Gunjan Jain is an avid reader who is also a compulsive writer a thought leader, often sharing her discernment at public forums. The writer in her has been hard at work. Her debut book, She Walks, She Leads, an authorized anthology of India’s most dynamic women leaders, profiles 24 prolific life stories. Capturing a panoramic range of professions, passions and sensibilities, through the book, each personality shares her personal journey like never before. The biographies are supplemented by reference conversations with more than a hundred leading personalities.
Leading from her book, Gunjan authors a special series on Leadership for Forbes India. Gunjan belongs to the family conglomerate – The Arissan Group, which is primarily into Media (Aastha Channel), Finance, and Infrastructure. Gunjan currently lives and works out of Mumbai, India.
I had come back from studying and working abroad, and I was at that stage in my life where I was deliberating on what to do. I noticed Indian women have high-profile jobs, run successful industries and institutions and reign at the top of creative vocations. I wanted to document the most extraordinary lives of Indian women in a monumental publication. That was the starting point of 'She Walks, She Leads'. I was really fortunate on that front as most of my protagonists gladly agreed with very little persuasion, even though at the time I was an unknown, first-time author.
The precise purpose of mine for this book is to show the scale of achievement by Indian women over the past five or six decades: women who did not bow down to personal difficulties and traditional mindsets and stuck to pursuing their life’s purpose. I believe that I have stayed true to this aim and now it is up to the book to find its destiny.
I think hard on the title. I wanted it to convey the values that these women embodied. At the same time, I wanted it to have a lyrical, almost poetic sound to it. A title that would grab the reader’s attention and say just enough about the book to demand a second look. And, I think She Walks, She Leads does all that. I like the sort of alliteration-like sound it carries. And, it conveys the fact that to become a leader, to reach the pinnacle it is imperative to tread the path, irrespective of the difficulties that block the way. Each woman who decides to walk is a leader in her own right.