Meena Vaidyanathan is a consultant on business development and strategy, focusing primarily on social enterprises. She has contributed in creating significant brand impact in key geographies through focused customer programmes, online marketing, media visibility, and innovative marketing strategies over the past 17 years. She has also created a metric-based measurement index to gauge programme effectiveness in communications.
She is presently working with Dialogue Social Enterprise as a Director for Development creating a global programme to build awareness on the importance of trust, empathy and respecting human diversity while empowering people with disabilities through programmes called Dialogue in the Dark and Dialogue in Silence. (www.dialogue-in-the-dark.com and www.dialogue-in-silence.com).
She has led global marketing, public affairs and business development programmes in reputed organizations including Monsanto, Honeywell and HCL Technologies in the past, before she turned a full-time social entrepreneur. In this capacity she has had enormous experience in dealing with tough crisis situations, perception management during mergers and acquisitions, thought leadership, customer engagement and marketing communications, including rural marketing. She also has played a key role in devising communication and marketing strategies for bringing about sales excellence and business development in new markets. She has worked closely with business schools like Harvard and INSEAD on several case studies and played a key role in the conceptualization, production and marketing of the book Employee First Customer Second published and marketed by Harvard Business School Publishing.
Meena is a Biotechnologist by training and holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management with a specialization in Marketing. She also has undergone a certification programme on Social Entrepreneurship (ISEP) at INSEAD. She teaches occasionally in business schools on effective business communication, brand management and crisis communication. She is a voracious reader, enthusiastic traveller, singer and an occasional blogger.