Ahead of the Curve

Subbu Parameswaran

Ahead of the Curve

RGU alumnus Subbu Parameswaran graduated in 2001. He now works as CEO of Learning Curve, a non-profit organisation. Here, Subbu tells his truly inspirational story.

The choice of RGU was initially by chance, when I was just exploring options to study. However upon attending an outreach event many years ago, it became apparent to me that the marketing course that I was interested in was extremely well designed, and very close to what I was looking for. Also I loved the prospect of studying in Scotland and meeting people from diverse cultures – both these factors made RGU my choice of university to study at.

Since RGU my career has had many twists, from working with a blue chip pharmaceutical company in the UK, to moving back to India and taking on several managerial roles at a leading pharma company in Hyderabad.

I then discovered my passion for the field of education. The inspiration for this came from my wife, who is a teacher and worked with children for many years at her pre-school – we both felt that education was a critical means for children to achieve equitable life outcomes, and particularly so in underserved environments. This let me, over a number of conversations, to transition out of my corporate and consulting work, towards setting up Learning Curve as a non-profit organisation.

Learning Curve started as an idea – the idea that all children deserve the right to realise their own potential as human beings. Setting it up as a nonprofit was a conscious choice, since we knew that over 75% of children in India study in under-served environments where access and affordability to quality education is a key barrier. In the Indian education system today, which is still grappling with issued of foundational literacy and numeracy, the critical component of social and emotional development lacks structure and consistency.

This is our mission – to equip all children with essential life skills to be emotionally balanced, socially responsible, and make informed choices – with the ultimate objective of them being able to achieve equitable outcomes.

A key challenge of setting up and running Learning Curve has been influencing people to accept that social-emotional development needs to be structured, rather than left to chance. Changing this mindset has been a difficult one and continues to be a challenge, especially when there are more basic issues to be resolved. Finding funders who are investing in this ‘niche’ area is also proving to be difficult, although there is better visibility of resources now that we’re a little more established and stable.

As CEO of Learning Curve my role is to ensure we have resources, including people and funding, and to create a sustainable strategy that enables us to meet our missions. Every day is different – whether it’s meeting new people, looking for collaborations, pitching for funding, or sometimes balancing people needs with organisational needs.

There have been several highlights from this venture, however one I would particularly like to acknowledge is how the Learning Curve team has come together in the last few years. No initiative can succeed without a strong team, and I can safely say that the current team is redefining the spirit of collaboration and adaptability.