Katha Stories Unheard

06/08/2023

🎉On this Sunny Sunday morning, I received this amazing gift from my home town. Feeling grateful and blessed to receive so much love and support from my home town people. A bit of a long post, but this one’s special for me 😊

💞And, I realised that today is friendship’s day. In light of this special day, a bond like friendship which makes our lives so beautiful, I would like to dedicate this to you all, my lovely friends and family.

🎉It's an honor and humbling experience to see that my story has been featured in Belgaum Live. I am excited and happy to share this you all. All links are shared below. For those who cannot understand marathi, there is a English version, please scroll down the page to read.

⭐️Belgaum Live is a popular and prestigious web news channel in Belgaum. Amidst many other other feature stories, this one’s very very special as it’s a such a wonderful recognition received from my own hometown.

🌈This has come as reminder of my career journey so far and all the ups and downs I faced along the way. From working in the corporate world, to pursuing my creative passions, to turning few of my dreams into reality, to starting my NGO, to becoming an entrepreneur it’s been a total roller coaster ride. Every experience, every twist and turn has contributed to my growth and success.

💪We all know that moving into a new foreign country is undeniably a life-changing experience. It includes both happy exciting times and challenging times.

💪We face known and unknown challenges. And specially as a working professional, it’s not easy at-all. It takes a lot of hard work, resilience, confidence, courage and much more to prove yourself, to prove your worth and move up the career ladder, to pursue your dreams and turn them into reality.

🦹‍♀️In my case being a women and getting back to work in a new country, after my first motherhood break, which was around 10 years ago, was all the more challenging. But I took every challenge head on and I am grateful to have received such immense love and support professionally and personally.

🌈Honestly, I had never planned to become an entrepreneur. But my vision to make a positive difference, and passion to transform ideas into reality to create ripples of meaningful changes, pulled me onto embarking entrepreneurial journey. And I am waking onto that path happily and enthusiastically.

💫It feels great that my journey will inspire many young children, women, men, couples and many other to follow their dreams and make a difference in their own way, and embrace the hurdles on the path to success.

❤️ Thank you from the bottom of my heart to each one of your for your continuous love and support 🙏

Thank you to the entire team of Belgaum Live for this wonderful feature 🙏

Face Book page link-
https://www.facebook.com/livebelgaum?mibextid=D4KYlr

Twitter link
https://twitter.com/belgaumlive?s=09

Instagram link
https://www.instagram.com/belgaumliveofficial

https://belgaumlive.com/2023/08/pradnya-punekar-my-pride-about-my-home-town/

बेळगाव लाईव्ह : एखाद्या गावाचं नाव मोठं होतं ते त्या गावातल्या माणसांच्या कर्तृत्वावर! बेळगावातील अशा कर्तृत्वव....

26/07/2022

From Teacher to Entrepreneur who is creating happily ever after stories & envisions to make a difference.

Click on link below to read full story.

https://www.kathaoffbeat.com/post/teacher-to-entrepreneur-who-is-creating-happily-ever-after-stories-envisions-to-make-a-difference

⭐️We are delighted to publish our 22nd Entrepreneur Story and provide you with heaps of Entrepreneurial Wisdom and Learnings that will aid you in learning and growing in your entrepreneurial journey and professional career ⭐

This month we feature an inspirational entrepreneur who is working to reinvent the entire process of finding their ideal life partner. She is fervently working to provide individuals with bespoke, personalised service that is built on mutual trust and is working passionately towards making a difference in our society.

Meet Dr Madhavi Amdekar, Founder of Kolumbus International Marriage. Madhavi is a teacher at heart. She discovered that she was thriving in the classroom, encouraging students to be their best selves. She has graduated from Ruia College, has taught at King George, and earned a PhD from the UK while serving as the principal of Khalsa College in London.

She was Inspired by her uncle, Dr. Vijay Khandekar, Dr Vijay was the founder of Kolumbus Marriage Bureau in Pune, Madhavi decided to start his overseas branch in London. But it wasn’t an easy feat, her children were too young then and her husband was a globetrotter, often away on business.

