A Global Community of South Asian Professional Women
Our Story
Spanning our collective experience and different stages of our careers, we started to have more conversations with South Asian women about their careers and professional leadership. From these conversations, one thing was resoundingly clear – South Asian women are making amazing strides in various industries from technology to politics to arts, but we don’t have a common platform to come together as a community and support our professional aspirations, cultivate leadership and advance women in their careers.
That’s how the idea behind Neythri was born. We acknowledge the specific socio-cultural pressures faced by South Asian women and recognize the need to address leadership through the lens of the global South Asian female. By building programs that serve as a vehicle to learn from each other, promote and encourage leadership, we hope to strengthen the sense of community and connectedness, while supporting each other in our professional aspirations.
Why “Neythri”?
Neythri, pronounced “nay-three,” describes a female leader, guide, and a shining light in Sanskrit. It’s these qualities of leadership and empowerment that we hope to foster and develop through the Neythri community.
Our Team
CEO & Co-Founder | LinkedIn
Mythili’s 25+ years of experience spans R&D, product management and senior leadership roles driving growth, strategy and digital transformations for Fortune 500 companies, early stage technology startups and nonprofits. Previously, Mythili led regional operations for the U.S. - India Business Council and the American India Foundation, where she built a strong reputation for scaling and growing the organizations’ brand, revenue, member base and operations. Mythili also served as CEO of Koollage, a web service company that allowed users to create, package, and share information on the internet, where she oversaw the growth strategy from prototype to the notable public launch at the 2008 DEMO conference. Earlier in her career, Mythili spent several years in research and product management at IBM Research Labs, AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent, eVoice and Palmsource. She is currently an active angel investor and a member of several women-led investor networks that invest in women entrepreneurs and an independent board advisor to early stage startups.
Mythili serves on the Regional Board of Room to Read, is a mentor for the Duke Technology Scholars program, and a Global Advisor for How Women Lead. She has a MS degree in Physics from Texas Tech University, a M.Sc in Electronics from the University of Bombay and an Executive MBA jointly offered through the AT&T School of Business and the Wharton School. In her spare time, Mythili enjoys reading historical fiction, studying Indian antiques and watching cricket.
Co-Founder | LinkedIn
Chitra Nayak has 25+ years of experience across companies spanning technology, financial services, and management consulting. She is currently an independent board member at Infosys, Invitae, LifeWorks and ForwardAir, and also advises startups on Go-To-Market. Most recently she was COO running GTM at Comfy, a real-estate tech startup, and prior to this was COO at Funding Circle, an online SMB lending marketplace. She was at Salesforce.com for eight years, as COO Platform and SVP Sales Development, and prior to that was at AAA, Charles Schwab and the Boston Consulting Group.
Chitra has always had a passion for empowering women in the workplace. She was a co-founder of the Salesforce Women’s Network, aka FemmeForce. She co-created and taught an MBA class, “Women in Leadership” at California State University, East Bay. She writes extensively about growing companies and women in the workplace on LinkedIn. Chitra has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS in Engineering from Cornell University and a BS in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.
Co-Founder | LinkedIn
Sruthi is a technology growth equity investor at ICONIQ Capital, a privately-held investment firm that serves some of the world’s most influential families and organizations. Prior to her current role, Sruthi was an Analyst at Goldman Sachs’ Tech, Media and Telecom Investment Banking group where she worked on mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and capital raises in various technology sectors. Sruthi also spent time in marketing at Career Contessa, a career mentorship platform for women, and in business development at Room to Read, a non-profit focused on literacy and gender equality in education.
Sruthi serves on the board of Archbishop Mitty High School and is a co-founder of Shakti Collaborative, digital platform that showcases the narratives of South Asian women to highlight our collective accomplishments and provide a space for perspectives on topics that aren’t widely discussed in our community. Sruthi holds a BA degree in Economics from The University of Chicago.