a launching pad
to the second lesson in her transformation and career scaling story.
It’s a professional transformation journey. Scaling in the corporate world. So scaling the corporate ladder, as a woman in tech and as a foreigner wasn’t just tough. Honestly, it was relentless. I still vividly remember the time, that meeting with senior executives. We were discussing a large transformation project, a product roadmap. And we were seated around a conference table on the first floor of a huge tower. When it was my turn, I was very excited and I shared my idea. But immediately it got dismissed by a male peer.
The old me would have shrunk. But that time I stayed centered. I stayed calm and asserted my point of view with calm and composure and why I believe that idea would work. And honestly, those years of mindfulness practices helped. That idea was accepted. Throughout my scale journey, it has been fighting both my internal battles and external battles.
The internal battles of reframing my inner narratives, of the stories that I’ve told myself, of not being good enough, as well as the external battles of finding that seat in the table by staying calm in crisis, by learning to lead with grace and dignity under pressure, by running transformations like in most large organizations, under tight budget, under tight constraints, under resource constraints, challenging the many assumptions that businesses have, launching products on time.
Many of my project management friends know how difficult it is getting people along, breaking those silos, influencing the C-suite, and masterfully telling stories of how technology and data can transform businesses and showing courage really in those everyday moments. I think all those behaviors that are demonstrated on an everyday basis got noticed. Because leadership isn’t about what you do when everything is good and perfect. I think leadership is about how you show up when things are not going well, how you lead under pressure.
Today, as a VP, I lead large strategic transformations that are making a difference not only at an organization level, but at a national level. The message I want to share is always be prepared and lead with yourself first. Because you cannot lead your team, you cannot lead an organization if you don’t lead yourself first. And remember that somebody is always noticing you. So you never know when opportunity knocks the door. I think it was Oprah Winfrey who said, “Luck favors the prepared.” I believe growth happens at the intersection of change, disruption, and how prepared are you for the change?
Another great lesson from a high point in Archana’s transformation and scale journey. And now for the third lesson, the one she says represents a defining moment in her life.
Around five years back, I was traveling to my home country in Bangalore to attend my friend’s daughter’s wedding. And I was traveling in Uber. So when I arrived at the destination and I offered the driver cash to settle the payment, he stared at me. He was shocked, he looked at me and said,
“Madam offers cash. These days, it’s all UPI.”
So the curious me wanted to know more. So I got back into his car and asked him to share the story about UPI. UPI is United Payment Interface. It’s a digital payment system that facilitates digital payments in India and now all across the world. So I asked him to share a story of how UPI has changed his life. And then he told me how UPI has not only changed his life, but millions of others, small and micro businesses owners, they no more have to do these cash transactions. No credit, no reconciliation issues. I was floored.
And then the same week, I met another vegetable vendor. I still remember her name. It was Lakshmi Amma, who shared how empowered she felt with UPI. She no longer was worried about cash being robbed or about losing out to customers who didn’t have change. So from vegetable vendors, to workers, to women in villages, to small business owners, micro business owners, UPI had democratized access to finance in India, making life simpler, safer and secure for millions of people, millions of businesses. That trip literally changed me. Those moments had a massive impact on me, how I thought.
That trip to Bangalore and the UPI revelation came at a pivotal moment for Archana.
I had been doing this digital transformations, leading large teams and leading change initiatives for almost 20 years. But I had never looked at it that way. I’d always thought that digital transformations, all these huge projects are technological advancements or it helps in business growth. But I never saw the power of digital transformation. And that trip, it literally dawned on me that digital transformation is not so much about technological advancement of business growth, it’s about human empowerment, it’s about the impact it has on people on everyday life.
So when I came back from the trip, I really started paying attention to businesses in my area. And I saw how businesses were missing out on growth opportunities because they were doing things the old way, right? Still manual processes. And some were stuck in the status quo, not willing to move out of that complacent zone. And some were doing exactly the opposite, right?
They were chasing shiny technologies without any strategic thinking of why they need to do that. Look what’s happening around just because AI is everywhere. I’ve seen so many businesses wanting to deploy AI and all this emerging tech without really understanding if AI is the right tool to solve the business problem or capture a market opportunity.
