Edelweiss CEO Radhika Gupta on leadership, risk-taking and being the ‘girl with the broken neck’

How does a “girl with a broken neck”, who nearly jumped off the 19^th floor of a building because she’d been rejected seven times at job interviews, become one of India’s most successful corporate leaders and one of the youngest CEOs in India’s financial services sector?

Radhika Gupta’s story is remarkable in more ways than one. The MD and CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Funds is the first female head of a major asset management company. She’s also the creator of the viral YouTube video ‘The Girl with a Broken Neck’, in which she shares her journey from being a baby who developed a crooked neck because of medical negligence, to growing up as the daughter of a diplomat, and finally becoming a successful hedge-fund manager and entrepreneur.

She has now come up with a new book Limitless: The Power of Unlocking Your True Potential (Hachette, Rs 399), in which she draws on personal experiences of overcoming adversity and attaining success, along with stories and anecdotes from the lives of those who inspired her.

In this episode of eShe TV, she speaks to eShe editor Aekta Kapoor about her experience of writing the book, her views on diversity in workplaces, her top tips for leadership, and the new enterprise of motherhood that she is about to embark on.

Watch the interview on YouTube.

A graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Radhika has been included by Fortune in 2020 and Business Today in 2019 and 2021 in their list of India’s ‘Most Powerful Women in Business’ and by Economic Times in their list of ‘India’s Hottest 40 Young Business Leaders, 2020’.

“My belief is that the best asset each of us has is our own talent. Limitless shares my thoughts on how we can overcome our internal and external limitations, navigate the dynamics of the workplace and find confidence in our own capabilities,” she says of her new book.

The interview is also available as a podcast on Spotify: