BusKashyapValeti
Kashyap Valeti
My Business Consultant Training
Collaborated With A Business In The Developing World
Our team reviewed the economic, social, political, and environmental factors that impact our partner business to design a launch plan and identify how to bridge the gap between our business partner’s current and desired conditions.
Earned a Development Grant to Enact Solutions
In order to fund the proposed business, our team composed a detailed plan and pitched our proposal to request seed funding from the Leadership Initiatives Grant Committee.
Collaborated With Business Development Experts
After researching the socio-economic conditions facing our business partners, our team worked with the Nigerian development staff to create effective solutions to the challenges our business partner was facing.
Comfort Nanlock
About Comfort
Comfort, a 29-year-old woman from Langtong North Plateau State, has always had a natural talent for hairstyling. Prior to her apprenticeship, she learned by observing others. After completing secondary school, financial difficulties prevented her from pursuing higher education. Instead, she began styling hair for people who lived in her communities, which gradually helped her gain a reputation for her skill.
As she is a single mother living with her parents in Guru, Bauchi State, she faces daily challenges. Her parents, who sell small household goods at the market, struggle to provide for the family. The absence of her child’s father has made life even more challenging, but Comfort remains focused on her goals. Ultimately, she wants to provide her daughter with an education.
Comfort Nanlock
Business Goals
Comfort’s primary goal is to establish her own hair salon, where she can apply her extensive skills in hairstyling and beauty treatments. She dreams of working independently, creating a space where she can build her brand and cultivate a loyal customer base. Comfort believes that owning a salon will allow her better financial freedom with an increase in her income.
Comfort envisions diversifying her business by selling hair products, which would create an additional revenue stream. Comfort is ignited by her goals and aspirations to work tirelessly, and she believes that with the support of Leadership Initiatives, she can overcome the obstacles on her way to achieve her dreams.
Comfort Nanlock
Obstacles
Comfort’s life has hosted a series of challenges, growing up in a poor family where her parents struggled to provide for their basic needs. After completing secondary school, financial restrictions meant that higher education was out of reach. The situation worsened when Comfort became pregnant, and the child’s father was not in the picture.
She is excited to learn business management skills, gain financial literacy, and receive mentorship to succeed. The partnership will help her overcome the significant obstacles she faces. Comfort is motivated by the desire to inspire other young women in similar situations that they, too, can overcome their challenges and achieve their dreams.
Comfort Nanlock
Home & Family
Comfort lives with her parents and child in the Guru community of Bauchi State, where they all strive to make ends meet. Her parents have always struggled financially, and she was not able to attend school past her primary years.
She wakes up early each day to prepare her daughter for school, then helps with household chores before going to Gloria’s salon, where she continues her apprenticeship. The family’s financial constraints mean that Comfort must also be prepared for unexpected expenses, such as medical bills.
Comfort Nanlock
Our Partnership
Partnering with Leadership Initiatives serves as an opportunity to build a better life for herself and her daughter. She is excited to learn business management skills, gain financial literacy, and receive mentorship to succeed. The partnership will help her overcome the significant obstacles she faces.
Comfort says that "success to me right now is my ability to rise above every limiting factor in my life. If I am able to change my story, I can help someone who is in a similar condition like me.
My Grant
Proposal
“ComforGlam”, Comfort’s salon, stands out from other salons because of its wide variety of services, loyal clientele, and strategic store placement. Our infrastructure team conducted a thorough evaluation of her salon’s finances. This allows Comfort to stand apart from her competitors, through the implementation of our strategic long term investments, providing her with the ability to be sustainable longer than other salons around her.
What sets “ComforGlam” apart is Comfort’s care for her costumer. She shows this by providing a welcoming environment with cold drinks, cool air from fans, and reliable service. A big difference from her and other stylists is how she gives discounts to college students showing her care for her community. We presented this idea as a good way for marketing and to help the community and Comfort jumped on board. We have advertised all of this with posters, business card, etc. Our tagline shows this the most with it being ““Comfort. Care. Confidence.” which represents everything the business stand for.
Comfort’s aspiration for “ComforGlam” is to perform her services in a welcoming, connective environment where women in the town of Bauchi, Nigeria can feel confident and proud of who they are. As a single mother, she envisions that this business will give her financial freedom, ensuring that her daughter can live a comfortable life. She also wishes to provide her with higher education. Comfort wants her salon to be a place where women can socially interact and have a pleasant experience. Wanting to balance work, costs, and passion, she ultimately strives to achieve financial stability while offering affordable services as a luxurious experience.
My Grant Proposal
Presentation
In the International Leadership and Business Internship, I worked directly with some of the world’s leading developmental experts in order to build my partners business and brand.
At the conclusion of this internship, our team pitched the final proposal to a panel of esteemed judges from the Leadership Initiatives Nigerian Development Team and the Leadership Initiatives Grant Committee. This formal pitch allowed our team to practice our skills and utilize our entrepreneurial toolkit, all while showcasing our efforts to transform the business we partnered with.
At the end of the pitch, we were able to receive feedback on our proposal for our business partner. Over the next year, our business partner’s venture will be made into reality and monitored for sustained success and growth.
Internship Highlights
- Business Meeting
- Egyptian Embassy
- Embassy of Chad
- Expert Assistance
Our team began the business development process by having a one-on-one Zoom call directly with our business partner,Comfort Nanlock, and our Nigerian project coordinator to ensure productive collaboration.
We learned more about their life, family, and desires for the proposed business venture, as well as the challenges they were facing. By discussing first-hand the challenges our partner faced, our team successfully and efficiently began to brainstorm solutions to launch her business.
Each morning we held constructive discussions about our ideas, the advice we received the day before, and the timeline necessary to begin implementing our ideas in real-time.
The on-staff project coordinators and business development experts helped facilitate the ideation process and ensured our team asked the right questions to produce tangible results.
I had the unique opportunity to visit the Egyptian Embassy, where I learned about diplomatic relations between Egypt and the United States.
The embassy serves as a hub for collaboration with partner countries and international organizations, which facilitates the creation of solutions to address global issues, such as poverty, gender inequality, and climate change.
Egyptian diplomats and officials work closely with local communities to identify needs and design programs that empower individuals and enhance overall societal well-being. This community-centered problem-solving is something my team and I aspired towards while crafting our business proposal.
I also visited the Embassy of Chad to learn about the role that Chad plays in domestic and international development work. We discussed critical topics including investments, international trade, and human rights.
While touring the embassy, I learned about the wide range of policy issues and gained a better understanding of the embassy’s role in international development through sustainable and inclusive initiatives.
My visit to the Embassy of Chad was not only educational, but inspiring. It allowed me to see Chad’s pivotal role in advancing international development and how I can implement their ideals into my own work.
Our team met with leading experts in the fields of business and economic development from Johns Hopkins University, the State Department, and GlobalGiving.
One such expert was Carla Brooks, Business and Development Officer at Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Program. She provided us with a crash course in advertising and marketing, in which we learned essential components of an effective marketing campaign.
Our work with Ms. Brooks was essential in preparing us for our culminating pitch deck presentation. With her and other expert guidance, we streamlined our initial ideas to further our efforts in launching the venture our business partner envisioned.
By the end of the week, we had incorporated the advice of leading experts from across the globe for our business proposal to empower and transform the life of our business partner.