A Centre for Social Impact podcast.
Over the ten years since CSI was founded, we have been privileged to work with many of the people who are making a difference in Aotearoa - and to kōrero with many more. To celebrate our tenth birthday, we are producing a podcast series, TenforTen, ten conversations that capture some of their wisdom, their perspective on our society, their mahi, and their hopes for the future.
Shruthi Vijayakumar is a coach, facilitator and educator, supporting leaders committed to systemic change. While her family roots are Indian, Shruthi was born in Botswana. Her family immigrated to New Zealand when she was five. She developed an interest in social justice at an early age. As Head Girl at Mt Roskill Grammar, her organisation of the 40 Hour Famine fundraiser led to a trip to Cambodia to see World Vision prgrammes in action. This first-hand experience of poverty, and attempts to address it, had a profound impact on her.
After graduating from Auckland University, Shruthi joined the Boston Consulting Group but realised corporate consulting was not how she wanted to spend her life. Work in India with an education start-up at some of the poorest schools in the country was followed by an MBA at Oxford University. Since then, Shruthi has focused on working ‘at the intersection of education, the environment and transforming capitalism,’ addressing her concern about the current economic system ‘that focuses almost exclusively on growth and treats nature as an ‘externality’.
Shruthi is currently a participant in CSI’s Haumanu facilitation training programme.