0:00

Welcome back to She Pivots. I

0:02

am Chandrika Tanden.

0:13

Welcome to She Pivots, the

0:16

podcast where we talk with women who

0:18

dared to pivot out of one career and

0:20

into something new and explore

0:23

how their personal lives impacted these

0:25

decisions. I'm your host,

0:27

Emily Tish Sussman. Welcome

0:32

back Pivoters. This week,

0:35

I'm delighted to share my conversation with

0:37

Chandrika Tanden. While

0:39

you may not recognize her name immediately,

0:41

I can guarantee she's influenced

0:43

your life in one way or another. She

0:46

made a name for herself as the first Indian

0:48

American woman to become a partner at McKinsey

0:51

and worked firsthand with some of their biggest

0:53

clients in the nineteen seventies and eighties. From

0:56

there, she founded her own business, Tandent

0:58

Capital Associates, or she created

1:01

billions in market value. Like

1:04

so many of our pivoters, Chandrika

1:07

was the top of her game when she decided to make

1:09

her pivot, poised to sign a

1:11

massive deal with a European company.

1:14

Sadly, she was under ndaight, so we

1:16

don't know the company. She came to

1:19

a crossroads. What did she

1:21

want her life to look like. Was she

1:23

fulfilling that vision through the massive

1:25

success and business she had had until that

1:27

point. Was she enriching her

1:29

life through art and learning like she loved

1:31

to do when she was a child. Stay

1:34

tuned to hear what Chandrika decided,

1:36

How she moved forward with intention, how

1:39

music became the through line through it all,

1:42

and how in the end she became a Grammy

1:44

nominated artist.

1:46

Enjoy.

1:51

My name is Chandrika Tangent and

1:53

I run a company, I run

1:55

a foundation, and I'm on a few

1:57

boats. I'm a tripothide person,

2:00

I'm a businesswoman,

2:03

I'm a person who cares about society,

2:05

and I'm an artist. So when

2:08

you were young, what did you think you wanted to be when

2:10

you grow up? I really didn't

2:12

know what I wanted to be. But I was born in a

2:14

very small village in a very small town

2:16

in India, and we didn't

2:18

have the internet there. I'm sixty nine years old,

2:21

so we didn't have My world was

2:23

just a world of books. So my plans

2:25

for myself was that I was opening

2:28

my world, opening the windows of

2:30

the world through books.

2:32

Growing up, Seandrika lived with her parents,

2:34

siblings, and her grandfather. Being

2:37

the oldest sibling, she grew close with her

2:39

grandfather and credits him with leaving

2:41

an indelible mark on her and

2:43

expanding her world through books.

2:46

He was the love of my life.

2:48

I'd come back from school and go straight

2:50

to him, and I read all thirty seven

2:52

plays of Shakespeare and all

2:54

kinds of obscure works and

2:57

poetry and all that, because

2:59

every evening I'd sit with him. Whow

3:01

And it's a wonderful example of

3:04

someone who brought

3:07

himself down to me. You know. So when

3:09

I got involved with doing crossword puzzles,

3:11

my seventeen year old

3:14

grandfather, he was in the seventeens or maybe

3:16

older than that, he would start to understand

3:18

how to do prosperts. When I got

3:21

into chess, and he started to

3:23

play chess actively, So he was

3:25

always my companion doing

3:27

what I was doing. And so that created

3:29

such a bond between us. What

3:32

do you think he imparted upon

3:35

you? What did he bring out of you? He

3:37

opened so many windows

3:39

into a world which I didn't know

3:42

existed. So we

3:44

would read books like Thackeray, I mean

3:46

you probably you know they aren't normally

3:49

read now, the old English authors

3:51

but you know the history of Bendettas, which is a very

3:54

boring book as you look at it.

3:56

But you know, years later, actually

3:58

about five ten years I was doing

4:01

a walking trip in Cornwall and went

4:03

to Pendennis. There's actually a place called

4:05

Pandennis. But you know there you're sitting

4:07

in Wadras, which

4:09

has no internet, which is not connected to any

4:11

other part of India, let alone any other part of

4:13

the world, and you're reading about

4:15

far away places, ancient times,

4:18

different cultures, different traditions,

4:22

because all we had was books. Some

4:24

we had at home, but we would keep going to the British

4:26

Council Library and the lending libraries and

4:28

just red and Red and Red. So he

4:31

gave me the love of books because every

4:33

night I had a tradition with him. There

4:36

was a small black stool and I

4:38

would sit on the stool with him where he would

4:40

get a couple of raisins, so I would

4:42

eat a couple of raisins with him, where

4:45

for one hour we had to just read and

4:47

it didn't matter. And I'd be falling asleep on

4:49

this little stool because it wasn't it didn't have a

4:51

back support. But my vivid

4:54

memory is sitting there, but while

4:56

you are uncomfortable and falling asleep,

4:58

and it wasn't homework time.

5:01

Whenever I think of that bench, I

5:03

think of Pendennis, and

5:06

I think of Cymbeline, and

5:08

I think of Macbeth and Hamlet

5:11

and school for Scandal

5:14

of you know, Sheridan's rivals.

5:16

I mean, I've read so much and I memorized

5:19

two hundred poems. My mother's plans

5:21

for me, however, were that I would

5:23

be married by the time I'm eighteen,

5:25

which was a legal age for marriage. So she

5:28

was busy collecting my trousso from

5:30

the time I was three, because you know, when you

5:32

have the misfortune quote unquote

5:35

of having a girl, you have to

5:37

provide for her her dowry.

