13. LVHM Women@Dior Mentee Ananya Rajpoot on providing menstrual health products for underprivileged communities and why the fashion industry is now championing sustainable textiles and zero waste apparel

Hello, Bonjour, Nihau and Salu. Welcome back to the Impact around the World podcast. I'm Cassandra Pittman, EDX country manager for the UK and Ireland and host of the show. Joining me this week is one of edX Rising superstars and from what I hear, a real talent in the fashion industry. Ananya Rajput is a marketing and brand management enthusiast who's worked across a portfolio of some of the most glamorous brands out there, including Guerlain, Burberry, Gucci, Lacoste, Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Tiffany and Davidoff, just to name a few. Passionate about sustainable textiles, green fabrics and zero waste apparel, she was chosen as a participant on the highly competitive Women at Dior global mentorship scheme organized by LVMH to encourage young women to dare for the career of their dreams under the guidance of promising Dior talent. Her TEDx talk on the art of being your own cheerleader at the prestigious TEDxEdec conference was received to much acclaim. Did I mention she's only 25 years old? So let's take it away and enjoy the show with Anya Rajput. I am so excited to have you here. So can you start by telling us where your passion for not just fashion, but sustainable fashion was born?

So I'd be honest, it didn't start off. I wasn't born with it. It's not like, you know, since I was a kid, we were doing these things at home or anything. And to be honest, I learned about sustainable textiles, the word only much later. But in an Indian household, it's very common for us to reuse our textiles. Like my mother's old sari, which is an 8 yard long outfit that Indian women wear. We would use it to make shirts out of it when we were younger or we would make patches for our jeans and jackets when we were younger. So it was something which had already seen reusing fabric at home. So when I joined fashion school in Delhi for my undergraduation, I had an opportunity to do a research project and I just decided to, you know, take this, this idea which we'd been using all along to create something out of it. And I think that's when I first learned about sustainable textiles traceability. How do you know, know where your fabric's coming from or where your clothes are coming from? And not just that, what happens to them once you, you know, discard them? Because in our generation, fast fashion is very common. It's the fad. We have many brands which release clothes every few months. And being a fashion student, I saw it around me that, you know, people were willing to pay to just get the, get those things going in their carts and it wasn't right. And just being there, being a part of it all made me realize that, you know, we had to do things differently. And I think just having seen things being done that way at home without really knowing what we were doing, without really knowing that we were being sustainable, it just kicked in.

And what made you decide to pursue this interest once you had discovered it in your undergraduate in India, in France, at edhec?

Well, the idea was I'll just briefly talk about the project which I've been doing since 2016. 17 now, menstrual health for women is a very big passion of mine because where I come from, and honestly, it's not just India. Even after having come to Europe and having traveled, I realized it's pretty much the same. The myths and taboo surrounding menstrual health are great. And while I was back in India, I just realized that access to menstrual health hygiene products was not easily available to all strata of the society. And my project was aimed at creating reusable and green menstrual products for women who could not first afford them, who did not have access to them, and also for the rest of us, because there is widespread studies telling us that use, extensive use of tampons or synthetic pads is not good for our own health. So I just realized that, you know, I had to continue doing this project. And even after I left India, I made my research available to, to other people. I was still connected with a lot of NGOs in India back home, you know, working in this direction. And this had to, of course, do a lot with my passion for sustainable textiles, reusing cloth, let's say, green waste, if I can say it. And that's exactly what helped me get selected for women at Dior as well. And not just that. At the end of my journey with women at Dior, my project also got selected to be presented in front of UNESCO. So I think I've had this passion for a long time. And I've continued to, you know, I've continued working in it even after coming to France. And I'm glad, like people here, I've got to meet a lot of people here who are on the same, let's say, wavelength as I'm ons. And the project which I did and presented in front of UNESCO, it did not have any other Asians or Indians. I had girls from France, from the US who were working with me on this project. And it was great to find a synergy of passion and to find like minded people. And I'm glad I wouldn't have ever, you know, met these people had it not been for edec, because I would have never in the first place come to France. So I have to, of course, thank EDHEC for, you know, giving me the opportunity of leaving my country, coming here and studying and exploring these different programs.

