What It Really Takes To Occupy A Room That Was Never Designed For You: IndiQube’s Meghna Agarwal

Meghna Agarwal grew up in Alwar, in a traditional Marwari household where the expected trajectory for girls was marriage, not business school. Her parents chose differently. That one decision, made quietly in a small town in Rajasthan, is where the story starts.

At 25, her plan was investment banking. Then September 11 attack happened, markets froze, and the path disappeared. She co-founded HirePro, a recruitment technology company, with no capital, no network, no safety net — and spent the next two decades walking into rooms that weren't designed for her. Rooms that directed questions at the person standing next to her. Sectors with no template for women. And when COVID hit, a company whose entire model depended on people going to offices faced a question it couldn't answer. She also co-founded UltraFine Minerals, a manufacturing company specialized in producing mineral ingredients.

The IPO was oversubscribed 13 times. Her formula, if she'd call it that: "Become the most prepared person in the room, every time. Nobody can dismiss specificity."

This International Women's Day, Meghna Agarwal, co-founder IndiQube, tells CiOL what it really takes to occupy a room that was never designed for you, and how to restructure it on your own terms.

You started your entrepreneurial journey at 25 with no capital, no industry network, no safety net. What actually drove you, and what did that version of you have that you think young founders underestimate?

What I gave at 25 was honestly just energy and willingness. I had no capital, no network in the industry, no family background in business. What I had was the complete absence of the fear that comes with having something to lose. That's not a small thing.

I didn't choose entrepreneurship — it chose me by default. My plan was investment banking. The September 2001 attacks happened, markets froze, that path closed. I was 25, had an MBA, and suddenly no clear road forward. HirePro came out of that vacuum, Rishi (Rishi Agarwal is the co-founder of IndiQube and her partner) and I had an idea, and I thought, what's the worst that can happen? I had nothing to protect myself from. That fearlessness, however accidental, contributed to building something that eventually became a serious business. But let's be honest about what it was at the start: a pivot born from a plan falling apart.

What I wish someone had given me in return? A more seasoned peer to talk to. One of the real mistakes I made in the early years was centralising too many decisions in myself for too long. I held on to things I should have delegated earlier, didn't build the leadership layer around me fast enough. The business paid for that in time and in the quality of decisions. Someone who had been through it could have flagged that before I hit it.

You've co-founded three companies across sectors where women leaders are still the exception. Who were the people that gave you support when it mattered most?

The first people were my parents. I grew up in a traditional Marwari household where girls in our community were typically married young. My parents made a different call — education, independence, build something of your own. That wasn't the norm around us. In hindsight, that single decision made by two people in a small town in Rajasthan is the reason everything else happened. The second person was Rishi, and then there were our early clients. The first people who trusted IndiQube were clients from our previous ventures.

What that shaped in me as a leader: I don't wait for people to fit a profile before I back them. I look for people who show up and do the work. That's the standard that was applied to me, and it's the one I try to apply consistently.

Boardrooms, factory floors, capital negotiations, spaces not designed with women founders in mind. What did you have to give, in terms of energy, proof, or patience, just to be taken seriously?

The honest answer: a lot of patience, and more proof than a man in the same position would have needed.

I remember early landlord meetings when we were pitching IndiQube. There were rooms where the person across the table would direct their questions toward whoever was standing next to me, assuming someone else was the decision-maker. It happened repeatedly. Not once, not twice but repeatedly. And each time, the energy you spend not reacting to it, staying composed, redirecting without making it a scene, that's a tax. It doesn't show up on a balance sheet but it is real, and it accumulates.

My response was always the same, answer the question. Precisely. With numbers. With specifics about our model, our lock-in structure, our delivery track record. Very quickly the conversation would recalibrate. But the fact that recalibration was even necessary, that's the part that stays with you.

The shift happened gradually, not at a single moment. It was the compounding of track record over years. The numbers eventually became harder to redirect around.

There are invisible rules women founders are quietly taught to follow, be assertive but not aggressive, confident but not threatening. How did you navigate this?

I dealt with it mostly by ignoring it, which I recognise is easier said than done.

Very early I realised that trying to calibrate my behaviour to fit someone else's comfort level was a losing game. The dial is always moving. Too much and you're intimidating, too little and you're not taken seriously. You can't win by playing that game, so at some point you stop playing it.