5:40

So my mother was completely focused

5:42

on that sort of messages I was getting at home is

5:45

you will be married and off your go.

5:47

But I, on the other hand, was reading,

5:49

was reading Shakespeare, was reading all kinds

5:52

of books and imagining some

5:54

windows, some doors, something opening,

5:57

but I didn't know what that was exactly.

6:00

Did you feel like your mother thinking

6:03

about your future as just as being

6:06

married. Did you feel rebellious

6:08

against that or you just were interested in

6:10

other things?

6:11

The way it happened

6:14

was I decided to go

6:16

to college in an all boys

6:18

college, mostly boys college, to study

6:21

business, and that was a college

6:23

my father had been to and my grandfather

6:26

had been to. And when I decided

6:28

to go there or I got into the program,

6:31

my mother said no way. So

6:33

that's when my rebellion started. Until then,

6:35

there wasn't an active disagreement

6:37

because I was happily pursuing

6:40

my interests and my mother was making

6:42

her plans for my life. But

6:45

that led me on a hunger strike.

6:47

So I decided I wanted to go to that college,

6:49

and she said she wasn't going to let me do that.

6:52

So I said no, I was going to go there

6:54

because that was the only college that offered

6:56

business programs a commers program

6:59

for women, and that was also an hour away.

7:01

I had to take a train as opposed to go into

7:03

the college next door. So after

7:05

a day and a half, almost two days of a hunger

7:07

strike, she gave up the none

7:10

from my convent school where I went to

7:12

school, came out of the convent for the

7:14

very first time that I remember to

7:16

kind of plead with my mother. You know, she's

7:18

a good girl. You know, you really

7:20

need to send her to the

7:23

school she wants to go to the college she wants

7:25

to go to. So that was my first active

7:28

rebellion.

7:30

What was it about business that

7:32

made you say I have to be in this program?

7:35

I wanted to do something

7:38

that was not traditional, because

7:40

what I was geared to do

7:42

was, you know, to study literature,

7:45

which was the program in the English. I was

7:47

good in English. I adopted a lot of the

7:49

school stuff, and it was expected

7:52

that that's what I would do. But then when I got into

7:54

this very new program, very

7:56

prestigious program, I suddenly said

7:58

I wanted to go there. And then the moment

8:00

the boundaries were put on me, I

8:02

started to rebel and said why

8:05

not. I guess if nobody

8:07

had put a boundary, I wasn't that passionate

8:10

about business as such. I think

8:12

it was more that the boundary was put on me that

8:14

I couldn't go to this college. And I'd

8:16

grown up with stories about this college

8:18

because it's a very very it's

8:20

one hundred and eighty five year old college at this moment,

8:22

it's one of the oldest colleges. And my grandfather,

8:25

who was the love of my life, would feed

8:27

me stories of the Scottish principles

8:29

that founded the college and just a Jesuit college.

8:32

So I grew up with that, and then suddenly there

8:35

was this college that my father and grandfather

8:37

had gone to, and it had

8:39

this program which was unique and

8:42

actually took in a few girls. So

8:44

why would I not go there? And why are you telling

8:46

me I can't go there? And that was what the spirit

8:49

was. So I wasn't actively thinking

8:51

about rebelling or going

8:53

towards something at that moment. And by

8:56

the way, a lot of my friends at

8:58

that moment didn't have that experience.

9:01

They didn't many of them ended up staying

9:03

there and settling

9:05

in that same place because it was a

9:08

very simple existence

9:10

where it wasn't written that you were going to go out

9:12

and plaze brave new trails

9:15

in the world. That wasn't the

9:18

story that was written for you.

9:21

So Sean Drika wrote

9:23

her own story and enrolled at

9:25

Madras Christian College, something

9:27

not common for women at the time. Every

9:30

day she traveled an hour each way, slowly

9:33

building her independence away from her

9:35

family, who at the time still

9:38

expected her to simply get married.

9:41

Well, the first place that you placed trails

9:43

was being one of the only women in this college what

9:46

was that like?

9:47

It was incredible and in fact, some

9:50

of those three years were some of the

9:52

best years of my life. So it was an

9:54

incredibly sort of liberating

9:56

experience for me. I also did

9:59

well in college. I was sort of the valedictorian,

10:01

and that gave

10:03

me a great sense of confidence in

10:06

the sense of I explored these other

10:08

dimensions. I was studying, I was doing

10:11

a lot of music. I did lots of skits

10:13

with the guys, you know, we did a lot

10:15

of plays. There were many dimensions exploded,

10:17

so it wasn't a very unidimensional education.

10:21

Did you go to business school immediately after?

10:23

Right? So this was the other the next

10:25

phase of rebellion. So my

10:28

professor, because I'd done well in college,

10:30

he said to me, you should apply to

10:33

this business school which takes you know, there are about

10:35

over one hundred thousand applicants and one hundred

10:37

people get in. But normally the people that

10:39

apply are two to three years ahead

10:42

in terms of they've done a five year degree engineering

10:45

program and had a couple of years of work experience.

10:47

That's the typical profile of the students that get

10:50

in, whereas I had just had a three year degree

10:52

and in that I'd already skipped a year of school,

10:55

so I was so young. But my

10:57

professor said you should apply.

