A Founder Who Puts Wealth in the Hands of Women

It was 2020, and the world was locked down. Bhavya Kalsi's brick-and-mortar businesses in Kampala had ground to a halt. So, she did what felt natural: she went online and started talking. She hosted Instagram Lives, sharing hard-won marketing advice for free. Soon, she was helping people figure out how to keep their businesses breathing. She explains, “I was not even sure what I was doing, giving away my knowledge. I just knew it felt right.”

The more she listened, the more she noticed that the women asking her questions were not struggling for lack of skill. They were struggling because they did not know their worth. There was the professional service provider charging US$500 for work that saved her client US$100,000, and the consultant who had run her business for seven years without once taking a vacation. These were smart, capable women who had become, as Bhavya puts it, “employees of their own businesses.”

She began to articulate the vision that had always driven her. "Wealth in the hands of women," she says, "is a complete game changer." Guided by that insight, she formed Be Marketing Coaches with her sister. The goal is to help women clarify their value, price their services, and build what she calls “freedom-based businesses” that generate income without consuming their lives.

Now, she practices what she preaches, having stepped back from day-to-day operations in three of her four businesses to focus on a single goal: helping 100,000 women entrepreneurs build sustainable, profitable businesses.

Bhavya Kalsi (EO Uganda)

The Path to Kampala

Bhavya grew up in Mumbai, with a short detour in Dubai, building a successful marketing career along the way. She moved to Kampala, Uganda, in 2000 after she and her partner won what seemed like a promising government contract. After arriving, the contract fell apart, and several years later, the marriage.

Yet Uganda, which was supposed to be a brief chapter, became her life. She has lived there continuously since 2008, raising her two children. She considers both India and Uganda home, explaining that at this point she has lived more years in Africa than in India.

Her first solo entrepreneurial venture was Kona, an Afro-Indian fashion brand she launched during her second pregnancy. It was zero-waste and sustainable, staffed entirely by single mothers. Over the next several years, she co-founded companies in industrial chemicals and agrochemicals, eventually co-owning four businesses. "For me, becoming an entrepreneur was about trying to solve life’s problems," she notes.

The Only Woman in the Room

For years, nobody knew how much Bhavya was actually doing. The fashion brand was her public face, but it was more of a passion project for her. The chemical businesses happened behind the scenes in the way, she explains, “a lot of women’s work does.” When EO’s name first circulated in her world, she was not invited to any recruitment drives since Kona did not qualify. The businesses that would have qualified her were not visible to anyone looking.

She observes that women are often passed over in business: recruited less, seen less, and assumed to do less than they actually do. But she knows the invisibility runs deeper than other people’s assumptions. For years, she felt guilty about her ambition. She wondered whether she should want less and work less to be more focused on her family. She had no community of women around her who could tell her what was possible.

When she became one of the founding members of EO’s Uganda chapter, she was the only woman in her Forum for almost four years and, for years, the only female board member. The male founding members, she says, “were champions.” But the experience clarified a tension: Once, a fellow entrepreneur tried to compliment her by saying she was “like one of the boys.” She replied, “Do you think I want to be one of the boys? Why do I have to be one of the boys to be in this room?”

Permission to Want More

Her turning point came at an EO Ignite event in South Africa, before the Uganda chapter was even official. They had about 10 members, only several of whom she knew well. She called a Forum friend and asked, tentatively, if she could come along. “I do not want to ruffle any feathers,” she told him. 

He told her, “I got your back.”

What she found there stopped her cold. Surrounded by women that she calls “phenomenal powerhouses,” Bhavya realized that her ambition was not something to feel guilty about. For the first time, her drive did not feel like a character flaw. “I officially found my tribe…I came back, and I am like, sign me up. We are going to get more women into this.” 

Since then, she has served on her local EO chapter board, on the regional board, and for two years as member engagement director. Today, the chapter has grown to 32 members, including eight women. In July, she joined EO’s global Marketing and Partnerships Portfolio, a full-circle moment for an entrepreneur who originally built her career in marketing. “EO is still one of the best-kept secrets,” she says. 

She intends to help change that.

Built from Wi-Fi, a Laptop, and a Calling

Bhavya has built an international business coaching company,
primarily for women who are early-stage entrepreneurs. 

Meanwhile, she is working hard at growing her coaching business.

After watching another EO member run a location-independent business, she thought, if she can do it, why cannot I?  She explains that, "I would not have thought of these business ideas if I were not surrounded by some phenomenal people." 

Now, Be Marketing Coaches exists entirely online. Clients have come from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Europe, America, and Nigeria. The business was built to run anywhere. The clients she serves are primarily women in the early stages of building knowledge-based businesses, such as coaches, consultants, and professional service providers. The problem, she has found, is almost never marketing: “It is foundational.” They struggle with pricing, offer clarity, and articulating value. 

She works with male CEOs, too, mostly one-on-one, often helping them determine what comes after a successful exit or how to separate their personal brand from the business they built. But the group coaching program built around her “CCC” framework — clarity, community, and conversion — is for women only, since they face unique issues in the business world.

For example, she is skeptical of venture capital as a starting point, especially for women, who still receive less than 3 percent of venture capital funding unless they have male co-founders. She tells women to make their own money. After all, she did not wait for a check. "If I can do it, I am literally showing everybody else how to do it, too,” she adds.  

She is also skeptical of startup culture that normalizes years of losses. Many women cannot sustain that. Her method is to help her clients start small, prove it small, make it work, and grow it from there.

Her deepest conviction, though, pertains to mindset. Most people try to build a business hoping it will build them. Bhavya believes it works the other way around: "You need to build a person, and that will build the business." Her coaching program is designed to help women get clear on who they are and what they are worth before worrying about customer funnels or followers.

What does success look like?

“I tell my clients that they can have it all — just not at the same time."

Bhavya Kalsi (EO Uganda) is the co-founder of Be Marketing Coaches. Her forthcoming book, “Burn the Playbook,” is in the works. Interested in becoming an EO member like Bhavya? Learn more here.