One-Year Later

In April 2025, I asked Archita what she would be celebrating one year later. She said, “The joy that my husband and I are seeing in our kids that brings us closer. Falling in love with my aging body. Losing my babies who are growing up. Some big hairy goals that I have for my business. Building something together as a family. Not eating my feelings. Raising consciousness of people who own wealth and capital in terms of how they show up and who they need to serve who are underserved in this world. And last but not least, helping more women leave corporate on their terms and thrive.”

A few days ago, I asked her how that celebration is going. Here’s what she shared in only the magical, vulnerable and inspiring way Archita can.

When you asked me what I would be celebrating, I answered from a place of hope.

Now I can answer from a place of having lived some of it, and the biggest shift has been my body.

In May last year, I gave the most personal keynote of my life at Impact Players in Belfast, Ireland. I spoke publicly for the first time about the sexual abuse I experienced as a child. In that talk, I spoke about reclaiming my body and about the words that had lived in me for years: "I am not an athlete."

And then in February this year, I competed in my first singles Women’s Open HYROX in Nice, France.

After I finished, I literally shouted on that stage: "I am an athlete!" 

I still have a relationship with my body that I am working through. I do not think that part will ever be simple. But I am amazed by it, I am amazed that I trained it to do something I used to think only athletes could do. For so long, that word belonged to other people. It did not belong to me. And then suddenly there I was, having done the thing, saying it out loud and meaning it.

That has been one of the biggest changes of this year.

Work has also changed in ways I could not have scripted.

A year ago, private equity still felt like a world I was standing outside of. I did what I know how to do. I listened, I spoke to people, I tried to understand where PE hangs out, how trust is built, how you get invited in, what people care about, and what language they use. I also did some stupid things. I did cold LinkedIn outreach that, in hindsight, was too eager and could have impacted my credibility. I still struggle with striking the right balance between coming across as too needy and being useful. 

But then something funny happened. I connected with an operator in PE over something as simple as my name and how similar it was to her fiancé’s name. That conversation turned into trust. That trust turned into invitations. And those invitations turned into rooms where I could say out loud what I actually care about.

I started saying that I want to change culture in PE, and nobody blinked an eye.

People said, "Yes I agree, we do need to do more!" This sounds like nothing and is a tiny little ripple but we need these ripples in systems that don't spend enough time to pause and take stock of the impact they can truly have.

That has been huge for me because I am not just getting invited into rooms now. I am contributing to them. I found myself quietly coaching a CRO in a private conversation after an unregulated outburst on a pipeline call and telling him that if he was feeling unregulated, he should not have shown up that way because leaders create the emotional environment in which other people have to work. Same with a CEO who invited me back to help him and his portco not once but 4x over. A year ago, I would not have imagined I would be having that conversation or these invitations back from a deep place of trust in a high growth environment like Private Equity.

So much of this year has been about showing the business impact first and then making space to shape culture, because I know culture drives business outcomes, whether people want to admit it or not. This is slow, but one of the most important things I have learned is that I do not need to rush.

That does not mean I sit around and wait for life to happen to me. It means not everything has to happen today. I can keep putting in the reps. I can keep showing up consistently, strategically, and smartly. I can trust the process instead of trying to force the outcome.

With my family, this is still harder.

I want to be honest about that because this part of the reflection is significant work in progress. I continue to still struggle here.

I have had a lot of honest conversations with my family. The most important one has been around this question: what does good enough look like for me?

That has stayed with me because so much of my pain in this area comes from blame. I blame myself. I blame my husband. I blame decisions we made. I blame what I did not know when I was making them. And then recently my 25-year-old cousin said something while we were all teasing my favorite aunt about her bubble tea order. He said, " Why are you punishing her?"

And that line has been running laps in my head these past few weeks. 

Because the real question for me is: "Why am I punishing myself?"

I do not have a perfect answer yet, but I know that question is opening something up in me.

Another thing I said I wanted a year ago was to help more women leave corporate on their terms and thrive.

And that happened in more unexpected ways than I imagined.

I have helped multiple women leave corporate and build successful, mentally and physically independent lives in South Africa, the Netherlands, the US, Canada, and Germany. I do not say that lightly. I know what it means for a woman to trust someone as she changes the structure of her life. I am deeply grateful for that trust.

And then there is focus, and that has probably been the hardest choice of all.

There are many things I care about. I could build many things. I could go in many directions. Six months ago, I made a real commitment to stay in the PE lane. I have strayed at moments, yes, but I keep coming back to it. I keep choosing it.

That choice has given me more clarity than I expected. It has also shown me that focus is not neat. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable. Sometimes it means not chasing every interesting possibility. Sometimes it means letting one part of your life grow while another part waits.

But I know it has been the right decision.

So, when I look back at what I said a year ago, this is what I would say now:

I am celebrating a body that I trust more than I did a year ago.

I am celebrating the fact that I no longer feel like I have to force my way into rooms that are not ready for me. I can build trust and let that trust open the door.

I am celebrating doing work that has both a business and a cultural impact.

I am celebrating the women who trusted me enough to build new lives for themselves.

And I am celebrating the fact that I am slowly learning that not everything good has to be rushed, and not everything hard has to be a reason to punish myself.

Now you know why I have great love and respect for Archita. Thousands of miles away from one another, yet as familiar as people we see in person every day. She makes me think deeply about my own life and what’s possible. That’s inspiring. That’s Archita.