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Smita Deorah: The Visionary Founder Transforming Indian Education Through LEAD School
In a bustling Mumbai neighborhood in 2007, a conversation between Smita Deorah and her domestic help would spark what would eventually become India’s largest school EdTech unicorn. Her entrepreneurial journey began after she talked to her domestic help about conditions at home. She discovered in depth the lack of access to good schools and teachers for low-income families. This pivotal moment led Smita Deorah to co-found LEAD School, revolutionizing how quality education reaches India’s underserved communities. Today, as Co-Founder and Co-CEO of LEAD Group, Smita Deorah has built an educational empire valued at $1.1 billion, transforming the lives of over 5 million students across India’s tier-II, III, and IV towns.
From Corporate Finance to Educational Innovation
Smita Deorah’s path to becoming an influential leader in EdTech began far from the classroom. A finance professional-turned-educator, Smita has over 22 years of experience in finance, strategy, leadership and education, nine of those at Procter & Gamble Singapore and India where she held leadership positions in these disciplines. After completing her education as a chartered accountant, she spent nearly a decade at Procter & Gamble, where she honed her skills in finance, treasury, and strategic planning across the Asia-Pacific region.
The turning point came when Smita Deorah returned to India in 2007. When I moved back to India in 2007 after my eight-year stint with P&G in Singapore, I felt that the education system in India was not robust enough to realize my daughter’s full potential. Rather than accepting the status quo, she took action, experimenting with early learning techniques that helped her daughter become an independent reader by age three. However, her thoughts kept returning to the children in nearby communities who lacked such opportunities.
In 2011, Smita Deorah founded Sparsh, an NGO that partnered with 16 Anganwadis in Mumbai to implement innovative pre-school curricula. She implemented a pre-school in a box solution in 16 Anganwadis around Mumbai to get students school ready and thereby reduce dropouts and low attainment. This initial success became the foundation for her larger vision of educational transformation.
Building LEAD School: From 14 Students to 5 Million
The year 2012 marked the official beginning of Smita Deorah’s EdTech revolution. Together with her husband Sumeet Mehta, she co-founded LEAD School with an ambitious mission: to provide excellent education to every school-going child in semi-urban India. I still recall we had 14 students on the first day of school! she remembers about their first school in Gujarat.
What began as a small experiment quickly evolved into something much larger. What began as a small chain of affordable schools soon evolved into a full-stack edtech platform that empowers teachers, enhances student outcomes, and drives systemic change in the education system. Recognizing that opening individual schools would never achieve the scale needed to impact millions of students, Smita Deorah and her team made a strategic pivot to partner with existing affordable private schools across India.
The LEAD School system that Smita Deorah helped develop is comprehensive and research-backed. She has been instrumental in developing the LEAD Integrated System, which is benchmarked with the best education systems globally; and contextualised for India’s schools. This system combines curriculum, pedagogy, and technology into what the company calls a “school-in-a-box” solution, empowering teachers and improving learning outcomes significantly.
Revolutionary Achievements and Industry Impact
Under Smita Deorah’s leadership, LEAD School has achieved remarkable milestones that have redefined the EdTech landscape in India. By January 2022, LEAD entered India’s unicorn club with a $100 million Series E round led by WestBridge Capital and GSV Ventures, reaching a valuation of $1.1 billion. This achievement positioned LEAD School as India’s only school-focused EdTech unicorn, distinguishing it from direct-to-consumer platforms.
The numbers speak to the scale of impact Smita Deorah has achieved. With a presence in over 8,000 schools across 400+ towns and cities, LEAD Group reaches more than 35 lakh students and empowers over 50,000 teachers. The company’s financial performance has been equally impressive, with operating revenue jumped 28.31% to INR 350.54 Cr in the financial year ended March 31, 2024, from INR 273.19 Cr a year ago.
One of Smita Deorah’s most significant innovations has been the ELGA (English Language and General Awareness) program. Smita Deorah’s biggest achievement was formulating a program called ELGA (English Language and General Awareness) program which teaches the English language as a skill. This program helps students acquire English language skills in a short duration. This breakthrough addresses one of the most critical barriers to quality education in India’s smaller towns and villages.
The measurable impact on student outcomes validates Smita Deorah’s approach. Typically for a school that partners with LEAD, this uplifts the students’ learning outcome by 20 to 25%. This focus on proven results rather than mere access to technology has been central to LEAD School’s success and investor confidence.
Current Vision and Future Expansion
Today, Smita Deorah continues to drive innovation at LEAD School through several groundbreaking initiatives. The company recently launched the National Championships 2024, a platform for leaders, thinkers and innovators of tomorrow to discover their true potential that reaches 1.5 million students across partner schools. This initiative reflects her commitment to developing 21st-century skills in students from smaller towns who typically lack such opportunities.
Looking ahead, Smita Deorah has set ambitious expansion goals. By 2026, she plans to expand the LEAD net to 60000 schools and 25 million students. The company’s international standard approach and proven track record position it well for this aggressive growth trajectory.
LEAD School’s culture, shaped significantly by Smita Deorah’s leadership philosophy, is built on five core values: Integrity, Growth mindset, Courage, Empathy, and Being the Cause. These are the values that I lived by for many years now, and they have helped me achieve results in life. All our 550 employees practice these values every day, and that’s what makes our culture unique.
Legacy of Educational Transformation
Smita Deorah’s journey from a finance professional to one of India’s most influential EdTech leaders exemplifies how personal conviction can drive systemic change. Her work addresses one of India’s most pressing challenges: ensuring that quality education isn’t a privilege reserved for urban elite schools but a right accessible to every child, regardless of their geographical or economic circumstances.
Through LEAD School, Smita Deorah has demonstrated that technology, when thoughtfully integrated with pedagogy and curriculum, can bridge the vast quality gap in Indian education. Her legacy lies not just in building a billion-dollar company, but in proving that excellent education can be made accessible and affordable at scale. As India continues its journey toward becoming a global education hub, Smita Deorah stands as a pioneering founder whose vision continues to shape the future of learning for millions of children across the nation.