What I focused on instead was being very clear and very specific. Not aggressive, not deferential, just precise. When I walked into a capital negotiation, I came with exact numbers, exact terms, exact scenarios. The precision left less room for the conversation to become about how I was showing up rather than what I was saying.

My recommendation: become the most prepared person in the room, every time. Not because women have to work harder, though sometimes we do, but because preparation is the one variable entirely in your control. Nobody can dismiss specificity.

The IPO was oversubscribed 13 times. But what happened in the years between surviving COVID and ringing that bell at the NSE

COVID first, because it has to be said plainly: we did not know if the office sector would come back. Every rupee of revenue depended on companies choosing to put their people in physical offices. When the world locked down, that was an existential question we could not answer. We held on, managed costs, kept the team together, and waited for the thesis to prove itself. The IPO had its own grind.

And after that on governance, what I gave up was the informality. Early on, Rishi and I could make significant calls in a single conversation. Going public formalised all of that. The one thing I protected: flat hierarchy and direct access. That didn't change because we listed. And I hope it never does.

What does the full arc give the next generation watching? A proof point that the complete journey is possible, not just starting a company, but scaling it, listing it, and having the market validate it. In a capital-intensive industry with no template for a woman doing it. That is the thing I hope lands.

Traditional definitions of leadership were built around a particular type of leader. What does a better model look like?

Traditional real estate assumed one type of occupier, we built IndiQube to serve that gap.

Traditional leadership models have a similar problem. They were built around a leader with uninterrupted career trajectories, available for informal networks at any time. They weren't designed for leaders whose careers may have non-linear phases, who build credibility through delivery rather than inherited access, who lead differently but just as effectively.

The better model looks like what we've built at IndiQube, flat hierarchy, direct access, performance over tenure, ideas evaluated on merit rather than on who's bringing them. The businesses that figure this out first will have a talent advantage that compounds. The ones that don't will keep losing good people, women especially.

What is one concrete commitment you are making to accelerate gender equality in the ecosystem?

The most concrete thing I'm doing is being visible about the full journey, not just the highlight reel.

There's a version of founder storytelling that skips the hard parts. The uncertainty during COVID when we genuinely didn't know if the office sector would recover. The investor meetings where we had to explain the same accounting nuance for the hundredth time. The years of building credibility in an industry that had no template for someone like me. I talk about those parts deliberately, because that's what's actually useful to someone early on their journey. Honest operational knowledge of what building in a difficult sector actually feels like — that's scarce, particularly for women.

As an angel investor, I pay attention to founders who are building in spaces where the structural barriers are real. Through our HerQube initiative, we offer support and discounted access to early-stage women-led startups.

Within my own organisation, the commitment is structural: building a place where women are in roles with real authority and real accountability, not just representation. The cultures I've been proud of are the ones where people didn't need me in the room for things to go well. That's the standard I try to hold.

Maternity leave, the pressure to 'bounce back', the career penalties that follow when away. As a woman founder who has built teams, what's your honest read on where corporate India stands?

Honestly? Corporate India has the policies. What it often doesn't have is the culture that makes those policies safe to actually use.

How often do we see a woman come back from maternity leave to find the interesting project went to someone else. The pressure to bounce back is real and it's unspoken.

Where does it need to go? First, flexible return pathways, not just the option to return part-time, but genuine support for a non-linear re-entry that doesn't permanently cap where you end up. The compounding of career disadvantage from time away is real. Second, stop making maternity and caregiving the woman's problem to solve alone. When a woman takes leave, the question internally shouldn't be 'how do we manage without her', it should be 'how do we ensure she comes back to equivalent opportunity.'

At IndiQube, we haven't solved all of this. I won't claim otherwise. But the intent and daily practice is to build a place where the work is what determines your trajectory, not the circumstances around it.

What is the one thing you would tell a woman standing at the fork in the road, the one considering the bold, unconventional path?

There is nothing to lose when you have no baggage.

That's not a motivational line. It's something I actually experienced at 25, co-founding HirePro. What felt like disadvantage at the time, no legacy, no established path, nothing to fall back on, was actually freedom. I could build exactly what made sense without defending what had come before.

Pick the problem, not the welcome. Don't choose your industry based on how many women are already in it. Choose it based on whether the problem is real and whether you believe you can solve it better than what exists. The welcome will follow the results. It always does.