Of course I’m a huge advocate of emerging tech, AI. It’s important, but without really understanding what problem are you solving, without having that strategic clarity of where you’re going and why, technology is not really very useful. Sometimes it’s a process issue, sometimes it’s a people issue, sometimes it’s a leadership issue, many of the problems can be solved in different ways. We have to find out. Businesses have to have that strategic clarity on why they’re doing what they’re doing. That’s when I decided to help scale ups and businesses and even enterprises challenge the status quo, challenge the way of thinking.
This idea to help scale ups and businesses challenge the status quo and becoming intentional disruptors, led Archana to create a framework.
I call it Smart Scaling. It really helps businesses transform a unique blend of strategic clarity, a emerging technology that could exponentially transform the business. And the third element is about human centered leadership that will allow businesses to create global impact. Because ultimately transformation is about people.
Technology is a tool. If you ask me, real transformation comes from moving from good to great because good isn’t what makes or what creates impact. Good isn’t what people remember, good isn’t real transformation. It is not about a real transformation, it’s not about doing more, it’s about doing things differently. It’s not about incremental small shifts, butreally rethinking how you lead, how you transform, how you operate and how you innovate.
Listen carefully as Archana unpacks her Smart Scaling framework. It’s built around
three key elements or principles. The first element is gravity of purpose.
Gravity of purpose, which means transformation starts with clarity about what you deeply care for. And that clarity fuels your transformation journey. The second element is around relational empathy. Businesses isn’t just about products or services, it’s about people. And none of the scaling efforts or change initiatives or transformation programs would be successful if you do not get your people along.
And when I say people, it’s not only your employees, but listening to your customers. If you do not empathize with their spoken and unspoken needs, it would not lead anywhere. The third element is about transformational value. It’s about creating value that did not exist before by challenging your assumptions, by reimagining the way you do things, by anticipating needs and not reacting to what the market tells you to do. It’s about setting new standards and it’s about innovating.
It’s about doing things differently, just like UPI has changed life. My message here is to really challenge the status quo. Challenge your old ways of thinking, of doing things, and be willing to re-examine and rethink how you operate. Just focusing on blind growth, growing fast,
may not be a sustainable scale journey. Because more people, more tools, may only lead to more chaos and more complexity. My invitation to you is to scale smart, not just scale fast. So the question we need to ask ourselves is not how do we grow fast? But how do we grow smart without losing what makes us great?
It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? How can you grow or scale personally and professionally without losing the essence of what makes you or your work great? Think about it. Archana moved to a new country where she had to not only navigate new cultural norms but also had to navigate as a foreign female technologist in a part of the world that is stereotypically male-dominated.
Yet, here she is in 2025 as the VP of a large multi-national bank and a successful leadership and business transformation coach. I asked if she could speak more about overcoming those self-limiting beliefs she mentioned to not only survive but thrive in a new country.
Coming to a new country has also been a huge personal transformation journey because it was a complete different culture. The way we did things there were different from how we did things here. And I come from a small town to a large. So there has been on the way, a lot of transformations which have gone through when you move to a new country, new way of doing things, new languages, new culture. And moving from a small city or a small town to a huge city was a big shift.
I remember when I started, maybe I was the only woman in the office. So it was not easy being in a field which is male dominated and secondly, as a foreigner. But having said that, what I’ve also realized that the organizations and country itself, they promote a lot of, if you’re doing good, if you step up to your power, if you are willing to take up responsibilities, they would not shut you down. So there are opportunities available to scale up your career or your business in the right direction.
I think this goes with anywhere in any corporate environment. There is always politics, there is always discrimination. But how you step up to power and show what is possible within your limits. That’s why I was speaking about breaking our own mental barriers first before breaking those external barriers. I think that has been instrumental in my scale journey. And I would always say that I’m grateful to my organization and many other organizations that champion women, not only in work, but for businesses.
I have never felt that discrimination if you’re doing good work. But it always starts with you. You step up to your values, speak up to the power and show what value that you bring to the table. And when people start recognizing those, it’s not like one time and it’s done. But when you start showing up consistently, courageously, it gets noticed. I work with many other small businesses. Women are given a lot of opportunities. Women are championed, even if you see large conferences that are happening. I was recently awarded the She Leads award here in Qatar among with many other business owners, as well as executives from other companies, women executives.