11:00

She had set her sights on law school. She

11:02

loves logic and reasoning, and her

11:05

grandfather was a judge. It seemed only

11:07

natural, but a switch flipped

11:09

in her after a frustrating conversation with

11:11

her uncle.

11:13

He said to me, oh, if I were

11:15

you, I wouldn't bother because it's

11:17

like getting a Nobel prize. You know, you

11:20

really won't get in. That lunch

11:22

finished and I went home and I

11:24

said I want to go to this business school. I

11:27

mean, I'm like so it was almost like, how dare

11:29

you tell me I can't go again.

11:32

It wasn't that I had this burning passion

11:34

to do business or anything. That's

11:36

what happened. And I think this

11:38

has been the pattern. You know, when

11:41

somebody says to me, you absolutely

11:43

cannot do it. When the boundary is

11:45

put on me, I kind of like to think about

11:47

why do I have this boundary? They

11:50

don't give me a good reason for the boundary.

11:52

Yeah, and I don't want a boundary. I don't understand.

11:55

And I rebel.

11:57

Now, with her sight solidly set on business

11:59

school, she still had the matter

12:01

of her family. Her mother continued

12:04

to pursue an arranged marriage for her

12:06

traditional for the firstborn, especially the

12:08

firstborn daughter.

12:10

So while college was finishing, I

12:13

was almost eighteen. So every time my classmates

12:15

would come, my mother would say, oh, you're going

12:17

to you know, you just wait and see she's going

12:19

to be married. As she's going to be married, I'm going to

12:21

find her. That's going to be an arranged marriage. She

12:23

had this, and I understand that because

12:26

you know, I was the first daughter, the

12:28

first child of the family. I

12:30

had to uphold the honor and if

12:32

I had gone astray in any way, that would have been

12:34

a bad thing for

12:36

the honor of the family. And I was told this from

12:39

the time practically that I was born.

12:41

You know, so you wanted

12:43

to go to business school, right, And

12:45

we came to the second hunger straight.

12:47

The second hunger strike, Yes, that's exactly.

12:49

But by now I was an expert on hunger strikes.

12:53

So the second time was

12:56

here and my professor from college

12:58

came in to again. He

13:01

brought an army of three guys

13:03

who were in that business school, and

13:05

he spoke to my mother to say,

13:07

you've got to let her go. And finally she

13:10

relented. And then once I went to business

13:12

school, I kind of flew away. I

13:15

basically left home.

13:17

I was no longer under under

13:20

the control of mothers by the

13:22

night. Then I had a job, and then

13:24

I rebelled. I genuinely rebelled,

13:27

you know. I changed my clothes. So

13:30

I kind of decided to be me as

13:32

opposed to be the sweet

13:34

daughter of a traditional

13:36

household and do

13:39

all the things I was expected to do. So

13:41

I moved in by myself into

13:43

an apartment. I went to Beirut after

13:46

business school in the middle of the Civil War.

13:52

This was once the richest part of the richest

13:54

city in the Middle East. Now it's

13:56

the front line of the war. In the Lebanon, buildings

13:59

were stir the money makers of the Western

14:01

world exchanged their millions, and

14:04

now the barricades of Beirute. The

14:06

war has lasted twelve months. It

14:08

has ruined the country and destroyed a nation.

14:11

There is supposed to be a cease far in the Lebanon,

14:13

but it means nothing. There have been twenty

14:16

eight seaspars, and each of them has been

14:18

followed by even fiercer fighting in

14:20

Beirute.

14:21

Cease fars don't usually last long,

14:23

and in Beirut it was in nineteen seventy

14:26

five. It was the worst

14:29

civil war you can imagine, and it

14:32

was. And the City Bank had given us apartments

14:35

in il Rausche, which is on the sea

14:37

side, and we would for the

14:39

first week, first few weeks

14:41

were fine, maybe three four weeks were fine.

14:43

Then the shelling started. You know, we

14:45

would actually go to the office in

14:48

the daytime and come back in the evening

14:50

and buildings would be burning on either side,

14:52

or an entire block would have been shelled.

14:55

And in the middle of the night sometimes they would call us

14:57

all and tell us please evacuate your apartments

14:59

and go to the holiday because

15:01

they would want all the City Bank

15:03

train needs to be in a safe place. But

15:05

interestingly enough, a few

15:08

months later the whole holiday inn was raised to

15:10

the ground. But there's certain

15:12

innocence that you didn't know what you were

15:14

into. And I think this is war

15:16

and what was happening. And

15:19

I at that time would still be wearing a sari.

15:21

I didn't own any Western clothes, and

15:24

I'd happily walk around Beirut in

15:26

asari. And one time I'll

15:28

never forget I walked into from

15:30

my apartment. I've just walked into a street and

15:33

two men with tanks and I spoke

15:35

French. So the two men with tanks

15:37

were standing there and then they

15:40

said to me, we are going to spare you

15:42

because you're Indian, but please go back

15:44

to your apartment. Don't come to

15:46

this area. So I had some near misses.

15:48

But I was so naive and

15:50

so innocent. There was

15:52

an incredible movie called Lust for Life,

15:55

story of Vincent van Go and

15:58

I've I've been wanting to see this movie

16:00

and it was playing in a Beirut

16:03

theater and the main theater in Beirut. It's a

16:05

friend of mine and I. We had like

16:07

no money, so we knew the

16:09

tickets were like two pounds or something. So we decided

16:11

to go to the theater and say, you know, they're shelling all

16:13

around, we binds, we just go to the theater. So

16:16

we went there and the guy says to us a

16:18

lot, it's four hundred pounds that there's

16:20

the price. We're like, why four hundred pounds?