Can you give us, I'm sure it's, you know, much longer and more in depth, but can you give us kind of the brief synopsis of the, of the project you presented at UNESCO?

So basically the project at UNESCO is about destigmatizing menstruation for women in countries like India. So basically the project, since I'm from a fashion background, I actually do drew out prototypes of pads and period panties which can be made out of sustainable textiles and which can be made by women themselves at home. And just the entire designing of the prototype, the testing of it, how it can be done and how these can be used, was presented in front of UNESCO. It was in continuation of the project which I had the research project which had already done back in India, where I had in fact, on my own, chemically tested these prototypes in a lab to make sure that what we're presenting is good. I had also defined standards of tests that needed to be done on these prototypes to make them hygienic and, let's say, usable for the women we're going to be presenting them in front of. And the second part of the project was how can we actually implement these projects? So we got in touch with a couple of NGOs in India. Of course, since India is a big country, the geographic scope was limited to Delhi ncr, which is the region where I come from, which is where I have a couple of contacts as well, so as to be 100% authentic about what we're presenting. And we got in touch with these NGOs, just asked them, if we were to actually do this project, how much would it cost? What kind of marketplace can we create for these women who start making this? So you see, it's like an entire sustainable loop. You can make it, you can sell it on your own if you have backup support and the raw material and the money. And then these women are not just menstrually hygienic and aware, but they also are independent financially. So that was the whole idea with which I came. And that's exactly, you know, we worked on it. I worked on it with different people. We had Some mentors as well, who were giving us their inputs in terms of how we can present this project in front of UNESCO, which is a big organization. So that's the synopsis. That's what we did. A product for these women and teaching them how to make it on their own and how to sell it, provided there is a backup of resources.

That is so inspiring. And I love what you have just drawn out about the whole loop and how everything works together. Because I think when we hear the word sustainability, we think environment. And of course, environmental impact is one pillar of sustainability, but it is not the whole story. And I think this is such an incredible example of how financial inclusion and diversity also is a critical part of that sustainability story.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for mentioning this, because I've seen it A lot of times when we say sustainable, people just think, okay, green environment. But it's not that there's so much more to it, and I'm glad we've pointed this out. It is important to realize this, that there's a whole loop. And what we call it is cradle to cradle, like nothing goes waste. And in terms of resources, in terms of not just physical resources, but human resources as well. So I'm glad we've touched upon this.

Ananya, you are only 25 years old. You will be defending your thesis soon, in the upcoming months, and then graduating. What is the next step for you?

Well, of course, the thesis is a big part of what I'm doing right now. And because the thesis topic that I've chosen is on gender neutrality in the beauty industry. So as you can see, my. My thoughts are always aligned in terms of diversity, inclusion, sustainability. That's really a big part of who I am. And of course it's going to require a lot of work because there isn't a lot of research done already on these topics per se. The research and these topics only started if I can go back to concrete research. So, yes, that's definitely a big part for me. And alongside that, I'm also looking for jobs. I have to be honest, on this podcast, as an international, and given the sanitary crisis, it's not going to be a cakewalk. I know it's going to be tough. I can already feel it. But my fingers are crossed. Hopefully something good will come.

So, just for our listeners around the world, because this is a phrase I've actually read and heard people at EDX say, and I'm wondering if it's a translation from French. When we refer to the sanitary crisis, what we mean is the COVID 19. Pandemic.

Of course, yes, yes. I think it's just the lingo I think I picked up.

So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about your experience at edhec. This is a really unique opportunity for us to speak with you because almost everybody else we've spoken to on this podcast has already graduated from edec and most of them quite some years ago. You have been at edhec now since 2018. You have a much more recent view. You have obviously been a student through this incredibly tough, challenging time of COVID 19. Tell us a little bit about what your experience has been like at the school.