A long, hard road but…she made it! And that’s the important thing to keep in mind. Archana has scaled her impact in profound ways. Coming up after the break, Archana will share more details about her Smart Scaling framework, how to apply it, and an example client success story. She also a free offer just for you!
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Welcome back! Before the break, we heard from Archana Shetty, a certified PMP digital transformation strategist. She’s also an executive leadership coach and has mentored and led teams through digital transformations. Her success has not come by accident. No, it is the result of years of hard work, painful, yet enlightening lessons learned, and the realization of the power of technology to radically transform lives for the better.
All of this led her to developing a Smart Scaling framework which includes three elements or principles. Now it’s time to learn more about those elements and how to apply her framework to achieve the clarity and people alignment required to scale transformational change in the lives of others. Here’s Archana.
This framework really blends three different elements. Because the businesses, whether they’re small or large organizations, focus on one of these three elements.
To reiterate, one of those elements is strategic clarity. As a reminder, that includes being able to answer the following questions…
What direction are you going, what do you deeply care about and why? Why do you need to go there?
That’s the strategic clarity I’ve seen, especially small businesses not having work done on this specific area. More emphasis is paid towards the execution part. We need to get that done. But without having that direction, strategic clarity and what market opportunity are you capitalizing on, it’s hard to get that other part going.
The second element is transformation around the execution once you have the clarity.
An important element of execution, I call it human centered leadership. Without getting the people along, without understanding and empathizing with your people, with your employees, without your customers, you would not be able to drive any scale journeys. And
I’ve seen many large organizations fail in this specific area where transformation is just about metrics, right? Transformation is more than metrics. It’s about a shift in how you do businesses, it’s about getting people along, it’s about empathizing. So that part is absolutely critical.
And the third element is around technology.
What tools are you using? Sometimes it could be a business process transformation, sometimes it could be about migrating to a new technology, sometimes it could be about implementing something new, fundamentally shifting how you have done things. These three elements are absolutely critical to drive any successful transformations.
Although she’s mentioned three elements, Archana wants you to know that there are many components that go into each of these elements within her Smart Scaling framework. In case you’re wondering how to apply this framework, she has an example to share with you. It involves one of the startups she mentors. It’s a company called TalentScale AI.
It’s not a recruitment platform, but a growth engine that connects talent from the underserved markets of the world from tier 3 cities with global opportunities outside. I use this framework to help them elevate to the next level, finding their product market fit. What is the strategic direction that they’re going to do? What is the purpose? Why do they exist? One of the things that they told me is they want to democratize opportunities and really help those people who do not have opportunities in their tier 2 or tier 3 cities somewhere in the world.
So we’re bringing those opportunities to people on a global scale. Imagine the impact it could have on those people and the companies that are wanting those talent. So that’s the strategic clarity and then what tools? They’re using a lot of AI and emerging technology to bring that transformation and then the transformation is really about how they’re goingahead with the transformation. So using that framework, the startup is now towards the product market fit. They’re in their growth journey towards their next scale journey.
Keep in mind, TalentScale AI was just an idea when Archana began mentoring them.
They were in that idea stage of, okay, we want to do this without having clarity around who are the users, who are the stakeholders? It’s a platform. So there are different stakeholders that really benefit from the platform. So it’s really having clarity around who are the stakeholders that could benefit from this platform, how many users that you want to grow.
So it started from just an idea which they had in their mind to actually building a product. They have that MVP and now they’re ready. They have the product market fit. That has taken almost a year for them to come to that stage. But it’s having an idea in the mind to a product that they can now move ahead with the product market fit and then scale. I think there are around few hundred users now.
These are my favorite types of scale stories where the starting point is truly zero. Through Archana’s mentorship and framework, TalentScale AI has grown from an idea to having a minimum viable product or MVP that now has a few hundred users. Aside from her framework, I asked Archana about resources she recommends.
I’m a Project Management certified professional so I regularly spoke at PMI conferences in the past, but Project Management Institute has got some wonderful webinars and courses and resources on their site. People who are interested in doing a structured way of working with large organizations, I would recommend them to go to PMI. When you’re starting your career from moving from individual contributor if you’re interested in going that path of upward career mobility to a first time manager, I think Project Management Institute provides some fantastic resources.
