"I'm at Peace": How a Young Mother Rebuilt a Life and Business After Loss

Sejal Lakhani-Bhatt (EO APAC Platinum One Bridge)

In February 2019, Sejal Lakhani-Bhatt’s phone rang. As she answered, she did not realize that her life was about to be cleaved into two distinct chapters: before and after that call.

She was in Florida for a few days of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Forum moderator training when she learned that her 39-year-old husband, Tejas, had suffered a heart attack while picking up their youngest son from tennis practice near their home in New Jersey.

In the ensuing chaos — her parents away on a trip to India, her 8- and 10-year-old sons stranded at sports practices — Sejal scrambled to make the next flight home. In her haste, she had no license, no luggage, and no sense if her life would ever be the same as it was before she answered the phone.

Four days later, Tejas was gone.

The man she had built a life and a business with had vanished in an instant. In his place was an emotional chasm, a business in dire need of saving, and two boys who needed their mother more than ever. But amid the pain and confusion, Sejal knew only that she had to keep moving. To do so, she temporarily eschewed grief for grit and leaned on a network of family, friends, and peers in EO not only to cope with loss, but to thrive in its wake.

“I took it on a minute-by-minute basis,” she says. “And I had a great support system.”

Building a Company Together

Sejal left a demanding role at Morgan Stanley in 2012 after more than a decade in finance, intent on becoming a full-time mom. She was exhausted from living half her life on the road away from her children, so she gave up her career for the sake of her family. “That did not pan out,” she chuckles. “I was awful at it.”

Three months into domestic life, Tejas invited her to pitch in at the IT company he had launched, TechWerxe. What started as an informal role soon evolved into something much more concrete: Over time, Sejal took on sales, marketing, operations and, eventually, the CEO title. Tejas remained the tech mastermind. “He was an absolute genius at tech,” she says. “But most tech founders aren’t businesspeople. That was my strength.”

Their marriage and their company functioned as a true partnership thanks to complementary skill sets, shared ambition, and mutual respect. Then came the heart attack and a sudden realization that, unbeknownst to her, the company had become “a financial mess,” which she discovered after his passing.  

Certain she could not balance a high-level corporate job with her responsibilities to her sons, she knew she had to save the business. At a nail salon with two close friends the day before the funeral, they scrawled a plan on Post-it notes: what Sejal could handle, what she needed to learn, what had to be outsourced. “For the kids’ sake,” she says, “that was the priority.”

Sejal, Tejas, and their two sons.

Within a month, a close friend introduced her to a prospective IT hire who would become her trusted lieutenant. She triaged the business — shedding clients she could not support, stabilizing operations — and dedicated herself to protecting what mattered most: her sons. Therapy for the boys began immediately. “They are extremely well-adjusted,” she says. “We talk about their dad all the time. We are open. We are honest.”

But Sejal’s own grief?

“I don’t know if I did grieve,” she says, focused on saving the business and keeping her young family afloat. “That came years later.”

Finding Support in EO

In the months following her husband’s death, Sejal found refuge and direction in EO, where she was a member through the New Jersey chapter. She leaned hard on her fellow members who, while they may not have endured comparable tragedies, were no strangers to personal and professional pressure.

The turning point came shortly after Tejas passed away, when she reluctantly attended EO’s Regional Leadership Academy (RLA) as tensions at work and at home reached a boil. She found herself increasingly unable to keep her emotions measured. “I was at my wits’ end,” she says. “I had no patience. I was snapping.”

There, sitting with a group of fellow EO members who were taking a moment to silently reflect by a lake, the dam broke. Sejal wept, her sobs piercing the silence. The group around her did not offer words of comfort. Instead, one by one, they shifted over to her and placed hands on her shoulders. “Okay,” she remembers feeling, “I can breathe.”

“With my whole heart, I can say my kids and I have an incredible relationship because of the changes I made after RLA.”
- Sejal Lakhani-Bhatt

Later at the event, a fireside conversation with EO honorary lifetime member Warren Rustand gave her vital new perspective. She worried aloud about not living up to Tejas’s abilities as a parent and feeling like she could not keep her boys in line with so much of her time and attention focused on salvaging the company.

 “He told me, ‘Why do you care so much if they do not do their homework? Why do you care if they are not dressed how you want them to be or if they do not shower one day? Just let the little things go,’” Sejal remembers. “That changed everything.”

She returned home from RLA a more patient mother. “That was the moment that changed the trajectory of our relationships,” she says. “With my whole heart, I can say my kids and I have an incredible relationship because of the changes I made after RLA.”

Strength in Vulnerability

Today, TechWerxe is a thriving cybersecurity and IT firm, offering compliance and security solutions for clients from a range of industries. Sejal leads a small team of full-time employees who are backed by operations and security customer service centers. With the company on firmer financial footing, she hopes to triple revenue to roughly US$10-12 million in the coming years. Amid those ambitions, she has not lost sight of what is most important. “For the last five years, the company was not my priority,” she says. “It was being with my boys and building up my life again.”

Now based in Barcelona, where she moved after touring Europe with her children and getting encouragement to make the leap from a fellow EO member, Sejal is building not just a business, but a life on her terms. Why move? “Why not?” she says. “EO taught me that everything is doable.”

In turn, she has repaid her EO peers for their support by helping launch a new chapter. She recently became the founding president of EO APAC Platinum One Bridge, which is designed to connect experienced EO members across borders and belief systems. “We wanted to create a next-level experience for tenured members,” she says, “which comes from making personal connections around the world.”

Sejal (center) and fellow members of the new EO APAC 
Platinum One Bridge chapter during a group retreat in Bangalore, India. 

She has also regularly delivered speeches to EO chapters and conferences. The theme? “Embracing vulnerability as a strength,” in which she shares the full scope of her story — including the financial turmoil she dealt with after Tejas’ death, and the anger she resultantly harbored alongside her grief.

Over time, though, through shared tears and shared strength with friends and fellow EO members, she has embraced the new life she was unwittingly thrust into five years ago. “I have forgiven him; I have forgiven myself,” she says. “I’m at peace.”

Sejal and her sons have grown and healed together.