I think if I had to compare my entire experience, this last year would be nothing like what the year before that was or the first year was. So I think all the three years have given me incredibly different experiences. Incredibly. Like when I look back on 2018, I feel like I'm not the same person and it feels like such a long time ago. I don't know, it might sound a bit weird, but when I joined in I was, I have to say I was really young. I was naive. I didn't really know what, what, you know, living abroad would mean. Of course I had already stayed in Lille, where the campuses near to which the campus campus is before that for a couple of months. I did know the city a bit, but coming for a three year long course is, was not an easy decision. So I think the first year was more about just exploring the community, what France has to offer, what EDHEC has to offer. So it was very exploratory and really self defining as well. And I've always been a person who doesn't really just want to study. Like of course I've been a nerd through and through my school life. And then I graduated my undergraduation with a gold medal with a perfect 10 point grade. And of course it was also expected somewhere by my parents that I'll keep performing well academically. But I've always been a person who wants to explore much more than that. And in the first year I immersed myself in student associations, which I think was the biggest part of my first year in my M1 at EDHEC. And I was a part of two associations, one you already mentioned, which was Eco Think, which was a sustainability association at edhec. And I went on to become the president of it, which was incredible because when I joined edhec a lot of people told me that the associations, you know, are only for French students. Internationals are not really welcome out of the many associations, there are only very few that, that you can join actually as an international. So to actually become the president of one was incredible. It was really nice and something which was very close to my heart as well. And the other association I was a part of was ENU which is Model United Nations, EDEC Uni and we did a lot of mock United Nations. We in fact did, in fact did a high school mun at edhec. So my first year was great. Of course I was studying, I was understanding the basics of business and things like that because I'd never done that before. I came from a very technical physics, chemistry, maths background so it was completely new. Then my second year was of course the professional immersion year where I took a year long, let's say break to professionally mass myself which is where I got doing media marketing in Paris and that was of course a dream come true. Working for the luxury maisons and you know, in Paris as an international was amazing. It was an amazing experience. And then, well, of course the last year of my studies for a long time I think this is going to be the last, last conclusion because it's a double Masters. So for my second masters I was of course not expecting the situation to be, I mean of course it's not an ideal situation but I think despite all of that, we've made the most of it. I still worked on a lot of group projects and my most, for most part of it, my group members were different countries, somebody from Peru, somebody from Italy, somebody from Pakistan, somebody from Korea and we were working all together throughout the semester, connected virtually. And I think we still, like I still managed to create a bond with them and to actually work with people in this context. And I think you create a different kind of connection with these people. And I would still say that we've managed to so far have a good experience despite the given situations. We've braved it through, I would say.

You know, you mentioned wanting to be involved in things beyond just the classroom learning and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what those kind of experiences brought to you, how they enriched your time at EDEC or just your growth as a person beyond the direct link to what you wanted to do with your career. Because I think when a lot of people think about, well, you know, I'm going to study, I'm going to study hard and if I get involved in something it will be to make sure that I can get the job that I want to get. But you've actually been involved in so many different things, some of which have a direct link to your career goals and some which do not. So can you. Can you shed some light on that for us?

Definitely. I've been called the Jack of all trades, Cassandra a lot of times because people think I'm doing a lot of things and, you know, I should. Whereas I should just be concentrating on one thing. But I feel, I personally feel that holistic development is way more important than just being good at one thing, because I feel as a young graduate, when you step out into the market, first of all, it's important to know yourself so that you can, first of all, negotiate your job offers. You can know what you're getting yourself into when you're in an interview. I've seen a lot of people just answering. But I think having experienced so many things, when I sit for interviews, whether it's a positive answer at the end of the day or negative, I can hold a conversation. I can hold a conversation beyond just the technical skills. And I owe it all to my extracurricular activities because that helped me network with people that made me talk to people from different walks of life. For example, the TEDx event which we recently did, we had speakers from all walks of life. There was somebody talking about AI, there was somebody who was an entrepreneur, and I just got talking to them. And not just that, the entire team which conducted the event, people had such different experiences. And it's funny because I happen to be talking about something to somebody in that conference conference. And after a couple of days, I was supposed to meet with the director of one of the companies in Paris. And the conversation just linged. I had learned something from a person 15 days back doing a TEDx conference, which I would have never cared to learn about if I was just sticking to books per se. So I just say. I would just say that I encourage people to do this. There is so much more to life than just books. And don't get me wrong, I still study. I do all of those things. And like I already said in my past, I've been sort of a nerd. So studying comes naturally to me. But I just feel like if you really want to know who you are as a person, to know what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, it's important to push and challenge yourselves in other domains as well.