Despite all the challenges she was very passionate about the idea and as she started working on it, it started taking form. She knew she needed to organise it and turn her hobby into a real business. At the same time she had to tweak the business model to suit NRI needs, understand the market and client needs. She analysed the client emotions and through her service she brought in privacy and confidentiality as one of the important aspect ,which attracted many clients.

Over the years she has grown her business horizontally and matched many couples. With her zeal, hard work and positive attitude she has elevated her business to newer heights and envisions to make her business more inclusive by now extending her services to LGBT community and differently abled people.

Madhavi’s career has been something of a journey. Throughout her career, her core values such as her love for teaching, her respect for family and community values, and her commitment to social needs - has not changed.

Read this story where Madhavi shares:
1. How she turned her hobby into a real business.
2. How she defined her business model.
3. How she grew her business over the years.
4. The challenges she faced and how she overcame those challenges
5. Way Forward and much more

Thank you Dr Madhavi Amdekar for sharing your entrepreneurial journey with us. We wish you and Kolumbus International Marriage Services heaps of success.

26/04/2022

We Are Back, after a short break!

We are excited to feature an inspiring pharma entrepreneur and publish our 21st Entrepreneur Story and bring to you heaps of Entrepreneurial Wisdom and Learnings, which will help you learn, grow and gain insights and clarity in your entrepreneurial, career and life journeys.

Learn how a professor became an innovative pharma entrepreneur who is disrupting the pharma industry.

Click on the link below to read the full story.

https://www.kathaoffbeat.com/post/how-a-professor-became-a-innovative-pharma-entrepreneur-who-is-disrupting-the-pharma-industry

Meet Chitra Lele, Founder- Actu-Real. Actu-Real is Chitra’s second business venture. Chitra is a woman of substance who follows a simple ideology in life– believe in yourself and do the right thing. Her forward-thinking and leadership skills have paved the way to a successful business career. Having worked in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly drug development, for 24 years, she is the mind and soul behind the company.

Chitra graduated from Stanford University with a PhD in Statistics and began her career in teaching and theoretical research. She was a professor at the University of Minnesota, and later worked on projects at Stanford University Medical School and UC San Francisco Medical School.

Chitra worked in academics and semi-academics for the first seven years.Her business career began with the pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer, where she founded and led a new division within the worldwide corporation. The division seemed like a start-up and quickly grew in popularity.

After moving from Pfizer she was a founding member of Sciformix, which was acquired by a huge global firm after around 11 years. After Sciformix was acquired by a large global company, the choice was between a role in the large company or starting a venture on her own to fill an unmet need and help provide solutions in emerging areas. She choose to start her own business and challenge herself and learn along the journey.

While still related to the pharma industry, her current company Actu-Real has a large focus on the commercial side, along with Research and Development. It has also allowed her to foray into a different industry of health insurance as well which further fuels her passion for new and challenging business spaces.

Talking about what inspired her to start a business and become an entrepreneur she says-“At this stage of my life & career, having a stable job with a fixed income was neither my need nor my interest. Challenging myself to do something different and to focus on somewhat new areas that are not part of my comfort zone was my calling. I also wanted to test myself to see how I could start from scratch and set up a new company all by myself”.

Thank you Chitra for sharing your entrepreneurial journey with Katha-Stories Unheard. We wish you and Actu-Real heaps of success.

If our Entreprenuer stories and Inspiring talks have inspired you and helped you learn, grow and gain clarity. Please support us in following ways:

🌠Please share this story with entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs who will be benefitted from this.
🌠Please subscribe onto our website www.kathaoffbeat.com
🌠Please follow and subscribe us on our social media pages .stories.unheard

25/04/2022

We are Back, after a short break.

Stay Tuned. We will share the link with you all tomorrow.