16:22

He said, because you're the only tool in the theater and

16:24

I have to do the whole I have

16:26

to run the movie for you. So

16:29

we I mean that four hundred pounds

16:31

of the entire savings from the entire

16:33

male a few months we had so we said no, thank

16:35

you and went back and that

16:37

evening that theater was raised

16:39

to the ground. It was raised to the

16:42

ground. So the next morning where

16:44

we went to work, the theater didn't exist.

16:47

Do you think that I had a lasting impact

16:50

on your perspective moving forward? It

16:52

made me understand what

16:55

hatred and anger can do

16:57

to such beautiful places and

16:59

people, because people's

17:02

emotions were so high, and

17:05

we were innocent and sort of shielded from

17:08

what was actually happening. But

17:11

Beirut is probably

17:13

one of the most beautiful places in the world.

17:16

The mountain meets the sea in its

17:18

most majestic way, and

17:21

the streets were like the

17:24

Alhamra was like one of the most

17:26

beautiful streets. They're like it's like Paris

17:29

on steroids. And everything

17:31

was destroyed. The relics were

17:33

destroyed, the history

17:36

was destroyed, and many many have

17:38

many friends who are Lebanese, and I've

17:41

sort of kept up with what has happened, and

17:44

so it just tells you that hedred

17:47

and war don't really can destroy

17:49

things forever. Beautifilll never regain

17:52

its majesty. So it

17:54

colored me that way that we

17:57

all have to be really aware of the consequence.

18:01

Chandrika was one of the last of the City

18:03

Bank employees to evacuate from

18:06

there. She moved to Calcutta and Bombay and

18:08

continued to work for City Bank until

18:10

she was interviewed for a job at McKenzie. Unsurprisingly,

18:14

she got the job and moved across the pond

18:16

to New York City. We're

18:18

going to take a short break for some ads.

18:25

Now back to the show.

18:27

And you arrived in the winter

18:29

with no Western clothes or no Western clothes.

18:32

I had a you know, it was a blizzard.

18:34

It was that amazingly horrible

18:36

blizzard of January. It was the end

18:39

of January. I hadn't really seen

18:41

snow until then. I don't think i'd

18:43

seen snow. I've never seen snow until then. And

18:46

I came from a town. When the weather became

18:48

eighty degrees, everyone would say,

18:50

oh, make sure you take your shoulder,

18:53

because you're so used to one hundred degree and one hundred

18:56

and five is like the normal temperature.

18:58

At eighty you might catch cold, you know. And

19:01

here I was in the middle of the thing, and I borrowed

19:03

a size twelve code. I was about

19:06

a size zero at that time. Was

19:08

I weighed nothing, but somebody

19:10

lent me a huge thin coat. And

19:13

I had a yellow silk sorry I

19:15

know the exact still have that, sorry, and open

19:18

toed slippers. And I was straping

19:20

around the blizzard of New York

19:22

in the Miczina. Be fortunate. It was

19:25

like a three block walk from the

19:27

hotel, the Middletown Hotel, to

19:29

to McKinsey's offices on forty sixth

19:31

Street. But I'll never forget

19:33

the bone chilling cold of

19:35

my open toes touching the icy

19:37

snow, and on my feet are sinking

19:39

in, my sorry, sinking in, and then I'm

19:42

going out to do sixteen interviews over the next

19:44

two days. I had a yellow Surrey and

19:46

a blue Surrey and I have just those. And

19:48

you know, there are thick silks

19:50

and there are thin selts, and I had

19:52

the thinnest silk you can imagine. And

19:55

nobody ever asked me, are you planning

19:57

to change your clothes once.

19:58

You join us?

20:00

That's interesting. No one asked me that because

20:02

they knew I was truly fob fresh

20:04

off the boat, truly

20:07

because I didn't have

20:10

the runway that people

20:12

have when you're coming to university.

20:15

Here, when you come to university, you can

20:17

make all your mistakes. You know. It's a very enduring,

20:19

loving, cherished environment. You have classmates,

20:22

you have professors, you're taken care of your

20:24

student services. I had

20:26

none of that. I went straight. I came and

20:29

into the interviews and then into the boardrooms.

20:32

Wow, So what was that like once you

20:34

moved here? It must have been a huge.

20:37

My first week, my first

20:39

day I came into because it was like the

20:41

Thursday or something, and then the senior partner

20:44

I was assigned to call me up and he said,

20:46

well, we're going to New Jersey on

20:49

Monday morning. Our client is in

20:51

Abisco, and I

20:53

expect you will be in New Jersey

20:56

at eight o'clock in the morning. We have a meeting with

20:58

the CEO. I'm saying okay.

21:00

I mean typically it's like someone says jump,

21:02

you're supposed to say how hi, And that's that's

21:05

the training I had. I remember, McKinsey was

21:07

like the Brainiacs of the BRAINIACX, very

21:09

small, very prestigious, and

21:11

this was a fantastically senior part time.

21:14

So I didn't really know how to drive.

