ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nilima Bhat is a facilitator of personal transformation, coaching individuals and organizations in their quest for conscious evolution. She is an international speaker and trainer in organizational culture, conscious business, women in leadership, and self-awareness for work-life balance, as well as Indian wisdom and wellness traditions.
Previously, Nilima spent ten years heading corporate communications and public relations for major corporations such as ITC-Welcomgroup, Philips India, and ESPN STAR Sports.
Nilima graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, in life sciences and biochemistry, followed by a diploma in social communications media from Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai. She later qualified as a yoga teacher from the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre and is a teacher-practitioner of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
A trained dancer and choreographer, she has cofounded a professional dance company (Sri Shakti) whose mission is to demystify Indian dance and spiritual sciences for international audiences. Having lived and worked for ten years overseas (Singapore, London, Hong Kong), Nilima returned to India in 2004 with her husband to set up a leadership consulting firm, Roots & Wings, and an integrative medicine practice, Sampurnah. They are recently published authors of My Cancer Is Me, outlining their holistic and integrative approach to cancer.
A corporate refugee turned yogini, Nilima is now a global missionary. She travels the world leveraging her corporate experience and seventeen years of consciousness-based health and growth practices to help build enduring institutions and change-agents, especially women, who can lead the planet to sustainable solutions and positive impact. Her mission is the same as that of our publisher Berrett-Koehler: Creating a world that works for all. She also writes a column titled Shakti Speaks, initiated by a leading Indian media house, aimed at restoring gender relations and based on dialogues within women’s circles.
Her integral approach synthesizes best practices and paths from around the world, and is customized to meet audience needs. Her particular expertise is in developing Body Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence (BQ and SQ).
Nilima has delivered leadership training and facilitation for Microsoft, Whole Foods Market, Tata, Societe Generale Bank, Vodafone, and YPO, as well as academic institutions and developmental organizations such as Indus International School and SKS Microfinance. She is an active supporter of the Conscious Capitalism movement and Women’s International Networking (WIN).
Approaching 50 and having “heroically journeyed” many times, through her mother’s cancer, father’s near-fatal car accident and brain injury, husband’s cancer, and her own search for meaning from a sudden sense of failure in a thriving corporate career, Nilima looks back with amazement at her bucket list of world destinations that has very few places left to tick off. An avid traveler, Nilima has recently found great meaning in leading or joining Peace Pilgrimages to the world’s sacred spots, from Kailash and Mansarovar in the Himalayas to Machu Picchu and Titicaca in the Andes. Comfortable in every culture and socioeconomic setting, from cleaning toilets to dining with CEOs and interviewing world leaders, Nilima speaks five languages and truly calls the whole planet “home.”
Raj Sisodia is a globally recognized business academic who has done pioneering work in marketing and business strategy, marketing ethics and productivity, stakeholder management, and leadership. He is the FW Olin Distinguished Professor of Global Business and Whole Foods Market Research Scholar in Conscious Capitalism at Babson College. He is also co-founder and co-chairman of Conscious Capitalism Inc. He was previously Trustee Professor of Marketing and the founding director of the Center for Marketing Technology at Bentley University. He has an MBA from the Bajaj Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai, and a PhD in marketing from Columbia University.
In 2003, he was cited as one of “50 Leading Marketing Thinkers” and named to the “Guru Gallery” by the UK-based Chartered Institute of Marketing (the largest marketing association in the world). In 2007, he was honored with the “Award for Excellence in Scholarship” by Bentley University. In 2008, he received the “Bentley University Innovation in Teaching” award. He was chosen as one of twelve “Outstanding Trailblazers of 2010” by Good Business International, and one of 2010’s “Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior” by Trust Across America. The author of eight books and more than 100 academic articles, Raj is best known as the lead author of Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose. This book chronicled the unique, caring, and conscious attributes of 28 firms, showing how they deliver extraordinary value in multiple ways: high shareholder returns, thriving communities, customer well-being, and bringing a sense of meaning and purpose to the lives of their employees.
Raj is a leading figure in the fast-growing Conscious Capitalism movement and is on the board of trustees of Conscious Capitalism Inc. His book Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, co-authored with John Mackey, has made it to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. His most recent book is Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family (with Bob Chapman). Raj has made more than 750 presentations at leading universities, corporations, nonprofits, and other organizations around the world. He has consulted with and taught executive programs for numerous companies, including AT&T, Nokia, LG, DPDHL, POSCO, Kraft Foods, Whole Foods Market, Tata, Siemens, Sprint, Volvo, IBM, Walmart, Rabobank, McDonalds, and Southern California Edison. He is on the board of directors at The Container Store.