Quiet scale

HOW A CLASSROOM INSIGHT BECAME A REPEATABLE SYSTEM, AND WHY EXECUTION MATTERED MORE THAN AMBITION

- S SHANTHI

FOR SUMEET MEHTA, the idea that learning could be made simpler and more equitable did not arrive as a business insight. It began at home.

His father, an English professor, would turn everyday moments into lessons, breaking rotis to explain fractions or using household objects to make abstract ideas concrete. The impact of a committed teacher was visible and immediate. “I saw what a great teacher can do for an entire district,” Mehta recalls, a memory that would later shape his decisions.

Mehta grew up across small towns in Punjab — Pathankot, Gurdaspur and Talwara — before studying electrical engineering at Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, and later completing his MBA at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). After graduating in 1999, he joined Procter & Gamble (P&G) and moved to Singapore. The corporate track was comfortable, but not persuasive enough. Reading Rich Dad Poor Dad crystallised a thought he had been circling: he did not need to wait decades to pursue what interested him, as long as his personal needs stayed simple. In 2007, he quit his job and returned to India to work in education.