21:16

So this is a Friday that he's telling me this,

21:19

So I call up various. I don't

21:21

know many people in New York either, so

21:23

I try to find a driving school from the Yellow

21:25

Pages. So all weekend

21:28

I drove in Queens. I found a guy, and

21:30

I didn't have much money either. I

21:32

mean, they've given me a check which I haven't yet

21:34

cashed, so I'm basically

21:36

going and driving around. I found somebody who

21:39

would cheaply teach me driving.

21:41

I had a license which was from

21:43

India, which was like I would say, it's a

21:46

bribe license, because you know, I

21:48

needed an international license. That's what I had.

21:50

I without much I mean, I passed a test,

21:52

but I didn't have any experience. So

21:55

I drove for like eight hours. But this was in the

21:57

streets of Queens. So Monday morning,

22:00

I'm supposed to be in New Jersey, in Parsipity in

22:02

New Jersey at eight am, so I

22:04

look up the atlas and just figure

22:06

out it's going to be an hour to get there. I've

22:08

never driven on any highway. I

22:11

don't know about slow lanes and fast lane.

22:13

So I go on this. I leave four hours

22:15

before the eight o'clock I left left home at four thirty

22:17

day or something, and I'm sitting on

22:19

the slowest lane and I'm driving at about

22:21

five miles an hour because I'm so scared

22:24

to drive because I've never driven. I'm

22:26

saying, I don't want to hit anyone, but of course

22:28

everyone's giving me the finger, and

22:30

I'm waving to everybody because I'm thinking,

22:32

how friendly Americans that all

22:36

they're doing is like you ask,

22:38

get off the fast lane. You're slowing

22:41

up traffic. Because by then I was going so slowly

22:43

that you know, I was right in the Russia, you

22:46

know, by six thirty seven, on my way to New

22:48

Jersey whatever it was. And so finally

22:50

I reached New Jersey in

22:53

time. I made it. Yeah, oh that's the other

22:55

thing, you know. And then in America the roads

22:57

bank, you know, they're slightly

23:00

indented, I mean they slightly inclined, and

23:02

you don't notice that. So I thought,

23:04

of course I'd never really driven, so I

23:06

wasn't sure what the angle of the car

23:08

was supposed to be. So I'm stopping the car

23:10

in the middle of the highway, opening the door

23:12

to make sure I don't have a flat tire,

23:15

because it somehow feels like I have flat tires

23:17

on one or two sides, but I wouldn't have known

23:19

what to do. So I'm thinking, I

23:21

want to make sure I don't have a flat tire. So these ridiculous

23:24

thoughts are going through my head. And then I

23:26

arrived in New Jersey, and then

23:28

I learned my ropes.

23:31

How did you stay focused? I mean, you advanced

23:34

quite quickly within McKinsey. Your

23:36

work must have been exceptional.

23:38

How did you stay focused with so much to learn

23:41

about everything around you?

23:43

You know, this basically was really

23:45

my training ground. I learned so much about

23:48

myself. I learned so much about

23:50

how to deal with people, and

23:53

I learned that I'm capable of

23:55

a lot more than I

23:57

think I am. You know, you're winning the pool saving

24:00

They're saying you're braver than you believe, You're

24:02

stronger than you've seen. And I think

24:04

that's really I lived that

24:07

we need to pull maxim in a way

24:09

because every in every

24:11

setting, I had problems. I had

24:14

challenges. CEOs,

24:16

senior executives from the banking industry,

24:18

which is one of the most traditional industries,

24:21

who've never really had a woman

24:24

in the boardroom or in

24:26

any senior position, certainly

24:28

not an Indian woman who

24:31

spoke funny, who spoke fast,

24:34

who spoke differently, and didn't have

24:36

any common ground with them. So people

24:39

would find the most ridiculous

24:41

ways to find common ground. This

24:44

is I'm talking of nineteen seventy nine.

24:46

In nineteen eighty nobody people

24:49

just knew of India, as

24:51

you know, somebody that cows

24:53

were on the road the taj Mahal.

24:55

Everyone would ask me about the taj Mahal. I hadn't even

24:57

seen the taj Mahall myself, and

25:00

everybody would tell me about that one Indian

25:03

friend they had from some part of

25:05

the world, and they'd say, are you related to them?

25:08

And I'd want to explain to that that it was me.

25:10

Did have eight hundred million people and you

25:12

know, so yeh, possibly, but didn't

25:15

sound likely. But after

25:17

a while, you know, this became a I

25:19

started to think about it because I

25:22

would every time I would have

25:24

this feeling in the pit of my stomach, like, oh

25:26

wow, why are they talking to me like this? But they

25:28

wouldn't do this to anyone else. Then I

25:30

decided, you know, they're doing this

25:32

because they're trying to find common

25:34

ground. I gave them the best I

25:37

ascribed the best intention to them. I

25:39

think the second thing which I made as a

25:41

policy is that I

25:44

decided that when I walked into

25:46

a room, I wouldn't think of myself

25:48

as a woman. I wouldn't think of myself

25:50

as having come from India or

25:53

not, whatever it is. When I walked into a room

25:56

as a McKinsey associate

25:58

or a partner, whatever I walked

26:00

in, I walked into the room because

26:02

I was the best there is. I

26:04

had done an incredible amount of work. I

26:07

knew a lot about the issues talking about. I

26:09

was so well prepared, and I

26:11

was there to deliver what I came in for. I

26:13

was very clear, I was very confident, and

26:16

if we wanted to debate the issues, We're happy to

26:18

debate them. So there was no extraneous

26:20

noise in my head. I never walked

26:23

in unprepared. I worked

26:25

harder than anyone

26:27

I knew. I was an expert in whatever

26:29

I did, and whatever I didn't know, if people pointed

26:32

it out to me, I went and fixed. So

26:34

that was my mot and I cared a lot

26:36

about what my clients thought. I cared

26:39

a lot about delivering value. So my

26:41

mantra was impact. That's

26:43

what my life in Kinsey was about

26:46

what my life and my firm was about.