I think that's so important. And also when you think about, not just obviously right now, and I remember it's been a few years ago, Ananya, but I remember being in shoes similar to yours when I was just about to graduate and looking for a job. And that seemed like the most pressing thing. And as you advance in your career, what you realize is that, I mean, obviously there are some exceptions, right? I mean, if you're a hyper specialist, but oftentimes what you need to bring value to an organization or to a team is an ability to bring disparate parts together to solve problems, to have a big picture, and then also to work on your area. And that involves talking to a lot of people. That involves taking lots of information from different subject matters. And so I think that you've articulated so well the importance of just nurturing other parts of your interests and becoming a well rounded hybrid leader, as we like to call it.

I think if you decide to mold yourselves in all directions and sharpen all kinds of aspects of your personality, it really helps. It might not be helpful today, but it's going to show in a couple of years.

You've mentioned the TEDx conference that edx puts on and you of course had your own TEDx talk. Can you tell us a little bit about your topic?

Sure. So the topic of my TEDx talk is swiping right on yourself, taking from the swipe culture of our generation the art of being your own cheerleader. So it majorly, for our old.

I just want to, I just gotta pause. And just for our more mature listeners, shall we say this is a play on Tinder where you swipe left on anybody's picture or profile that you don't like and swipe right on the ones you might want to meet. It's dating.

Exactly. So the talk just talks about self love, self advocacy. And it stems from a very personal place, if I must say. I mean, on that stage I was majorly just confronting the ghosts of my past, as I would say, because a lot of people, when they meet me now, they tell me, oh, you're really confident, you know, you know what's happening in your life. But honestly, I was not that confident kid. I really was not that kid. And while I was growing up and as I've talked, as I've talked about in my TEDx talk as well, I grew up with a lot of insecurities, which I didn't realize while I was that age. But when I sort of look back on it as I'd come out of school and everything, I just realized that a lot of things that I'd been doing, like, you know, let's say, for example, being an overachiever in school at that point in time, it looked really nice and I was like, okay, I'm doing great in everything. I have the perfect grades, I'm in the student council, I'm in the dramatics council, I'm the head of the debate club. So all of those accolades, a lot of trophies. And at that point in time it felt good. But when I passed out of school, I just realized that it stemmed from a very place of insecurity where I wanted to prove myself to people, to certain people who had said certain things about me when I was young. And it sort of had an impact on me because I think I just feel like subconsciously when you're a kid, you absorb things and you don't even realize it. And that just made me realize that we cannot get affected by what others think of us. It's first and foremost very important for us to love ourselves. And having inculcated that in my life, I just went on to become a much happier person. And once I was a happier person, I was not afraid to help other people. So I just wanted to be very raw. I was very raw on that stage. I was very real. The video isn't out yet, so I'm not even sure how it's gonna look like. But what I know is that talking about these things on that stage, being just being absolutely real was incredible. And I feel. I do feel that the situation I've been in, a lot of people have been in that situation because after that I, you know, the people who had attended the event live reached out to me and they told me, you know, we were in similar situations. We didn't know what was happening with us. We have an insecurity of this, an insecurity of that, and we just get affected by what people say. And once you start listening to what other people say, I think you just become a bitter person and then you cannot, you know, I think share your love with other people. And I just feel like to be an asset to the society and to others, to your friends and family, it's very important to make peace with yourself. And that's exactly what I talk about. So instead of swiping right and left on other things, it's important that we swipe right on ourselves first.

