Women Uplifting Women: Reflections from the Neythri Summit

Receiving my award from Neythri board members Renu and Meerah

Over the weekend, I had the magical experience of swimming in a sea of women of substance at the @Neythri.org Summit — a global community of South Asian professional women committed to helping each other succeed.

Founded five years ago by Mythili Sankaran Chitra Nayak and Sruthi Ramaswami , Neythri has grown to nearly 4,000 members and is now being taken to new heights by Rohini Tolani Sadarangani

My three biggest takeaways:

1. Owning your power gets easier when everyone can pronounce your name In the fireside chat I hosted with Yamini Rangan we shared the story behind our names — and laughed about how mispronouncing mine can sound suspiciously like a swear word. But behind the humor is a deeper truth: the power of being seen as you are, starting with your name.

2. It’s okay to live life as a messy project, not an Insta Reel Every speaker — CEOs, CXOs, founders, operators — shared their journey with vulnerability and humility. The message was clear: it’s okay to make mistakes, to not have it all figured out, and to treat uncertainty as another name for possibility. We’re not climbing ladders anymore — we’re scaling rock walls.

3. Communities thrive on the give-get equation I was deeply honored to receive a Community Ambassador Award in recognition of what I’ve contributed. But more than anything, I’ve received — deep friendships, generous idea exchange, and the inspiration to write my first book, Lotus Leadership (HarperCollins, September 2026), which explores a new leadership approach pioneered by Indian women — one rooted in calm, resilience, and grace over hustle.

   
   

Here’s to women uplifting women — and to a generation of female leaders who, like the word Neythri connotes, are shining lights.

All glammed up and ready to go!

Author Bio Kamini Ramani’s mission is to deliver on the Mayfield brand promise to entrepreneurs and to provide a range of support to portfolio companies. She loves crafting memorable narratives that combine the magic of an entrepreneur’s bold vision, an unmet customer need, and a delightful product. She is a fangirl of entrepreneurs everywhere and amplifies the impact of the Mayfield portfolio directly or by matching companies with her ninja network of superb marketing professionals. Some highlights of her Mayfield experience include bringing improv comedians to run a messaging workshop for an enterprise company, taking the right story angle for a deeptech private start-up to a respected reporter at the Wall Street Journal, and working closely with the Mayfield team to unleash their POVs. Prior to Mayfield, she was a messaging and corporate communications counselor to the leaders of emerging and established technology companies in Silicon Valley for three decades. These included companies from the client-server and internet waves, with a highlight of providing public relations counsel to Steve Jobs at NeXT in 1995. She holds a Masters in Communications from Stanford University, a Masters in English Literature from Yale University, and a Bachelors in English Literature from Bombay University.