We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Srilekha Cherukuvada. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Srilekha below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Srilekha with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
Work ethic is one of the most crucial skills to develop, and the one person in my life I see constantly exhibit this trait is my father. My dad is constantly working on something new at work, and always strives to do better and be a better leader. In addition to work, my dad inspires me every day to try new things and work hard. With work ethic, however, comes balance. I was working 4 jobs at one point in college, and sure, hustle culture was something I absolutely loved, but it was also killing me. I learned how to set work life boundaries- something that we often forget work ethic includes. It’s not just working hard that matters, it’s working well. My father was a primary motivation for me to do better in this area and develop those skills that I could use later in my own workspace.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I do a lot of different things for work, and I honestly love keeping my career a little bit undefined like that. Before I delved into my nonprofit, I would love to share a bit more about what I do outside of it. Right now, I’m a Junior at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor studying Business Administration at the Ross School of Business. I also work at Kahani Digital Marketing as an Account Manager and at another nonprofit, Youth Enrichment Services, as their Media & Marketing Manager. Outside of this work, I love writing, and have a little poetry account where I post my shortforms.
My favorite part of my job is working at my nonprofit, Plannr Consulting. I founded the organization in 2019 (pre-pandemic), and we incorporated in 2022 (post-pandemic). Plannr Consulting is a youth-led international 501(c)3 non-profit organization striving to enhance student health by offering free personalized sessions, spreading mental health awareness through impactful campaigns, and building an open community platform. Our free accessible holistic approach consultations for students are to help combat stress and improve academics. To foster mental health awareness, we hold monthly campaigns through social media to reach the youth population, online events, speakers/keynotes, and workshops.
Going through the pandemic, we learned that digitally, we could reach so many more people. We hosted a Suicide Prevention Campaign, that over 300 students joined in on. It was absolutely incredible how much of an impact we could make. Post-pandemic, after going through some hiccups with hiring, websites being hacked, and a lot of crazy times, we finally found our footing, and we are excited to announce our upcoming Mental Health Expo at the University of Texas at Austin on August 19th. Going through the post-pandemic challenges made us stronger as an organization, and with these ironed out processes internally, we can now go about launching more events, campaigns, and strengthening our peer mentorship services.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three qualities that came really in handy throughout my journey as a founder were learning how to communicate well, balance my time, and build a community. I’m not the best at public speaking, but learning how to speak was crucial in hosting events and campaign activities. I needed those skills also to outreach to other organizations, and build more professional relationships for the organization. Being a mental health advocate means speaking out and sharing my story, and that’s something I only was able to do after I became comfortable with speaking to a larger group of people. I also think balance is key when you’re a student who’s working and running an organization. Having so many things on my plate meant learning how to delegate and how to say “no” when the time comes. Finally, building a great internal environment was really important to me. I focused on keeping a casual friendship with everyone, while also remaining professional when representing the organization and when it came to organization action items.
Though there isn’t a set formula to creating a perfect nonprofit, it’s worth it to try and re-evaluate as you go. I learned how to run a nonprofit (and am still learning!) through hands-on work. Sure, there were times I really did fail, but all you can do after that is get back up and keep advocating. Find your true passion, and getting back up won’t seem so hard. As Nike says, just do it.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We are always looking for more people to collaborate with. Email us at plannrconsulting@gmail.com or me at scherukuvada@gmail.com if you’re looking to connect. We are primarily looking for people in the mental health space who want to join with us in hosting campaigns (or more mental health expos/events!).
Contact Info:
- Website: plannrconsulting.wixsite.com/plannrconsulting
- Instagram: instagram.com/plannrconsulting
- Other: Personal LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/srilekhacherukuvada