That's incredible. I cannot wait to watch the video when it comes out. Do you know where it will be posted? Will it be on the Edict website or is there a special TEDx site?

It's going to be on the TEDx YouTube channel, the official one, and it'll be available there.

I'm sure we will share that far and wide. Are There any particular classes or professors that you thought were standout? Amazing. Everybody should take this class if they can.

I would definitely recommend the MSC specialization in marketing, luxury and fashion, which I'm doing because it had some great courses, of course. And I have to be honest, this year was special. So I can't really say if this is how we're supposed to be, but whatever we could grab through, you know, across the screen. We had an amazing time. And anyway, we're ranked ninth in the world, so it has to say something for itself, right?

Amazing. And I mean, okay, let's put the COVID weirdness to one side because, you know, hopefully this is a once in a generation event.

Hopefully.

But are there any aspects of your university experience that you think could be improved?

Well, if I have to keep covert aside, it's hard to think because for the, for the past one year this is the situation we've been in. So I can't say, but I think it's. It's not really something for the administration or something, it's just for the students who are a part of edhec. This is just something I would say to them. Don't be afraid to step out of your zone of comfort, like interact with people from different walks of life. Even though we're an international school. Of course. And I do understand it's human nature as well to be with people who seem like you. It's sort of, you have an affinity and you make groups. But I am not a person who advocates for groups. I don't believe in group identities. As we've already spoken. Everybody has an individual identity and it's got a lot more to. There's a lot more to somebody's identity than the place they come from or how they look or the color of their skin. I have to mention this, and I would just say, like to make the most of your student life, it's important that, you know, you take that step out of your comfort zone and interact with other people and that's going to make your student experience so much better. And I could see it was a struggle for people around me, for me as well, on many occasions. But once you push yourself, like for example, the associations I spoke about, the Enu Ecnacios Uni association, it didn't have a lot of international people, but they were still so welcoming. I'm still, you know, I made friends, I'm in touch with them and it's amazing. We went out for lunches when we were doing our internships in Paris. It was great. And I think that's what, you know, really makes a student association, student life amazing. And second, like, I decided, the first year I came to edhec, I decided to stay off campus with all French people in a house where I was the only Indian or international person. And I made friends for life. Cassandra. I went to their place on Christmas, and one of my friends invited me to her grandmom's place. And who didn't speak a word of English. I didn't speak a word of French. And. And still those three days are etched in my memory. I had the best, most lavish food. I went to the church, I attended the Christmas mass. It was great. And not just that. In the summer, both of my friends came and lived with my family in India, in Delhi. And we did a mini tour in the north of, like, the Golden Triangle in India. So I would say, like, you know, just. Just by crossing that. But your comfort zone and interacting with people from different walks of life can be the greatest. Like, it's how you can make the greatest memories in student life. And that's all I would like to say to people who are at EDEC or who are going to be joining edhec. Do it. Do it, even if it's uncomfortable.

That's amazing. I too had an experience with French Christmas. And let me tell you, I'm an American. I've lived in lots of different countries. I think the French have the best Christmas food. I think they. I think they win it. You know, it was definitely the most lush, amazing food over three days. Ananya, this has been such a pleasure. I am genuinely excited to see how your life and your career develops. I know you are going to make a huge impact. If, like me, people want to follow your development, what you're working on next, where should they go?

You can always find me on LinkedIn. I'm super active there and I'd love to connect with you. And you can find me under the name Ananya Rajput.

Amazing. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful afternoon. Impact around the World is an initiative of the pioneering EDEC delegations team and EDHEC alumni. A huge thank you to my fellow country managers, Patricia in California, CC in China, Nilesh in India, and Joyce in Singapore for making these interviews happen. We are committed to building a community beyond the classroom for you, our 46,000 alumni in over 125 different countries. Follow us on Twitter at EDECH Alumni or visit the alumni website at Alumni Edec. Edu to find out more about how you can connect with the EDEC community. Close to you and around the world. Thanks for listening.