Our Culture

In pursuit of our purpose, each of us brings a diverse set of skills, experiences and perspectives, and a shared commitment to foster a culture of Accountability, Boldness, Diversity, Empathy, and Trust.

At Omidyar Network India, we demonstrate

By recognising that a willingness to make commitments is key to fostering trust and delivering the highest quality impact. We do this by:

  • Holding ourselves and our entrepreneurs to a high standard of expectations
  • Setting expectations clearly, meeting our commitments, and supporting others in meeting theirs
  • Bringing a sense of urgency in service to entrepreneurs and social impact
  • Reflecting on our work and communicating our successes, failures, and learnings with humility, respect, and empathy

Behaviours we encourage

  • Promoting good governance
  • Leading by example in meeting our commitments
  • Being considerate of demands on each other’s times, we also recognise the urgency of certain activities and act accordingly

Behaviours we don’t encourage

  • Glossing over failures, but view them as an avenue to amplify firm-wide learning and growth
  • Making unreasonable demands
  • Acting indecisively or sending conflicting messages

By backing entrepreneurs working in emerging and white-space sectors to solve some of India’s most vital and difficult challenges. We do this by

  • Creating a culture of bold decision-making both at ON India as well as within our investees
  • Building and backing our own convictions and ideas even if not yet validated by the market, and constructing new solutions where none exist

Behaviours we encourage

  • Supporting our entrepreneurs even
    when the chips are down, recognising that they are tackling some of India’s most difficult challenges
  • Moving quickly to seize opportunities, even if out of our comfort zone
  • Recognising and working through our failures and pivot in a timely manner, in the pursuit of impact

Behaviours we don’t encourage

  • Getting easily swayed by external pressure and opinion
  • Shooting down bold bets without meaningful engagement or reasoning
  • Refraining from taking a stand to define the firm’s views on issues that can drive system change

By encouraging and celebrating varied perspectives and backgrounds. We do this by

  • Seeking out, considering, and engaging with varied perspectives in order to learn and
    grow together
  • Actively working with people who are from different backgrounds and different life experiences, and creating an equitable field for everyone to excel

Behaviours we encourage

  • Everyone contributing their views, without prejudice
  • Fostering an inclusive environment where new colleagues feel welcome and different colleagues are able to participate equally

Behaviours we don’t encourage

  • Remaining silent bystanders to actions that go against our principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion
  • Backing entrepreneurs simply because they went to the “right schools” or speak the “right language”

By putting ourselves in the shoes of the people we serve, our entrepreneurs,
and our colleagues to understand their perspectives. We do this by:

  • Deepening our understanding of the lives and aspirations of the people we serve
  • Reflecting on entrepreneurs’ experiences and constraints to inform our decisions
  • Investing time in engaging with the work of our colleagues
  • Finding norms of work that fit different workstyles, while being mindful of professional and personal constraints

Behaviours we encourage

  • Frequently engaging with the people we serve to understand their lives and perspectives
  • Making time for a cutting chai or filter coffee to offer a non-judgemental ear, and a helping hand to our entrepreneurs and colleagues

Behaviours we don’t encourage

  • Disengaging in meetings when other colleagues present their work
  • Expecting responses to emails on a holiday/weekend for business as usual activities

Through our belief in the abilities of entrepreneurs, our colleagues and ourselves. We do this by

  • Fostering an environment in which one can, without inhibitions, share views, and receive constructive feedback and support
  • Empowering team members to define their work, knowing they will demonstrate high commitment and deliver on their goals

Behaviours we encourage

  • Trusting entrepreneurs and our colleagues to do the right thing
  • Providing an environment to experiment, recognising we will sometimes fail, but know that we
    will always learn and adapt
  • Creating an environment where entrepreneurs and our colleagues feel “safe” talking about what is not working

Behaviours we don’t encourage

  • Letting failures discourage our colleagues from taking risks in future
  • Missing deadlines and commitments without giving adequate notice to our colleagues