26:49

Seandrika's success in the world of business

26:51

cannot be overstated. After

26:53

over a decade at McKenzie, working as

26:56

the lead on some of the largest mergers

26:58

and accounts, she left to start her

27:00

own firm, Tanton Capital Associates

27:02

in nineteen ninety two. Business

27:04

took off. In fact, anyone

27:06

that she worked with had to report

27:08

it to the SEC because their

27:10

stock would immediately change. Yet

27:13

throughout all her business achievements, it

27:16

was music that continued to play in the back

27:18

of her mind, that what if

27:20

that we all have? And it bubbled

27:22

its way to the surface. I

27:26

sang before I could speak.

27:28

And you.

27:32

Fit did as dude, befo. I

27:41

mean, I did you know? I told you we came

27:43

from a very simple house. I had so many jobs.

27:46

You know, at four am or four point thirty,

27:48

the milkman would come and you had to stand there and

27:50

watch them milk the cow. And that was all

27:52

my job. We had those jobs, so

27:54

I'd just be singing. From that time on. There'd

27:57

be a radio station always playing music. Music

28:00

was in my brain and in

28:02

fact I learned music

28:05

when I was younger, and then stopped because I went

28:07

into the whole business world in an intense

28:09

way, but I was still I was

28:11

singing. But twenty three or

28:13

nineteen ninety nine, I had an epiphany,

28:16

crisis of spirit. I just said,

28:19

I have to really look at my life and

28:21

see what makes me happy and

28:23

what really would make my

28:25

life complete. And

28:27

then that's when I said, I'm living in such a selfish

28:30

bubble of or

28:32

you know. I was very successful in my

28:34

work, very successful company, had

28:37

lots of money, no one gave it to me.

28:40

I made everything myself. I came

28:42

in with nothing, but I wasn't.

28:45

I wasn't living a useful life in

28:48

that sense. And so I wanted

28:50

to expand my definition of what my

28:52

life was about. And it was a

28:54

particularly difficult thing to do because

28:57

I was poised

28:59

to take on a very very large deal

29:01

which would have vaulted my company

29:03

into another realm. It would have been personally

29:06

very taxing. It's a mega deal

29:08

in Europe where I'd have had

29:10

to spend a lot of time there. But I

29:12

decided I needed I couldn't. I

29:15

had to stop pause and think

29:17

about intentionally how I

29:19

wanted to spend my time. And I decided

29:21

that whatever I did, I still wanted

29:23

to do my business, but

29:25

music had to be part of it. My

29:28

happiest times had to do with music,

29:31

where I was singing with people

29:33

by myself, and I just didn't have time

29:36

to do that much of them. And the second

29:38

thing I decided is that I wanted

29:40

to do something that

29:42

didn't just involve me. I

29:44

wanted to clearly have a life

29:47

of service of some kind where I did, even

29:49

if it's a random act of kindness, that

29:51

I would measure myself every day by

29:54

something good I did. No one needed

29:56

to know it, but I was going to do that. So

29:59

I done enough for myself and

30:01

that was my commitment. So it's almost

30:04

like it this whole thing was a conversation

30:06

with myself. And that's when I went back

30:08

to music and I started to beg people to teach

30:10

me because I wanted to learn. I didn't want

30:13

to perform. It wasn't for any of that. I

30:15

wanted to sing and I wanted to sing really

30:17

well, so I wanted to learn from the masters.

30:20

And in India, no masters will teach you

30:22

when you were in your forties, you know, because they

30:24

take people to become their pupils

30:26

when they are five and they you know,

30:29

the system is that they you

30:31

move in, you give up. It's u a dimensional.

30:34

If you're an artist, you don't do anything

30:36

else. But as here I was, I

30:38

wasn't going to give up the rest of my life. I just wanted

30:41

to sing for a few hours a day, and

30:43

no master was interested. But then

30:45

little by little when I you know, when they would

30:47

work with me, they would see so

30:49

then everybody would say, oh, you're so good,

30:51

you really now need to spend all your time, come

30:54

with me, perform with me. But I couldn't

30:57

do that either. I wasn't going to walk

30:59

away from my family. I wasn't going to walk away from

31:01

my company. I had a daughter. So

31:03

it was it was balancing these dimensions

31:06

and consciously creating

31:09

a multi dimensional life with music

31:11

as a big piece of it, and

31:13

service and my business

31:16

and my family became

31:19

a very important juggling act.

31:21

But I started, I said, ultimately

31:23

that became my definition of success as well.

31:26

Success to me then wasn't about

31:28

money. Success was

31:30

simply having the freedom to

31:33

do exactly what you wanted and

31:36

that in the way that makes you most happy.

31:39

And so to me, that's kind of

31:41

how my life ended. Up completely

31:44

getting redefined.