08/03/2022

Happy Women' Day 💕
Thank you for your continued support and love ❤️

03/12/2021

⭐We are excited to publish our 20th Entrepreneur Story from and bring to you heaps of Entrepreneurial Wisdom and Learnings, which will help you learn and grow in your entrepreneurship journey and career⭐

Learn how a marketing executive became an entrepreneur & is on a mission to make entrepreneurship fearless for female founders.

Click on the below link to read full story https://www.kathaoffbeat.com/post/how-a-marketing-executive-became-an-entrepreneur-is-on-a-mission-to-make-entrepreneurship-fearless

Meet Meg Roundell Greene -Founder-MRG Branding. Meg is based in UK and has previously worked with LinedkIn and few other multinational companies. She started her career in the area of advertising in the year 2008, and in a career span of over 12 years she has worked with many multinational companies across various industries and grew up the corporate ladder to become a sales and marketing expert.

Meg ventured into entrepreneurship in the year 2020 and currently she is a passionate business and marketing coach for female entrepreneurs. Meg envisions to help women to create financial freedom and more abundance.She is passionately working towards creating mindset shifts in women, helping them strategize, focus, execute impactfully and scale their business to create value and wealth.

After many trails, errors and overcoming failures she has successfully launched one product, which is a 12 month business incubator for female entrepreneurs who are really mission-driven to make big changes in the world. Her business MRG Branding business is on a journey to increase its sales numbers this year and continue growing the sales numbers with each passing year.

Meg hopes to expand her business group to roughly 40 ladies and assist more people in achieving long-term success. She plans to launch a smaller mastermind-style programme for high-level entrepreneurs next year, aimed at people with multiple six-figure businesses who want to go even further.

Talking about her business and mission she says: "For me, helping women to create financial freedom and more abundance is a societal duty. The more women feel empowered to create their own futures, the better we'll be as an overall society and we'll be able to model that for future generations."

Thank you Meg for sharing your entrepreneurial journey with Katha-Stories Unheard. We wish you and MRG Branding heaps of success.

🌈If our Entreprenuer stories and Industry Leader
Talks have inspired you and helped you learn, explore, evolve and grow. Please support us in following ways:

🌠Please share this story with entrepreneurs, professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs & all those who will be benefitted from this.
🌠Please subscribe onto our website www.kathaoffbeat.com.
🌠Please follow and subscribe us on our social media pages .stories.unheard

"Join hands with us to Inspire New Growth".

Katha Offbeat is a platform to inspire small scale women entrepreneurs by sharing their stories and encouraging more women in the community to start their own initiatives

22/11/2021

We are excited to bring our 20th Entrepreneur Story to you. A story which will inspire you to dream big, to be bold and courageous, and will help you learn about turning your passion into a purpose and a profit making business. Stay Tuned.....

05/11/2021

First is always Special-Performed our first laxmi pooja at our home office of Katha Stories Unheard and seeked blessings from God. It truly feels amazing and satisfying to experience and see that my small idea, small dream is turning into a bigger vision and purpose.

Special Thank you to my dear friend Reva Singh-Founder of Asmi and Programme Lead at Equiniti for gifting me these beautiful handmade wall art which she made it herself, specially designed and curated for KATHA-Stories Unheard office. A lovely surprise gift which made me feel that this dream is true and is now real and should be nourished and cherished for further growth.

Thank you to one and all for your continued support, love and best wishes.

Gratitude and Best Wishes,
Pradnya Punekar
Founder
KATHA-Stories Unheard

04/11/2021

Happy and Prosperous Diwali to everyone celebrating this festival ✨

BIG Thank You to each one of you for your immense support and best wishes✨

We will continue to bring to you heaps of Inspiration, Insights and Ideas which will help you learn and grow in your entrepreneurship journey and career.

02/11/2021

Your inner voice is the most powerful, listen to it. It will propel your journey forwards.

Subscribe to our website www.kathaoffbeat.com for FREE and receive heaps of Inspiration, Insights and Ideas which will help you learn and grow in your entrepreneurship journey and career.