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By:

Divyaa Advaani 

2 November 2024 at 3:28:38 am

Presence Before Pitch

Walk into any business networking room and you will witness something far more telling than exchanged cards or polite handshakes. You will see personal brands at work — quietly, powerfully, and often unintentionally. The way a business owner carries himself, engages with others, and competes for attention in public spaces reveals more about future growth than balance sheets ever will. At a recent networking meet, two business owners from the same industry stood out — not because of what they...

Presence Before Pitch

Walk into any business networking room and you will witness something far more telling than exchanged cards or polite handshakes. You will see personal brands at work — quietly, powerfully, and often unintentionally. The way a business owner carries himself, engages with others, and competes for attention in public spaces reveals more about future growth than balance sheets ever will. At a recent networking meet, two business owners from the same industry stood out — not because of what they said, but because of how they behaved. One was visibly assertive, bordering on aggressive. He pulled people aside, positioned himself strategically, and tried to dominate conversations to secure advantage. The other remained calm, composed, and observant. He engaged without urgency, listened more than he spoke, and never attempted to overpower the room. Both wanted business. Both were ambitious. Yet the impressions they left could not have been more different. For someone new to the room — a potential client, collaborator, or investor — this contrast creates confusion. Whom do you trust? Whom do you align with? Whose values reflect stability rather than desperation? Often, decisions are made instinctively, not analytically. And those instincts are shaped by personal branding, whether intentional or accidental. This is where many business owners underestimate the real cost of their behaviour. Personal branding is not about visibility alone. It is about perception under pressure. In networking environments, where no one has time to analyse credentials deeply, people read cues — tone, composure, generosity, restraint. An overly forceful approach may signal insecurity rather than confidence. Excessive friendliness can appear transactional. Silence, when grounded, can convey authority. Silence, when disconnected, can signal irrelevance. Every move sends a message. What’s at stake is not just one meeting or one deal. It is long-term growth. When a business owner appears opportunistic, others become cautious. When someone seems too eager to win, people question their stability. When intent feels unclear, credibility erodes. This doesn’t merely slow growth — it quietly redirects opportunities elsewhere. Deals don’t always collapse loudly. Sometimes, they simply never materialise. The composed business owner in the room may not close a deal that day. But he leaves with something far more valuable — trust capital. His presence feels safe. His brand feels consistent. People remember him as someone they would like to work with, not someone they need to protect themselves from. Over time, this distinction compounds. In today’s business ecosystem, especially among seasoned founders and leaders, how you compete matters as much as whether you compete. Growth is no longer just about capability; it is about conduct. Your personal brand determines whether people lean in or step back — whether they introduce you to others or quietly avoid alignment. This is why personal branding is not a cosmetic exercise. It is strategic risk management. A strong personal brand ensures that your ambition does not overshadow your credibility. It aligns your intent with your impact. It allows you to command rooms without controlling them, influence without intrusion, and compete without compromising respect. Most importantly, it ensures that when people talk about you after you leave the room, they speak with clarity, not confusion. For business owners who want to scale, this distinction becomes critical. Growth brings visibility. Visibility amplifies behaviour. What once went unnoticed suddenly becomes defining. Without a refined personal brand, ambition can be misread as aggression. Confidence can feel like arrogance. Silence can be mistaken for disinterest. And these misinterpretations cost more than money — they cost momentum. The question, then, is not whether you are talented or successful. It is whether your personal brand is working for you or quietly against you in spaces where decisions are formed long before contracts are signed. Because in business, people don’t always choose the best offer. They choose the person who feels right. If you are a business owner or founder who wants to grow without compromising credibility — who wants to attract opportunities rather than chase them — it may be time to look closely at how your presence is being perceived in rooms that matter. If this resonates and you’d like to explore how your personal brand can be refined to support your growth, you can book a complimentary consultation here: https://sprect.com/pro/divyaaadvaani Not as a pitch — but as a conversation about how you show up, and what that presence is truly building for you. (The writer is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

Rewriting the Polar Ledger

Kaamya Karthikeyan’s skiing odyssey to the South Pole crowns a teenage career built on astonishing willpower and endurance.