31:46

So from a functional perspective, how

31:48

did you divide up now that you've

31:50

decided that you have these three prongs

31:52

that you're going to work on your business, your

31:55

music, and your service. Did

31:57

you go like for a couple of weeks

31:59

in one bucket at a time and

32:01

then switch? Did you do all three at the same

32:03

time? What did it functionally look like for you? So

32:06

the first thing I did is I decided

32:08

not to do this make a deal. So I decided

32:10

I wasn't going to do deals that involved

32:12

me going away from home for months

32:15

on end, living in different countries.

32:17

That's what I was doing. So I said, I was going to restructure

32:20

the business side of what I was going to do. But

32:22

you know, there's a roomy saying which says,

32:24

when you take one step towards

32:26

the divine, the divine

32:28

takes ten steps towards you. And there's

32:30

a universal synchronicity, you know, when you

32:33

decide you really want and it's the right thing

32:35

to do. And truly that's what

32:37

happened.

32:38

Seandraka took a step back, looking

32:40

for a new way to engage that could

32:42

live at the intersection of music and business.

32:45

The universe truly rose to meet her

32:47

when she was offered a position to teach at NYU

32:49

for just a few hours a week. When

32:52

we come back, Schandraka talks about

32:54

her new role at NYU and how

32:56

her work there allowed her to pursue music

32:58

and art. Now

33:05

back to the show.

33:07

Next thing I know, I'm there three days a week.

33:10

I'm teaching classes, I'm

33:12

working on strategy projects. I'm with

33:14

the dean like his shadow,

33:17

you know. And we were restructuring the school.

33:19

We were doing so many great things. So since

33:21

I had an office at the business school, I was doing

33:23

my business there as well. But then

33:25

I started to just do music very

33:27

religiously. So I would find teachers

33:30

and fly the teachers in or

33:32

take breaks in between, or just say,

33:34

okay, I'm going to go to India for two

33:37

weeks when my daughter was in camp,

33:39

and I would not schedule

33:41

deals at that time. So it requires

33:44

planning. It requires very

33:46

As they say, you know, your calendar decides

33:49

what you do. You can say all the things

33:51

you like, but ultimately you have to look at

33:53

your calendar. Right. You can say I want to do music,

33:56

but if you're not singing in your calendar at all,

33:58

what does it mean, so I had to really

34:00

work to organize myself

34:02

and I had a lot of help, Universal's

34:05

help between NYU and then

34:07

NYU also. Then that's how I got engaged

34:09

with the NYU. So the still in school, and then

34:12

one thing led to another. Then they invited

34:14

me to the board and then I started to get more and

34:16

more engaged. What was the connection

34:19

there?

34:19

So you gave and named the Tandon

34:21

School of Engineering, but very tight

34:23

in with art and very tight in

34:25

with art right.

34:27

So the art side. See,

34:29

my sort of life goals have really

34:31

been around two themes. One

34:34

is economic empowerment, letting

34:36

everybody have economic empowerment. And

34:39

I think technology is a very big way

34:42

to get economic empoundent because technology

34:44

is changing every industry in ways

34:47

like here we are sitting and

34:49

talking to the world within

34:52

microphones and podcasts and all

34:55

of that. The music industry, the

34:57

visual arts industry, the medical industry,

34:59

every it's changing and we ain't

35:01

seen nothing yet, I mean, the whole it's

35:04

a wave. And so to me

35:06

that was a reason. So economic

35:09

empowerment to me is a very important part

35:11

of where I'd like to focus my

35:13

attention. And so the investment

35:16

of the of the engineering school was

35:18

because I just saw that

35:20

investing in that would

35:22

really empower whole

35:25

generations of kids to be

35:27

tech savvy and to be changed

35:30

because once they graduate from the engineering

35:32

school, they are able to get fantastic

35:34

jobs. And so that

35:37

was one angle when we invested

35:39

in the school. A very big proportion of the school

35:41

was first generation, first in the family

35:43

to go to college, and a lot of women,

35:45

So it was a very It was exactly

35:48

the group that I wanted to touch in

35:50

whatever way we could. The

35:52

second side of the empowerment is emotional

35:55

empowerment through music, which

35:58

to me, my lesson my

36:00

own life is that

36:02

music was a great joy to me. But

36:05

most importantly, music helped

36:07

me find myself because to

36:10

really be a good musician, you

36:13

have to have a quiet mind. For the kind

36:15

of music I do, you have to

36:17

quiet all your senses, you have

36:19

to quiet your thoughts, and

36:22

the more you quiet your thoughts, you start to

36:24

get into this deep place of joy,

36:27

this place of bliss, this place of deep

36:30

meditation. So for me, music

36:32

was my gateway into meditation, into

36:36

deep states of transcendence

36:39

and finding a greater joy.

36:41

And that's why the music and the service

36:44

have gone hand in hand, because once you feel

36:46

that sense of deep connection

36:50

not just with yourself, but then you feel

36:52

it with everyone, you feel it for the world.

36:54

You really want to be connected, you want

36:56

you feel it all one, you

36:58

feel you want to serve more. And so

37:01

to me, that's been my journey. So I

37:03

wanted to really have music be

37:05

part of what we do to heal to for

37:09

people to find their own center. So

37:11

every album I've done has been

37:14

variations of that idea.

37:24

Hila Clari, Fenimol,

37:29

Pomoney, j

37:32

Truve, Lucy pelluam

37:36

Me, Sweebee, Hailiadotakushma

37:43

Jemmy.

