Every meaningful reinvention begins with a story we are brave enough to tell ourselves. It is with this philosophy that we welcome Lakshmi Pratury to the Advisory Board of SecondAct. Lakshmi is the Founder & CEO of INK, a platform that has shaped some of the most thoughtful conversations on innovation, leadership, and possibility in India and beyond. Through INK Conferences, INK Women, and the INK Fellows program, she has spent decades curating ideas that challenge comfort and expand imagination. As SecondAct grows into a platform for women navigating transitions, Lakshmi’s presence anchors us in the power of thoughtful storytelling and long-term vision.

Shreya brings over two decades of leadership across corporate communications, CSR, inclusion, and human development. As Managing Director of AnitaB.org India, she has worked at the intersection of technology, inclusion, and large-scale systemic change. Shreya’s work and her deep engagement with language, inclusion and human behaviour mirrors this truth. Her belief that words shape worlds aligns powerfully with SecondAct as a space for reflection, leadership, and re-authoring identity, Shreya’s presence strengthens our commitment to doing this work thoughtfully, responsibly, and at scale.

Neha is the founder of HerKey (formerly JobsForHer), a platform that has fundamentally shifted how we think about career breaks, returns, and second chances for women. But before she became a builder of ecosystems, she was a woman navigating a pause in her own career. Neha’s work has always met women at exactly this point. Not by asking them to justify their breaks or prove their ambition again, but by building structures that acknowledge real lives, pauses, responsibilities, ambition, and all. Her leadership is rooted in the understanding that women need pathways that work in the unique context of their lives. As SecondAct grows as a space to pause before pushing into the next chapter, Neha’s presence helps keep our work anchored in lived experiences.

Shweta is the Founder and CEO of Startup Policy Forum where she works closely with founders, governments, and institutions to shape progressive policy frameworks for the startup ecosystem. Before this, she held senior policy and advocacy roles at Sequoia Capital, Salesforce and Uber across South Asia, working on digital policy, data protection, cloud regulation, ethical technology, equality, and sustainability. But Shweta’s leadership didn’t begin in boardrooms or policy corridors. She spent nearly two decades as a business journalist and television news anchor with NDTV, covering global economic forums, interviewing world leaders, and reporting from rooms where decisions shaping millions of lives were being made. That grounding of asking hard questions, listening deeply, and holding power accountable, continues to inform her journey today. We’re grateful to have Shweta walk alongside us as we build spaces where women can pause, reflect, and step forward with clarity.