SEEM Sustainability thru Engagement, Empowerment & Mobilisation

Seema Sutradhar is qualified as an Electrical Engineer, but in her profession, she is a servant leader who solves strategic problems with a systems approach. She is a keen culture sense maker and a process & data expert. She lives in Singapore for over 13 years now, and prior to that, she was based out of Mumbai for an equal duration. She is a mother of two children who are in their early twenties. Her interests include everything about mother nature, a bit of sports and she is a yoga practitioner. 

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Seema is a subject matter expert on enabling the leading FIs & large biz. in the real economy to achieve their NetZero & while doing so, their SDGs through their multi-stakeholder focus directly or indirectly, at the same time, become sustainable for the longterm through a systemic change of Purpose , shifting mindset & culture, innovation at scale, a constant pipeline of impactful & credible projects, project governance framework at entity level, entity's relative focus across SDGs - its ideal, actual & targets, entity's sec. impact parameter focus - its baselines & targets ( wherein the targets are in alignment with their sectoral pathways in case of large biz. in the real economy and both the baselines and targets are derived from their underlying companies and assets in case of leading FIs), uni. ESG metrics etc deployed through the std. Transition Plans for these entities based on the std. transformation methodology CTM (Change thru Movement). She has developed CTM and it includes plans, processes, guidelines, tools as part of the documents, metrics, & other artefacts, making it ready for deployment. Another piece of this systemic change to enable Corp. & Inv. bank deliver towards their purpose more powerfully, she envisioned the regTech product Compliance by Design (CBD) initially developed & deployed through the same principles of CTM.

Having honed her craft on the job through various roles with corporates for 18 years, with three career transitions and multiple job losses, including Deutsche Bank, SITA Aero, SGX, IBM (ING Bank as client), Atos Origin, Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services (clients included National Stock Exchange & General Electric mainly) & Crompton Greaves, she became the co-founder & co-CEO of the Management Consultancy & RegTech startup SEEM at the end of 2017 with a mission "to create an ecosystem that nurtures businesses to thrive, grow and become sustainable for the future". She is also the founder of TREEBANK, working with a mission “to value each tree as a true asset to own”. It resolves most of the underlying issues that prevent us from the effective preservation and growth of trees on our planet.

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"She believes the financial system has the responsibility & power to steer the economy towards one that is

  climate-friendly, inclusive and sustainable for the longterm."

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"She also believes that climate change is not a standalone problem; the issues behind the SDGs are

   intertwined into the problem of climate change."

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"Also, she has learnt that if an entity in the financial or real economy is sustainable for the longterm then it is

  doing certain things correctly and that it contributes directly or indirectly towards the bigger ecosystem that

  it is a part of; it has an outward look and not just inwards; it is multi-stakeholder focused."

 

To address economy-wide NetZero & while doing so, SDGs, she also imagines for entities not supported by SEEM, across the financial & real economy, and who want full CTM, extending it to them through another company. Also, making a customised part of CTM available to all the remainder entities in the financial and real economy, provided at least part CTM is mandated across countries, say through G20 or so. Then Discovering Purpose and applicable standardised Transition Plan templates with universal ESG metrics for part CTM are made available, say, through another company and its franchises, with SEEM maintaining DP deployment documents and applicable standardised Transition Plan templates with universal ESG metrics for these entities, training the first layer of trainers, and certifying all trainers and practitioners along with providing the documents to them.

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The regTech product Compliance by Design (CBD) solves the Corporate & Investment bank’s challenges in complying with regulations, solves core issues of data silo, enables accurate and discrete credit & compliance risk measurement, businesses' creditworthiness considering both financial & non-financial aspects, more agility, bank-wide MIS etc. She has also developed a methodology for executing Data Science Project for the use cases in CBD.

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What led her to the founding of SEEM and the journey so far?

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It was her observation from her role as an internal process consultant with large IT systems integrators that people resisted processes. Although when explained to them the risk, they were happy to come up with a solution on their own that met the intent. She realised that people knew best how to solve a problem. They disliked being told how to solve it. It was common sense, and the same is true with kids too. This was the core of her discovery of “Change through Movement”, which further solidified when she attended the training course "Designing for Change" with the design company Ideo in 2017. There she learnt how to design a change through movement, and she thought, what if entities could be helped to discover their organisation’s purpose beyond just making a profit and a movement could be created across the organisation for culture change, innovation, digital transformation etc? She knew it could solve big problems. She imagined what if problems like financial crisis, money laundering, challenges in complying with regulations faced by leading global banks etc. could be solved and thereby create a financial system that is robust, clean, purposeful and sustainable for the longterm. Coincidently, at that time, she got exposed to a business software that gave her an idea to bring about business process transformation in a DIY manner and she started outlining a transformation methodology, Change thru Movement (CTM), to enable the same and allowing development in a unique way.

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Later in her career, after her role as a process consultant, she faced a different kind of issue. It was about difficulty aligning with certain objectives. It was not about the quality of deliverables but somewhere a disjoint in intent. This made her think harder - how could we be in alignment more happily? A situation where everyone gives their best, feels motivated and is willing to go an extra mile. She discovered that it happens in moments when people are doing things for others. A service that has an impact on others and where they are truly engaged in it. She realised this was the bigger purpose beyond just making a profit and has some impact on real people. Such a purpose unites people, and there are no disjoint intents, and people participate enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. To this, later she also attended the training from Ideo on Power of Purpose in 2018, that helped her in creating the transformation methodology CTM.

