Education is the basic human right for every child, it is meant to open a child's mind, draw out her hidden strengths, optimize her potential by creating ample opportunities to explore, observe, experiment, reflect to know one's strengths, interest in the context of one's environment, evolving changes, emerging opportunities in the global Society. Quality of Education is the only answer to bridging the existing gap between haves and have-nots, to develop human beings who are self-driven, skilled, change-makers and contributing members of this global society. To contribute towards this vision, Millennium Education Management came into being with a mission to partner with like-minded individuals who strongly believe in establishing schools of excellence in pursuit of providing quality education to thousands of students, and to drive this vision we have Geetika Bahuguna, Chief Operating Officer of Millennium Education Management.

Geetika comes armed with a graduate degree in Psychology & Child Development from Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi University, Bachelors in Education from HNB university along with Institutionalized Courses in Management in Entrepreneurship from DSSC, Wellington, International School Inspectors by Penta International UK and many more in innovative pedagogy, Emotional Intelligence, Assessments, and on evolving practices Leadership.

Backed with 360-degree exposure and rich experience of more than 30 years in the education sector, she is acknowledged for her skills and expertise in the management of educational programs for the establishment of new chain of schools, interventions in Govt. schools, audit of schools, curriculum formulation, quality support management and training for key stakeholders. A Passionate multi-talented leader that pursues development within the education sector to create an educated and knowledge-based society by establishing quality schools across the nation and reaching-out to the last child through the school partnership Model. Till date, she has impacted more than 700 schools, 200,000 students and 6000 educators over three decades during her tenure as an Educator.

The Women Entrepreneur Magazine interacted with Geetika and discussed her thoughts and professional experience as an educationalist and an operating officer in the education industry. Here are excerpts from the conversation.

Introduce Us To Millennium Education Management And Its Salient Features.

MEM has been set-up to build, establish as well as take over existing schools around the country and turn them into model schools of excellence. MEM has exclusive franchise rights for setting up the `Millennium World School' brand around the country. MEM has also succeeded in exhibiting samplers of excellence to the Educators and Policy Makers by translating NCF recommendations into successful pedagogical practices. In its first leg of operations itself, MEM has been established as the most sought after, service-driven organization that has achieved credibility and success in establishing Quality driven institutions within the shortest duration of time, directly benefitting 25 schools, thousands of students, hundreds of Education Leaders and policymakers from different states who have further been instrumental in influencing the central policies, supporting the drive to upgrade the quality of education in schools across the nation.

CBSE's latest Education policy incorporates recommendations that have a part of the integral practices focused on by MEM and the Millennium Learning System (MLS) from the days of its inception. MLS along with MEM Services has proved to be the differentiator and a solution to bridge gaps in education.

Take Us Through Your Early Educational Journey And Prior Industry Experience That You Bring To The Table.

I embarked upon my journey as a teacher and by virtue of being married to an Army Officer, I got exposed to a variety of schools and classes across the country and got the flavour and first-hand experience of teaching children from Pre-primary to Sr. Secondary across ten years.

Driven by my passion to learn new ways of impacting the quality of education across the country, I switched to the corporate world. I got the opportunity to learn the nuances of teacher training and led the implementation of one of the most innovative training programs for teachers `Wipro Applying Thought in Schools Program' and `QUEST' across70 reputed schools pan India in five years. It allowed me to work closely with the teachers and management of a broad range of reputed as well as progressive Private schools like Mayo College Ajmer, Scindia School Gwalior, Welham Girls, Lawrence School Sanawar, Army Public Schools, Venkateshwar International, Lotus Valley International, chain of Sainik Schools, DAVs, Delhi Public Schools and many others, that helped in building a broad perspective about quality of education in the K-12 segment.

“I invest time in building a strong emotional bond with my team, identifying their strengths & weaknesses, and believe in their inherent potential & capacities to learn and perform”

Thereafter, I got the opportunity to implement Bharti Foundation's two large scale programs, the first one was their flagship `Satya Bharti Schools Program' wherein I established their Training & Curriculum Department, conceptualized teaching-learning approach, curriculum for their 254 schools across six states for 40,000 underprivileged children which was followed by the conceptualization of another unique initiative  `Quality Support Program' to extend the learnings and share best practices for upgrading the quality of education in Government schools through partnerships and reached out to 254 government schools in six states, reaching-out to over  100,000 students across five years.

In my current profile I play a critical role in providing end-to-end operational support to franchise schools, K-12 Millennium World Schools spread across seven states, 25 operational and 10 in the pipeline, for benchmarking quality standards of education.

As The Coo, How Do You Drive Growth Within The Organization? What Is Your Leadership Mantra?

Being a consulting firm and a young startup, there is an immense scope for growth equating to building intellectual capacities, skills, enlargement of roles and increase in responsibilities linked to increments. I have always operated on trust and have adopted a transparent, unbiased approach in dealing with colleagues and team members. I invest time in building a strong emotional bond with my team, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, believe in their inherent potential and capacities to learn and perform. I have always endeavoured to work with individuals, helping them tap learning opportunities to optimize their potential, create opportunities to gain exposure, experiment with new ideas, enjoy flexibility at work to pursue various courses for professional growth as well as maintain work-life balance.

In Today's Fast-Paced Business Landscape, Staying Relevant Is Of Prime Importance. To This End, How Do You Keep Yourself Well Aligned With The Periodic Evolutions Occurring In The Industry And The Tech World?

Self-learning ­ Research, Readings, Webinars, Seminars are a great source of information and learning and one of the positive outcomes of Pandemic has been the vast repository of global knowledge and its easy access. Knowledge Sharing ­ We organize `Heads Together' our monthly sharing platform for school leaders, wherein our Principals share new practices, new programs, processes or learning. Market Research & Partnerships ­ Besides, we have an internal system and team that is focused on proactively exploring, identifying, tapping new tools, practices or solutions in education or technology for building technical partnerships wherever required as well as exposing our schools to the selected ones for enriching students' learning experience and quality of education.

Given The Demanding Nature Of Your Job, How Do You Manage To Strike A Balance Between Your Work And Home Life?

Fixated with perfection and timely closures, I like to prioritize my personal and professional goals separately and achieve them with the help of systematic delegation of work amongst my team and robust processes for routine activities, both at the office and home. Being part of this highly sensitive and value-driven organization with amazing work culture, the balancing act has become easier and we all tend to thrive in this environment of complete trust, honesty, mutual respect and transparency.

As A Successful Business Leader, What Would Your Advice Be To Young Women Aspiring To Become Business Leaders In The Future?

My only advice to our business leaders will be to have absolute clarity of your vision, complete trust in the quality of your product and immense passion & grit for driving its reach to maximum customers. Thereafter you need to focus on creating more leaders by building a strong work culture that promotes autonomy, transparency, honesty, flexibility, accountability, learning and growth for all members who would be taking the business forward for you.