Vivek Agarwal | Unbound With MamtaaCould your company survive two weeks without you? That's the exact question a board member once asked our guest in the middle of a board meeting — and his honest, uncomfortable answer changed the way he thinks about leadership forever.In this episode of Unbound With Mamtaa, we sit down with Vivek Agarwal — a technology leader with 17 years of corporate experience, two-time CIO India Award and 100 India Award winner, and someone who spent over a decade at IndiaMART rising from Assistant Product Manager to Chief Information Officer. In 2024, he stepped away from the corporate world entirely to become an independent leadership coach — someone who has now coached over 100 leaders across 500+ hours — while also advising startups and mid-size companies on technology.This is not a rehearsed, PR-polished conversation. More than 60% of the questions in this episode were completely impromptu — never discussed, never planned, just thrown in the moment. And that's exactly what pulled out stories Vivek has never shared before, not even in his own coaching sessions or in his own book.Across this episode, we go deep into:→ Why he chose a lower-paying job at a small company over a bigger offer at ICICI — and why he still calls it the best decision of his career→ "Hire for attitude, train for skills" — the hiring philosophy he lives by→ The three biggest problems he sees in the 100+ leaders he's coached: doing everything themselves, failing to prioritise, and forgetting the people side of leadership→ Why so many leaders quietly burn out, and what nobody tells them about delegation→ The real, uncomfortable difference between being a manager and being a leader→ Why the smartest CEOs — from Mukesh Ambani to the leaders he's worked with — are rarely the biggest experts in the room, and why "hire people better than you" actually works→ How AI is reshaping leadership — not by replacing judgement, but by making the ability to ask the right question more valuable than ever→ The Two-Week Test — the single moment in his career that redefined what it means to actually build a team, not just manage oneVivek also opens up about the two books he's authored. Seekhna Bandh To Jeetna Bandh is his personal journey — a philosophy he's carried as his own tagline for over a decade, and the first book he says has been a five-year dream in the making. The Performance Playbook is written for technology and product leaders — a practical guide for CTOs, architects, and product owners looking to scale their systems and their teams. Both are available on Amazon.By the end of this conversation, Vivek leaves us with one line that sums up everything he believes about leadership: the best leaders grow other leaders.If this episode gave you something to sit with, do more than just watch — like it, share it with someone building a team right now, subscribe for new episodes, and tell us in the comments which moment hit hardest for you.Unbound With Mamtaa is built on one simple idea: no scripts, no rehearsal, just real conversations with people who've actually lived what they talk about. New episodes drop every week.Vivek Agarwal, leadership coaching, founder mindset, manager vs leader, executive coaching, delegation, startup advice, technology leadership #UnboundWithMamtaa #VivekAgarwal #LeadershipPodcast #FounderMindset #RealConversations #ManagerVsLeader #ExecutiveCoachingConnect With Mamtaa: LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamtaadhingra/Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/mamtaapodcaster/Twitter- https://twitter.com/DhingraMamtaaFacebook- https://www.facebook.com/mamtaa.dhingra13
If You Vanish for Two Weeks, Does Your Company Survive? | Vivek Agarwal | Unbound With Mamtaa
Vivek Agarwal | Unbound With MamtaaCould your company survive two weeks without you? That's the exact question a board member once asked our guest in the middle of a board meeting — and his honest, uncomfortable answer changed the way he thinks about leadership forever.In this episode of Unbound With Mamtaa, we sit down with Vivek Agarwal — a technology leader with 17 years of corporate experience, two-time CIO India Award and 100 India Award winner, and someone who spent over a decade at IndiaMART rising from Assistant Product Manager to Chief Information Officer. In 2024, he stepped away from the corporate world entirely to become an independent leadership coach — someone who has now coached over 100 leaders across 500+ hours — while also advising startups and mid-size companies on technology.This is not a rehearsed, PR-polished conversation. More than 60% of the questions in this episode were completely impromptu — never discussed, never planned, just thrown in the moment. And that's exactly what pulled out stories Vivek has never shared before, not even in his own coaching sessions or in his own book.Across this episode, we go deep into:→ Why he chose a lower-paying job at a small company over a bigger offer at ICICI — and why he still calls it the best decision of his career→ "Hire for attitude, train for skills" — the hiring philosophy he lives by→ The three biggest problems he sees in the 100+ leaders he's coached: doing everything themselves, failing to prioritise, and forgetting the people side of leadership→ Why so many leaders quietly burn out, and what nobody tells them about delegation→ The real, uncomfortable difference between being a manager and being a leader→ Why the smartest CEOs — from Mukesh Ambani to the leaders he's worked with — are rarely the biggest experts in the room, and why "hire people better than you" actually works→ How AI is reshaping leadership — not by replacing judgement, but by making the ability to ask the right question more valuable than ever→ The Two-Week Test — the single moment in his career that redefined what it means to actually build a team, not just manage oneVivek also opens up about the two books he's authored. Seekhna Bandh To Jeetna Bandh is his personal journey — a philosophy he's carried as his own tagline for over a decade, and the first book he says has been a five-year dream in the making. The Performance Playbook is written for technology and product leaders — a practical guide for CTOs, architects, and product owners looking to scale their systems and their teams. Both are available on Amazon.By the end of this conversation, Vivek leaves us with one line that sums up everything he believes about leadership: the best leaders grow other leaders.If this episode gave you something to sit with, do more than just watch — like it, share it with someone building a team right now, subscribe for new episodes, and tell us in the comments which moment hit hardest for you.Unbound With Mamtaa is built on one simple idea: no scripts, no rehearsal, just real conversations with people who've actually lived what they talk about. New episodes drop every week.Vivek Agarwal, leadership coaching, founder mindset, manager vs leader, executive coaching, delegation, startup advice, technology leadership #UnboundWithMamtaa #VivekAgarwal #LeadershipPodcast #FounderMindset #RealConversations #ManagerVsLeader #ExecutiveCoachingConnect With Mamtaa: LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamtaadhingra/Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/mamtaapodcaster/Twitter- https://twitter.com/DhingraMamtaaFacebook- https://www.facebook.com/mamtaa.dhingra13