37:44

A Grammy nominated artist. Chandrika

37:47

has performed all over the world, from

37:49

Lincoln Center to the Kennedy Center

37:52

to the India World Culture Festival,

37:54

and she shows no signs of stopping.

37:57

The newest album I have started

37:59

out as a just as singing to my grandchildren,

38:03

and then I put all those songs together because

38:05

I wanted to leave that behind for them.

38:07

But this has turned into something more because

38:09

I've been just singing these songs

38:12

now with the children in Ukraine,

38:14

in Prague, with the refugees

38:17

children in Ukraine, and then I've

38:19

just done this in Washington, DC. And so it's

38:22

become such an expression of intergenerational

38:26

love where people can sing together across

38:28

ages, across borders. And

38:31

most of these children, not most, no one spoke

38:33

English, and yet they were singing

38:35

these songs in English. They wanted to do these

38:37

chants in Sanskrit. So the

38:40

journey I'm on in this next

38:42

phase of my life is part

38:44

of this. One of the key parts

38:47

of the journey I'm on is to really use

38:49

music to sing with people, and

38:52

to sing with all ages in

38:54

different languages as a way of building

38:56

community, as a way of building

38:58

connection, because I think it's a huge

39:01

Music knows no boundaries and

39:04

music can heal. You don't need

39:06

to be ao boc

39:09

to come together and meet song. So

39:12

that's my journey right

39:14

now.

39:16

Do you think there's a piece that brings you back

39:18

to your formative relationship with your

39:20

grandfather, the how you can have this sing

39:22

along moment with your grandchildren.

39:24

Absolutely? And what is what

39:26

I think has been the biggest revelation

39:30

in this part of my journey now

39:33

is that it started out as a gift to my

39:35

grandchildren, but I suddenly

39:37

feel like I have hundreds

39:39

of thousands of grandchildren, because

39:42

in whether it was on Prague or in

39:45

Washington, the children wanted

39:47

as many hugs as

39:49

anything else, and they loved singing. And

39:51

I just got, you know, so the reaction

39:54

from the children and for myself,

39:56

I just feel this love blossoming

39:58

in a d room fashion,

40:01

which I never thought possible, you

40:03

know, because it was initially it was a fairly

40:06

narrow view, but now it's expanded so

40:08

much. So, Yeah, it's a wonderful

40:11

flowering.

40:12

What is one thing when you look back that you

40:14

feel like in the time, you thought, oh this is

40:17

this is allow, like this is really terrible,

40:19

but now in retrospect you see it as

40:21

having really set you up for

40:23

the successful person that you are now.

40:26

I would say the crisis of spirit,

40:29

because there was something so

40:31

traumatic and dramatic about

40:34

walking away from this mega

40:37

deal, you know, and where

40:39

I literally I was. I

40:41

lost all my moorings. I had defined

40:44

myself as a business person. My

40:46

success quote unquote

40:49

was the big business successes

40:51

I had. I was in every newspaper,

40:53

you know. I was an SEC that was a disclosable

40:56

event. If a company hired

40:58

me, they needed to disclose it the SEC

41:00

because the stock price would go up and

41:03

the board, and this was one

41:05

I thought I'd lost my mind

41:09

because here I came on a plane.

41:11

I mean I just met with the board all

41:13

day Friday. So I left Europe

41:16

on Friday evening and I was on the plane.

41:18

I was the only passenger in first class,

41:21

and I start crying. Who does

41:23

that? Not me? I was

41:25

not the crying sort, it's not I've

41:28

told you my earlier part of my life. I'm a

41:30

tough cookie in a sense, you know, But

41:32

here I am just crying, and it's

41:35

not like something's fallen apart. I

41:37

was just so lost because I didn't

41:40

know what I was doing. Do

41:42

I want to sign this deal? And then fortunately there

41:44

were no cell phones at that time, nobody

41:46

could reach me because they needed to announce it to

41:48

the They were doing a press release on Tuesday

41:51

or Wednesday, but I needed to sign the contract.

41:53

I just told them, let me go back to New York and

41:56

and let me do the final sign

41:58

on the dot line. So I get back

42:00

and think about it. But in their

42:02

mind it was a done deal. And we'd

42:05

had five six months of negotiations to

42:07

do this deal, so it was it

42:10

was not even just a low point. It

42:12

was. It was a complete

42:15

deconstruction of who

42:17

I was and having to

42:20

put myself back together again in

42:24

a non accidental fashion. I was

42:26

an accidental person

42:29

until then, and I became more intentional

42:31

person after that. That was the biggest

42:33

transition. But when I was in there,

42:36

I thought I was having a nose breakdown.

42:39

I thought I was having I was just like

42:41

having a crying jag. Maybe I

42:43

was three menopausal. I mean, I

42:46

put so many labels on this because

42:48

I didn't know, But it really was the

42:51

luckiest thing that ever happened to me, the

42:53

luckiest thing. Well, thank you so

42:55

much for joining us in such a great conversation.

42:58

Thank you so much for having me. I've left

43:00

talking to you.

43:04

Chandrika is continuing to create

43:06

music and use her platform and resources

43:09

too, as she says, elevate

43:11

human happiness. Be sure

43:13

to follow Chandrika on all social media

43:16

platforms at Chandrika Tanden

43:18

to stay up to date on all of her amazing

43:20

happenings. Thanks

43:23

for listening to this episode of She Pivots.

43:26

If you made it this far, you're a true pivoter,

43:28

So thanks for being part of this community. I

43:31

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43:33

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