Lakshmi Chilukuri -

After a conventional start in management consulting, Chilukuri had what she calls her “unraveling moment.” While volunteering at a low-income high school in Atlanta, she noticed a pattern: brilliant first-generation students had ambition but no maps. They didn’t lack talent. They lacked navigation.

“We don’t need more heroes. We need more hosts—people who make room for others at the table, then give them the knife.” lakshmi chilukuri

And she has a secret weapon: her 70-year-old mother, who volunteers as the fellowship’s “chief encouragement officer,” calling each new cohort on their first day to say in Telugu, “Nuvvu cheyagalavu” — You can do it. Chilukuri is currently scaling Sankalp across three countries, but she refuses to call it expansion. “That sounds like extraction,” she says. “We’re deepening. We’re asking: what does a support system look like that lasts 20 years, not 20 months?” “We don’t need more heroes

“If the people you’re helping aren’t in the room when budgets are cut,” she says flatly, “you’re not helping. You’re performing.” “That sounds like extraction,” she says