Besides that I read a lot of books so a book that I’ve been reading now is by Roger Martin, a business professor in one of the big schools in Canada and the book is a New Way to Think. On the AI stuff, I listen to a lot of Gartner webinars because AI they have free stuff on AI and strategy. And I write a lot on all these three aspects – strategy, leadership and personal transformation.
And in case you’re wondering how you as a business leader or project manager can work with Archana directly, there are several ways. One of those ways includes a free offer just for you as a loyal listener of Scale Tales.
One is speaking and I speak a lot about transformations whether it’s personal or business transformation. How to think about that. Another area that I work is around executive coaching helping leaders transition to the next level of growth. And I do one-on-one an group coaching. The third area is about advising and consulting in this realm of strategy, digital transformation and helping businesses scale to the next level of growth.
So, to help small businesses and organizations really identify what the bottlenecks are and really work on that, what I’ve created is something called a Scalability Assessment which is based on the framework. I would like to offer this free for your listeners a free Scalability Assessment. It’s a self-assessment which they can take on their own.
I’m happy to offer a one-hour strategy call where we’ll deep dive into the principles of Smart Scaling, where they stack against each of them, and how they can break through. And the only thing they have to do is when they book a call, mention Scale Tales. That would help me identify that the audience has come from Scale Tales.
I would invite your audience to book call and uncover their growth blocks, find their strategic edge and really build something that doesn’t just grow but thrives. Like I said, your growth lies at the intersection of change or disruption and how ready you are for that disruption. So let’s prepare you for that disruption.
Well said, Archana. Well said! Thank you for taking your life experiences learned along your journey and transforming it into a framework that can be used to help others build, grow, and scale their businesses sustainably.
Thank you Alicia. It was wonderful speaking to you and I do appreciate the work that you do and the transformations and the scale journeys that you help people with. And this podcast is fantastic. I’ve listened to many of the episodes. You bring out the gem from the other person. Thank you for having me.
Archana, you are also a gem and I’m so glad that our paths crossed. I hope that you are able to cross paths with Archana too. Before we wrap up, here’s a recap of some lessons learned from her experiences in not only scaling her career, but those she works with as well.
- . Fight the inner voice that wants to keep you where you are. I know this is easy to say, but not easy to do. We are all creatures of comfort and familiarity breeds complacency. However, if you consider all that Archana and any successful person has accomplished, you will know that it required an inner resolve to do and be something incredible. Remember, if whatever you seek to achieve was easy, more people would do it.
- Lead as you would want to be led. Archana said that leadership isn’t about what you do when everything is good and perfect. It’s about keeping your cool under pressure and being the model of persistence and optimal performance even when a situation seems hopeless
- Always be prepared. If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready
- You never know who is watching you. As I watch the attention to detail that I’ve seen so many people work with here in Doha, I’m in awe at their ability to continue working even though not many people are around.
- Growth happens at the intersection of change, disruption, and preparation. If there’s an idea you’ve been working on and it has not taken off yet, don’t be dismayed. Keep working at it, because when that moment of disruption and change happens, again, you’ll be ready for the growth.
- Beware of the pitfalls of having a tech-first approach. Technology can close the digital divide but only if access is democratized. Processes are still key to driving technological adoption and ensuring a successful customer experience.
- Good vs. great. Which do you want to be? And how do you want your company to be described?
Thank you, Archana, for sharing your story and how your experiences have led you to scale the impact of your brilliance by working up the food chain. It is indeed inspiring. A great way to contact Archana is via LinkedIn. We’ll have a link to her profile as well as her website and that free Scalability Assessment she offered. You can find all of this at ScaleTalesPodcast.com. ScaleTalesPodcast.com.
A special thank you to Media City in Doha, Qatar for providing a beautiful space for us to do this recording.
If you are a PMP interested in earning a PDU for listening to this episode and others, then visit ScaleTalesPodcast.com. Once you’re there, click the button that says, “Get CEUs/PDUs Credits,” sign up for a monthly membership, and we’ll make sure we submit your earned credit to PMI.
Thank you for listening! If you learned something valuable from this episode, please leave us a five-star rating and review wherever you’re listening.
I’m Alicia Butler Pierre and I produced and narrated this episode. Additional voiceover by Daniyel Haider. Audio editing by Olanrewaju Adeyemo. Music production and original score by Sabor! Music Enterprises. Video editing by Gladiola
Films. Show notes by Hashim Tale.
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