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Finally, having worked in software application design & development and worked at the forefront with users, she had experience in solving problems through computer applications. She had observed how computers could bring transparency, simplicity, thoughtful control and, of course, efficiency. There is enormous power in computing that can be harnessed to our benefit. This desire to use computing powers and technological advancements to solve bigger problems convinced her to include integration, automation, AI, etc., as part of the application ideation.

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These three key experiences, events and further realisation that an entity is sustainable for the longterm when it contributes directly or indirectly (which also means less negative direct or indirect impacts and more positive direct or indirect impacts) towards the bigger ecosystem it is a part of; it has an outward look; not just inward; that it is multi-stakeholder focused led her to the founding of SEEM - Sustainability through Engagement, Empowerment & Mobilisation with a mission "to create an ecosystem that nurtures businesses to thrive, grow and become sustainable for the future” at the end of 2017.

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To bring about the business process transformation in a DIY manner, she wrote the transformation methodology Change thru Movement (CTM). 

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She had very limited knowledge of banking compliance but has in-depth knowledge and experience in process assurance towards the software industry standards. She had written PIIDs for CMMI, where they had to map each requirement with the business processes, artefacts etc, during assessments. She thought, what if she could bring that concept to the banking space? And she imagined creating a unified compliance data universe across the bank and building business processes on top of that as a Base. Leveraging on other technological advances, including Data Science, thus she imagined a product that would solve the bank’s challenges in complying with regulations, solve its core issues of data silo, enable it to measure credit risk and compliance risk more accurately and discretely, incorporate non-financial aspects alongside the financial numbers in measuring businesses’ creditworthiness, bring more agility in responding to its own business requirements, create a bank-wide MIS etc. Thereby she envisioned the product Compliance by Design (CBD) for the corporate and investment banks that also enables them to deliver towards their purpose more powerfully. She also developed a methodology for executing Data Science Project for the use cases in CBD.

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Later in 2020, she focused on the self-initiated projects other than those for digital transformation. These projects contributed towards the purpose of the bank, which also meant the direct or indirect impacts of these projects aligned with one or more Sustainable Development Goals. So she incorporated SDGs into this transformation methodology CTM. These projects also included the transactions of the bank, which created a mechanism to bring the bank’s focus on the direct or indirect impacts it creates towards the bigger ecosystem that it is a part of. Thereby, CTM's new version became a standardised methodology enabling entities to achieve their longterm sustainability. 

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With the pandemic in force and a major focus on climate change across the financial sector and all other sectors, she started visioning how this CTM was going to help entities address their challenges of climate change at the same time, become sustainable for the longterm. She knew climate change is not a standalone problem. The issues behind the sustainable development goals are intertwined into the problem of climate change. Hence it was imperative to start measuring these direct or indirect impacts towards each of the SDGs and incorporate the well-known cycle of plan-do-check and act to make it more objective.

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So in 2022, she updated CTM further and added three more points:

1. She had noticed that we are tied up with GHGs measurements only, and we are nowhere closer to discussing other parameters that determine directly or indirectly how an entity is doing across SDGs. As CO2 is an impact parameter for SDG13 - climate action, she imagined having many such impact parameters for each of the SDGs and standardised by sector with their ratios in each SDGs defined. Also, their goals and sectoral pathways are defined. So she introduced the concept of standardised Sectoral Impact Parameters and the need for their baselines and targets (wherein the targets are in alignment with sectoral pathways in the case of businesses in the real economy and both the baselines and targets are derived from their underlying companies and assets in case of FIs).

2. The second item she introduced was the entity’s relative focus across the SDGs and the need for their ideal, actual and targeted values. The argument behind this is that the entity’s total direct or indirect impacts towards its one purpose are equal to the sum of its direct or indirect impacts towards the 16 sustainable development goals leaving aside the 17th, which is actually created to support the achievement of the other 16.

3. The third thing that she added was the project governance framework at the entity level for the self-initiated projects to ensure their and their non-financial outcomes' credibility. This framework will enable process verification and certification of the direct or indirect non-financial impacts created by the self-initiated projects right at the source level before they are consolidated and disclosed for external use.

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With these three things added into this framework, CTM's improved version was ready as a standardised transformation methodology to enable the bank to achieve its NetZero and, while doing so, its SDGs through its multi-stakeholder focus, at the same time, become sustainable for the longterm. But it was written in a generic form. So she made one more adjustment to distinguish that leading FIs make indirect impacts mainly as they are also responsible for the other companies and the leading FIs making those direct or indirect impacts due to the funds they invest in them in proportions ((thus the IPs' targets are in alignment with its sectoral pathways in the case of businesses in the real economy and both the baselines and targets are derived from their underlying companies and assets in case of leading FIs)). The CTM methodology was then extendable to any entity in the financial and real economy, irrespective of size. So, to limit the scope, she only focused on the leading FIs and large biz. in the real economy. The project plans she had written for CTM then were nothing but standardised transition plans with variations for the leading FIs and large businesses in the real economy. The qualitative measurements from this project and the quantitative metrics derived from the direct or indirect non-financial impacts created by the self-initiated projects also then become potential universal ESG metrics.

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So, together with the regTech product Compliance by Design (CBD) for the Corporate & investment banks that help them to deliver towards their purpose more powerfully, the standardised Transition Plans with variations for the leading FIs and large businesses in the real economy, including Purpose, universal ESG metrics, etc. then becomes a systemic change to enable these entities to achieve their NetZero and,while doing so their SDGs through their multi-stakeholder focus directly or indirectly, at the same time become sustainable for the longterm.