At 18, Kaamya Karthikeyan has become the youngest Indian and the second-youngest woman anywhere to ski to the South Pole. It is a feat that sounds deceptively neat in a newspaper headline which somehow fails to capture the gruelling reality of this stupendous achievement involving weeks of hauling a sled across the Antarctic nothingness, in temperatures that punish skin and spirit alike. In an age addicted to spectacle, Karthikeyan’s achievement is so striking precisely because it is so austere.


Anyone who has read even a little about Antarctica, whether in the grim stoicism of Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s ‘The Worst Journey in the World’ (1922) or the measured heroics of Roland Huntford’s dual biography of Scott and Amundsen (1979), knows that distances there are misleading. It is the conditions that punish.


Along Karthikeyan’s 115-kilometre route to the South Pole, temperatures sank to minus 30 degrees Celsius as winds scoured the surface, lifting hard ice crystals into blinding whiteouts. Beneath her skis lay sastrugi, or wind-carved ridges of frozen snow that sap momentum and patience in equal measure. She pulled her own sled throughout, carrying food, fuel and survival gear and completing the journey entirely on foot. This was the hardest way to complete a Polar Odyssey.


By becoming the youngest Indian to ski to the South Pole, Karthikeyan has inserted herself into a global narrative of exploration that still skews heavily Western. Polar history is crowded with Norwegians, Britons and Americans – from Amundsen and Shackleton to Ranulph Fiennes. In this narrative, Indians are scarce, and young Indian women as good as absent.


Now, Karthikeyan’s achievement complicates lazy assumptions about who gets to explore the extremes of the planet.


Polar travel is regulated, expensive and unforgiving of mistakes. Training regimes are clinical and include pulling weighted tyres to simulate sleds, learning to manage frostbite, mastering the tedious rituals of campcraft in sub-zero conditions. The Antarctic is not a place for dramatic heroics. Success depends on a mind-numbing routine which drains the reserves of one’s mental strength. It is only ski, eat, rest, repeat. The mind must learn to accept monotony as a condition of survival. For an 18-year-old to submit to this iron discipline says something essential about Karthikeyan’s character. Youth is usually associated with impatience, and Polar travel punishes it.


Raised in a naval household in Mumbai, Karthikeyan is the daughter of Commander S. Karthikeyan of the Indian Navy and educator Lavanya Karthikeyan. As an alumna of Navy Children School, she encountered the outdoors early, gravitating towards endurance sports that demand discipline rather than flash.


Mountaineering, long-distance trekking and polar travel form a niche within a niche, even globally. In India, where sporting aspiration is often funnelled towards cricket or increasingly, some Olympic disciplines, the idea of skiing across polar ice is almost eccentric.


And yet, before turning 18, Karthikeyan had already assembled a climbing résumé that would be impressive at any age. In 2024, she completed the Seven Summits Challenge, scaling the highest peaks on all seven continents - Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Vinson and Kosciuszko. She became the youngest Indian and the second-youngest woman globally to summit Mount Everest from the Nepal side. At 13, she had climbed Aconcagua in 2020 as the youngest girl to do so, and Mount Elbrus in 2018, combining the ascent with a ski descent - an uncommon feat even among seasoned climbers.


Karthikeyan’s has moved steadily from high-altitude mountaineering into polar travel, marking a shift from vertical suffering to horizontal endurance. The South Pole expedition places her on the final leg of the Explorer’s Grand Slam, a coveted milestone combining the Seven Summits with ski journeys to both poles. Now, with Antarctica behind her, only the North Pole remains.


The Grand Slam demands mastery across radically different environments. While few muster the courage to complete it, fewer still manage to do it so young.


Karthikeyan’s inspirations are telling. Rather than the heroes of a bygone era, she cites figures such as Felicity Aston, the British polar explorer known for solo, unsupported crossings. It is a lineage defined by self-sufficiency rather than spectacle. Today, a small ecosystem of endurance athletes is emerging, supported by global training networks and a growing appetite for unconventional achievement. Karthikeyan stands at the frontier of this shift, expanding the idea of what Indian sporting ambition can look like.


While Polar exploration remains male-heavy, culturally and numerically, Karthikeyan’s presence challenges that imbalance. Having reached the end of the Earth, Kaamya Karthikeyan is already looking beyond it.

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