Women in Leadership Spotlight: Meghna Gandhi

Meghna Gandhi (MBA ’27), President of the Marketing Club and Head of Marketing for MBAT, believes leadership is about bringing people together and creating opportunities for others to thrive. Through leading one of Europe’s largest MBA events and building communities at HEC Paris, she has learned that trust, resilience, and authentic relationships matter far more than titles or hierarchy.

What moment in your career - or during your MBA at HEC Paris - has most shaped the leader you are today? 

Managing MBAT taught me that events like these are truly a marathon, not a sprint. Behind a three-day sports and cultural tournament that hosts top MBA schools from across Europe are nearly six months of planning, coordination, and constant problem-solving. It became one of the most fulfilling experiences of my MBA because it pushed me far beyond traditional marketing and into real-time leadership.

I was leading a seven-member team across sponsorships, school relations, merchandising, communications, and social media while coordinating closely with the President, VP, and multiple vertical leads. At different moments, we were simultaneously handling sponsor conversations, solving operational issues, managing student expectations, and trying to create an experience that felt exciting and welcoming for more than a thousand participants.

It showed me that leadership is rarely about having all the answers. Instead, it is about staying calm under pressure, making people feel supported, and helping a team move forward together even during uncertainty.

Most importantly, the experience made me realize how much I enjoy building communities and creating experiences that bring people together.

How has your time at HEC Paris influenced or reshaped what leadership means to you? 

HEC actually made me unlearn. Before this I had spent my career in structured environments, manufacturing, tech, places where leadership came with a title and a hierarchy. I knew how that world worked and I was comfortable in it.

Then I came to HEC and none of that existed in the way I was used to. Even in my roles with the Product Management Club and the Student Council, where yes we have titles, at the end of the day we are all peers. Nobody is above anyone else. Nobody can pull rank.

Here you lead through how you show up. Through the trust you build, the way you make people feel, the genuine effort you put into understanding someone before you ask anything of them. It is a completely different muscle. One of the hardest things I have worked on this year.

And that is the biggest unlearn of my MBA. Leadership is all about buidling relationships over ranks and titles.
 

Who is a woman who has inspired you during your career or MBA experience, and why? 

A woman who has deeply inspired me is Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

What stands out to me is how she built Biocon at a time when India’s pharmaceutical landscape was largely dominated by generics. She didn’t follow the existing path but rather, she saw a gap in original biotech innovation and had the conviction to pursue it, despite limited infrastructure, funding challenges, and skepticism about whether India could compete in that space. In many ways, she helped lay the foundation for India’s biotech ecosystem as we know it today. As someone building a career in Healthcare, that ability to identify an untapped opportunity and systematically build toward it really resonates with me.

What also spoke to me is how she navigated leadership as a woman in a field and geography where that path was far from straightforward. She has spoken openly about the importance of credibility and resilience, once saying, “I think the biggest challenge for women is to believe in themselves.” That line stays with me because it captures something I’ve seen and experienced that is how much of leadership is not just external, but internal. 

Her journey reinforces the kind of leader I aspire to be: someone who combines scientific ambition with strategic vision, and who is willing to challenge the status quo to create something meaningful.
 

What do you wish more people understood about women’s experiences in business school today? 

I’m really glad to see the diversity in business schools today. Having worked in a heavily male-dominated industry earlier in my career, especially in field roles, I never consciously felt that representation made a difference. I think a big part of that was simply not knowing what a difference it could make.

It was only when I moved into a sales and business development role, where nearly 70% of the team was female, that I truly understood the impact. It just felt different, in a very natural way. It was easier to connect, conversations flowed more effortlessly, and there was this unspoken support for each other’s growth.

That’s why I value the representation we see in MBA programs today. Schools are clearly making intentional efforts toward balance, and it shows. But I do think we still need to keep pushing because representation doesn’t just change numbers, it changes experiences, confidence, and the way people show up.
 

If you were mentoring the next cohort of women arriving at HEC, what’s the one thing you’d want them to know? 

Forget plan B, C, D, etc. Focus relentlessly on your Plan A. This was advice I received from an HEC alumn who went on to build one of the biggest accelerator programs at Station F shortly after graduation. I think it's very easy to arrive at HEC and feel the need to plan for the worst case. Forget the worst case; you made it this far, and you only have to keep looking forward. If you give 100% of yourself to your dream, opportunities will continue to present themselves to you and perhaps not in the way you imagined, and naturally, your plan B or C will become clearer to you as a result of devoting yourself to the thing you love. Your MBA is your opportunity to craft your career, not simply find your next job.
 

What hobby, passion, or personal interest has helped keep you grounded during your MBA at HEC, and why is it important to you? 

Reading and writing! I recently decided to get over the cringe of posting on LinkedIn and started a Substack blog reflecting on my lessons as an MBA student and startup founder, and all the incredible things I get to experience just by being here. It's important to me because it has taught me the value of building a personal brand and using your voice; you quite literally never know who might come across it. I've had the most incredible opportunities come through LinkedIn and publishing my first article on Substack just by forgetting about how embarrassing it feels in the moment, and these are the things that have helped me stay focused on my Plan A relentlessly, by writing about it publicly.