Winner. Business Leader of the Year 2023

Neeta Murthy

Position: CEO
Company: Rekindle Global
City: New York City, NY
Country: USA
Economic/Business Sector: Human Resources

Founder, Mentor, and Angel Investor, Neeta Murthy is the Managing Director of Rekindle. She is responsible for leading the company’s global team to deliver its pioneering program for its clients. She is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School, from where she received an MBA.

Neeta is responsible for owning the vision and product roadmap for Rekindle. Leading a global sales team, she helps Rekindle's clients discover what's holding back their women employees and how Rekindle can help them retain, motivate, and engage their employees better. In doing this, she helps define Rekindle's business model, pricing strategies, and investment needs.

Neeta assembled a world-class team of learning specialists, curriculum developers, product owners, and developers at Rekindle. She works closely with behavioral scientists & researchers to understand how Rekindle can meaningfully incorporate the latest research in behavioral science to help participants change their behaviors. She's responsible for building a world-class product that's one of its kind in delivering successful learning outcomes for its participants.

Through the participant discovery process, she understands what drives participant engagement through the program and how Rekindle can use behavioral science to sustain retention rates through the year-long program. She interacts with the program leaders at client organizations to uncover insights on how to customize the program for each specific client and how to enhance participation.

Given the breadth and operational complexity it involves, Neeta Murthy's role requires in-depth expertise combining business leadership in global companies and an understanding of the latest academic research on what holds women back in the workplace.

Through the Harvard Business School alumni network, Neeta advises and angel invests in early-stage women-owned companies, especially those that seek to make workplaces more inclusive.

She is also a member of the Forbes Business Council and the Founders Network. She has also been invited by industry-leading companies to speak on the challenges women face in the workplace.

Neeta has previously successfully held business leadership roles at SLB, a $70 billion world-class oilfield services company. She started her career as an oilfield services engineer working on oil rigs in Arctic Canada, in the Middle East (Egypt), Venezuela, India, etc., where she was often the only woman on an oil rig. She was then handpicked for a leadership role at the company HQ in Paris, where she worked with the CEO and the executive leadership team. As part of her roles, Neeta has run P&Ls of $X00 million in sales, leading teams in Europe and Southeast Asia.

Neeta spends her free time reading non-fiction books on gender bias and behavior change. One of her recent favorites is How Women Rise by Marshall Goldsmith.

These are some of Neeta's recent accomplishments:

• Neeta successfully brought on board 3 of the largest companies in the industrials and high-tech space as Rekindle's initial clients (traditionally very challenging for startups, given the long sales cycle);

• Neeta designed & led the product development of an innovative product that combines Web 2.0 tech and behavioral science to deliver learning outcomes that are significantly higher than traditional learning programs;

• Neeta's accomplishments have been recognized in the industry. She has been selected for leadership roles that are critical to the success of her companies. She is recognized for her work in leading global teams, especially during challenging times such as a downturn in the oil industry;

• Through her work at Rekindle, Neeta is disrupting the learning & development industry by helping companies use technology & behavioral science to actually change employee behavior.

Neeta is passionate about the gender cause, helping women make the most of their potential. Rekindle offers women participants a chance to understand the barriers that are holding them back at the workplace and to develop the skills they need to succeed.

Neeta has made it her mission to help companies solve a critical pain point of strengthening their pipeline of women employees all the way through to senior leadership roles. Founded in 2019, hundreds of women across industries use Rekindle every day.