At “Gullak 2025,” a state-level showcase under the Mukhyamantri Udhyamshala Yojana in Uttarakhand, Meghna Joshi was in the room not as a speaker or a guest, but as an investor. Around her, rural entrepreneurs from across the state’s districts were presenting the businesses they had built.
Meghna is the Founder of SWAN (Skilled Workforce Advancing Nation) Livelihood, a Delhi-based organisation working at the intersection of skill development, rural livelihoods, and youth empowerment. Founded in 2020, SWAN has over six years trained rural women to become micro-entrepreneurs, built retail workforce pipelines for underserved youth in Delhi-NCR, and mentored student innovators across national platforms. Alongside running SWAN, she is currently a Fellow of the One Million Leaders Asia (OMLAS) Fellowship 2025, elected from a cohort of 150 leaders across 23 Asia-Pacific countries, and has been selected for the UPG Sustainability Leadership Class of 2026 by United People Global.
“Witnessing rural entrepreneurs from across districts proudly showcase their ventures was deeply humbling and inspiring,” she says. “It reinforced my belief that systemic change begins when we build ecosystems, not isolated projects.”
That last line is also a description of how Meghna runs SWAN.
What the Ground Taught Her
Before founding SWAN, Meghna worked in the development sector. She had studied Business Economics and then Environment and Development, but she says what actually shaped her came from field work, not coursework.
“Communities are not ‘beneficiaries,'” she told The Logical Indian. “They are individuals with aspirations, dignity, and agency. Meaningful change cannot be designed from a distance. A programme should not expect people to fit into it; rather, it must evolve around their realities.”
She also learned to carry grassroots insights into conversations with funders and policymakers, bridging the gap between lived experience and institutional decision-making. It became a skill she would rely on throughout her career as a founder.
Into a Pandemic
SWAN launched just as COVID-19 shut everything down. Meghna had secured early incubation and funding support, but the ground shifted immediately.
“Starting a social enterprise in such uncertainty tested my resilience every single day. Resources were scarce, mobility was restricted, and communities were facing fear, income loss, and instability,” she says.
It’s original model was offline and classroom-based. Moving it online wasn’t just logistical. It meant redesigning curricula, training the team and stakeholders to adapt to digital platforms, and figuring out how to stay connected to communities with limited device access and poor connectivity. The organisation also launched online internship programmes to bring young people in as active participants rather than waiting for the crisis to pass.
That period forced a shift that turned out to matter: SWAN moved from a single revenue stream to a diversified model, adding mentoring and skilling programmes for school and college students alongside its community work.
On the Ground
Meghna, through her organisation works across three streams that don’t usually sit in the same organisation.
The first is rural women’s livelihood. Over six years, SWAN has trained and supported over 500 women across villages in Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. The support doesn’t stop at training. SWAN works with women on branding, packaging, digital presence, and market access, with the aim of building businesses that last.
The second is workforce development. SWAN partners with retail brands as a Learning and Development ally, running training programmes for youth aged 18 to 35 from underserved communities in Delhi-NCR. This work was published as a research paper in 2022, documenting the organisation’s blended skilling approach for first-generation workforce entrants.
The third is mentoring students and early-stage founders through platforms like Startup India’s MAARG initiative, Atal Tinkerpreneur, Business Blasters, Enactus, and the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell, among others.
Beyond these three streams, SWAN also works with grassroots organisations to strengthen the larger ecosystems they operate in. This means mentoring them, connecting them with funders, institutions, and market partners, and collaborating to amplify their impact within a given geography. The underlying conviction is that no single organisation can create systemic change on its own.
What ties these together is a design principle SWAN doesn’t compromise on. Programmes are built around the specific context of each community, not replicated from a standard module. “Each state, whether Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, or Uttarakhand, has its own unique socio-cultural realities, aspirations, resource availability, and existing skill sets,” Meghna says.
“Our programmes are not charity-based or free offerings. This model moves away from dependency and toward dignity-driven, regenerative livelihood building, where communities are not beneficiaries, but partners in growth.”
On Leadership and Going Back to Learn
In 2025, while running SWAN, Meghna was elected as one of 150 Fellows from 23 countries in the One Million Leaders Asia (OMLAS) Fellowship. She will also lead its Organising Committee for Training, Facilitation and Mentoring for the 2026 cohort.
When The Logical Indian asked why she chose to step into a learning programme while leading a growing organisation, she was direct: “I realized that if I expected communities to adapt, evolve, and innovate, I too needed to consciously step back into a learning space. For me, joining the fellowship was not a pause from leadership. It was an investment in becoming a more thoughtful, systems-oriented, and globally aware transformative leader.”
The fellowship has changed how she thinks about power. “Earlier, I viewed leadership largely through the lens of vision-setting and execution. Through the fellowship, I began to see leadership as a continuous practice of self-awareness, systems thinking, and ethical responsibility. Power is not about control; it is about stewardship.”
She has also been selected for the UPG Sustainability Leadership Class of 2026 by United People Global. She leads the Delhi Startup Council of WICCI, has been nominated as a National Advisory Member for the G100 Mentoring and Motivation Wing, and is a certified climate leader mentored by Al Gore.
What She’s Questioning
Meghna is direct about what she thinks isn’t working in the impact ecosystem, particularly around funding.
“I am questioning whether the current pool of impact investors is truly aligned with long-term, patient capital, or whether much of the capital entering the ecosystem is still influenced by short-term return expectations, CSR compliance requirements, or ESG reporting pressures,” she says.
She is also rethinking what scale actually means. “In livelihood work, depth of engagement and cultural relevance often matter more than speed. True scale may lie in strengthening local ecosystems, building community ownership, and creating replicable but adaptable models, not just in multiplying numbers.”
For Young People Deciding What to Do Next
For those weighing whether to join an NGO, apply for a fellowship, or start something of their own, Meghna doesn’t offer a ranking.
“Each pathway offers a different kind of learning. Working with an NGO gives you deep exposure to grassroots realities. Fellowships provide structured mentorship and space to experiment. Starting something of your own demands resilience and ownership. None is superior; they are simply different classrooms.”
Her one consistent piece of advice: collaborate. “Impact ecosystems thrive when we share knowledge, resources, and partnerships rather than operate in silos.”
And on sustainability: “Creating change is not a sprint; it is a continuous journey. There will be moments of fatigue, doubt, and even burnout. Staying connected to your ‘why’ and investing in your well-being is not optional. It is essential.”
What She’s Building Toward
Six years in, Meghna sees her role shifting. She wants to become an investor and mentor for early-stage social entrepreneurs, people who need not just capital but guidance, credibility, and someone who understands the operational and emotional terrain of the journey.
“Early-stage founders don’t just need capital; they need guidance, credibility, and someone who understands both the emotional and operational realities of the journey,” she says.
The larger goal is contributing to a more collaborative social entrepreneurship ecosystem, one that connects leaders across India and globally, and makes it easier for the next generation to start, sustain, and grow with integrity.
The Logical Indian Perspective
Meghna Joshi exemplifies purpose-driven leadership, transforming lives through SWAN Livelihood’s innovative skilling and ecosystem-building. By prioritizing dignity, empathy, and regenerative impact over short-term metrics, she bridges urban-rural divides, empowers marginalized women and youth, and mentors ethical innovators.
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