Karthik Reddy

I have to admit that it was a good experience speaking with The Morning Context this time. The journalist stuck to her word and carried the link to our complete responses, which I’d like to believe tells a cut to chase - crisp - fact-checking of all the questions the said person & their friends (well ain’t it so diff to figure, come on!) wondered about … Have nothing but absolute respect for media, hence always, contrary to all the advice people give me, I always engage. In this particular case, I explained the doubts over calls, engaged in respectful back and forth over WhatsApp all through (a man got to make attempts to show reason, alas), and then we sent over these detailed responses < 12 working hours, just the timeline Ma’am set for us 🙏🏼🙃, but copy must’ve been finalized already so … Quick responses because I got to: 1. The article sets a thriller-type story to say “oh he wanted to go to the UK, they sent him to Italy”, etc. etc. Sensationalises an honest counsellor doing their exact job for the benefit of a meritorious student. Which is commercially detrimental to us btw if our lens was that shallow to look at student by student. Save that for later. Wish my friend had tried to read the over thousand pieces of content from me over the years on how this world of cross-border mobility has evolved, this would be much easier. I’ll briefly put to text again what I explained. There are students of all types, 95-99% who apply to Ivy League, and then the ones at 40-50% in the way that the archaic education systems assess them; there are programs and universities for all of them, across the world, across a wide set of eligibility criterion. Also here, there is a mention of a ₹3.5L service coming down to ₹2.5L, well that’s because Leverage operates like a platform, doing financial services, housing, insurance, visa etc etc for our students, & in some scenarios folks opt out of a few things as they’d like to either pace it themselves or be comfortable with a standalone provider who does that. Simple. Over last year, multiple countries in Europe have opened their doors. Yes, we moved on that opportunity fastest, were able to foresee, and are proud of it. These destinations, like Germany and Italy, have cheaper programs, a significantly better ROI, but also high eligibility ~ aka they are harder to get through. US has been shut (a student likely to lose their money and time through the entire process, VISA conversions at a historic low), and similar story in bunch of other traditional markets. UK has been robust, has system architects fighting for education and the right of international students better than everywhere else, but the job market has been subdued for the last bit (things just beginning to pick up under new Prime Minister Burnham). I have written about this before. Leverage Edu operates as a marketplace, we work with the student through the entire thing, and then the application goes to a University we don’t own, in a VISA system that we don’t run, loans and remittances pass through financial services companies we don’t control, housing that we don’t manage, planes that we don’t fly, so on. In the case of Italy, a country that is scaling up its international students for the first time, in effect scaling its own systems and processes as a sovereign country, there has been a large variety of things we are also learning. It happened with Germany too last 18 months, and now that corridor is super smooth. As a policy, as a mission, we don’t shy away from things that don’t fall on our plate, neither fail to admit if there is anything we can get better at. I have written about it before in a bit of emotional outpours after receiving letters from parents and students before: lnkd.in/p/dReN2P4N lnkd.in/p/gqcvSSdm It did hurt me a bit to see my company, built most differently than most consumer companies in the world I believe, in the same sentence as the other big / mega Co. Well for starters, they never cared about customer feedback. In thousands. Did my ex-colleagues not tell you that the Student Success function at Leverage Edu directly reports into me? That I take every single customer escalation like life and death myself? Whether it be a kid wanting change in course or a parent saying the accommodation is close to a pub or someone’s refund stuck (on change in decision) with a University / Accommodation Partner / Financial Institution. NO COMPANY IN OUR INDUSTRY, ACROSS THE WORLD, DOES THAT. I write to Vice Chancellors of thousands of universities all over, where I’ve built personal relationships through the decade (built atop fabulous work by Roisin, Shailja, & a superstar global team). I request property owners. I call upon banks. My Student Success team does a 10x better job. Leads with empathy. Sahil, Tanisha, the entire unit. I am so proud of it! That’s why we have been able to scale in these operationally complex dynamics, a tech platform that plays on efficiency, that builds with heart. By the way, bunch of screenshots put here are dated, some are taken off because their issue must have been solved. I like how my peer, CXO with us puts it, “just imagine the frame of mind they must be in right now, it’s ok, let’s calm them and then get to solving in parallel”. What we promise in a service is all there in the contract, but we don’t hold ourselves to it, not that cheapskates way to build something enduring that will outlast us, we always and always go above and beyond, always. As a result, if someone was to look at our “fair complete picture”, they’d see we are the highest rated platform of this type in the world, across any / every independent tool (the author has decided to overlook thousands of positive reviews flooded all over the internet, year after year after year, sharing some latest ones from last few days below), and I personally wake up to work done well all the time .. more like a reason to exist and thrive … lnkd.in/p/gM6-kYh5 lnkd.in/p/gYFZnBYB lnkd.in/p/gw7YmZ6J lnkd.in/p/gbyY6tha lnkd.in/p/gphk-kxg lnkd.in/p/gRp_y9Qr lnkd.in/p/gKjEvFHk instagram.com/reel/DfByv3it3… instagram.com/reel/DeCSiU6oc… Etc etc etc 2. Error of judgement and taking a shot at us is fine (when there are hundreds of reels on competitors’ unhappy customers stranded out, open articles about contracts violated because of ethics, etc. etc., regardless that’s not my tea ☕️), but connecting A to a random B irks me. And why would it not, lol. a) no, our Consumer business hasn’t “failed”; infact it’s the ONLY direct-to-consumer business that is succeeding. Globally btw. It has been more or less doubling every year. Led by Manish, & Sahil, Rahul, Tanisha, Mandeep, & 500 more folks. It was mostly Online till last year, and now roughly 20% comes from a growing span of Offline experience centres. These mostly have high-eligibility students come in, and are hence made aware about options in Europe that are coming at cheaper cost, more structured post-study pathways, resilient job market. b) ^ the above, building of Italy as a destination ground-up, is mostly a B2C phenomenon for us. It has no correlation with what the journalist explains as “pivot” :); that “evolution” (the word I am going to use) happened not yesterday but 5 years back, where in our B2B2C GTM, we aggregate ~10,000 SMEs, and don’t do just file-passing but 100x more including deploying our AI suite, which is also offered by us to hundreds of universities. The B2B2C channel brings students from 20+ countries today. Led by Digvijay, & Neelansh, Shree, Swetabh, Abimbola, KP, Varun, Ayush, & 300 more folks. Phenomenally done. Completely product-led business with local teams sitting at and leading their regions everywhere. How we won here? By making these exact processes transparent, on a platform, making sure that SMEs don’t lose their money and sleep. We literally resisted playing on price advantage because we wanted to win on product and experience. The students here are usually those that don’t fit the high eligibility charter. This is all very well understood in the industry and in the Co as a matter of fact. The 95% score students go to our Ivy100 platform which saw blockbuster admits across NYU, Wharton, Cambridge, Stanford, and then all the way for every deserving student, whatever they want to study, whatever they are passionate for, in a place in the world that respects what they are going to build at life. If anything, the passion to do this right burns much more than in 2017 when the company started. 3. Accounting policies. This was the one where my finance team hit their heads because I woke them up at midnight to respond back in time. Alas. It started from the first few texts and call, “what is subscription expense”, and we were a little dumbstruck at the question honestly. Couple weeks later, it found its way in the detailed list too, and we simply said nothing like this exists. To finally last week, when I was given a screenshot, and the response was: “Just spoke internally. These are student servicing costs itself. What you are seeing is an XBRL filing, in ROC, where the dropdown menu does not have all the options; hence the best source to look at this are the signed audited financials, will send the relevant page snapshot if needed, thanks” Our revenue recognition is actually one of the most conservative; changed it in 2022-23 after discussion with the Board / formal opinion taken by senior Big 4 advisors. It’s in line with all our global peers including the one mentioned. Explicitly stated the same in our response too. Compared to most companies, we take governance very seriously. I PERSONALLY TAKE GOVERNANCE VERY VERY SERIOUSLY. To talk about companies that didn’t get their books audited for years together, to one (US!) that made sure its books are audited by a big 4 for last 4-5 years, even when we were a baby company all that while back. Earlier this year, we appointed one of the most sought-after Independent Directors, who chairs the Audit Committee, and spearheads all things in this department. I work super closely with my Board. They understand the thousand more granularities and nuances in the business. It’s a high frequency board-governed structure. Just go and check MCA / ROC wherever they file all of this. Is there more? Think, it’s done bro. I am almost feeling sad at the end of finishing this response. “Sigh”, as one of my mentors often says at the end of conversations like these. I now feel I’ve done the same thing that the page started with accusing me of, “He would have you believe the business is on a tear, and blah blah ..” — well, I clearly love speaking about what we do and can go on and on :) What else to do, we work extremely hard, do the right thing, and have our hearts in the right place!