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A little Problematic
The social impact sector is fueled by purpose, yet many of its most critical initiatives fail to achieve escape velocity. Why? Paroma Ganguly says the answer lies in a major systemic blind spot: a severe misunderstanding of constructive communication. For two decades, Ganguly operated in corporate advertising, an industry where the granular analysis of human motivation is not a secondary task but the primary engine that fumes multi-billion dollar enterprises. Now, having transitioned to the impact sector, she brings a communication strategist's sharp, analytical lens to a world often driven more by conviction than by craft.
Her central thesis is that the sector is still in the early stages of a "communication maturity curve." It frequently mistakes the act of broadcasting on a platform like social media for a coherent strategy. It’s a confusion she finds "a little problematic." This approach fails to produce the desired outcome because it ignores the foundational work of understanding an audience at its core. Ganguly’s work is therefore an act of delicate translation. She is importing the rigorous, persona-driven methodologies of the commercial world not to "sell" a cause, but to frame the conditions for genuine, lasting behavior change. What does it take to convince a sector built on moral clarity that its methods for engagement are fundamentally incomplete? How does a leader instill strategic communication as a primary function rather than an afterthought?
"Today, if you ask anybody, what does communication mean for your organization? They'll tell you about social media. And that, in itself, is a little problematic."
The Friction of Translation
The expertise to diagnose a systemic weakness in an entire sector requires patience. It is built over time, often through a journey that is far from linear. Paroma Ganguly’s understanding of communication was honed over two decades in advertising. Entering the ad stage did not result from a carefully laid-out career plan. It was an "unintentional journey" triggered by the tragic and sudden death of her father, a highly respected figure in the same industry. At nineteen, Ganguly was confronted not only with intimate grief but with the societal pressure demanding rapid recovery. The expectations were clear. First, to quickly finish her graduation, and second, to find a job, to demonstrate resilience through immediate, tangible action. Demonstrating visible strength. Her career choice, therefore, became intertwined with this larger-than-her coping mechanism, a way to navigate a future that had been irrevocably altered. She picked a profession that was not entirely her own but offered a direct, if unconscious, path to understanding the man she had lost.
This path was a form of posthumous apprenticeship. While her memories of her father were those of a young daughter, her professional life gave her access to a different version of him: the colleague, the mentor, the industry leader. For years, she intentionally avoided mentioning her lineage, determined to succeed without the aid of his legacy and grappling with a feeling of "imposter syndrome". Yet, as she met people whose careers he had shaped, she discovered more layers to the man she called father. Through their stories, she learned about the man he was at work, his principles, integrity, and professional acumen. This process was transformative. The advertising world became a classroom where the subject was not just the craft itself, but the philosophy of an exceptional practitioner, who happened to be her father. She was unintentionally experiencing bits of somebody else’s life, and in doing so, she was gaining a perspective that was uniquely her own, one that her mother, a doctor from a different professional sphere, never got access to. The journey was demanding and emotionally complex, but it was also an unforeseen chance to connect with a man who seemed to be lost.
"I really got to know my father when I started working in advertising."
The View from the Groundfloor
"They believe that they will start at the penthouse because they've been in leadership roles and corporate careers in the impact space. But they have to start from the ground floor."
The two decades Paroma Ganguly spent in advertising furnished her atelier with a formidable professional collection. The nature of the work required serving clients as opposing as alcohol brands and educational institutions. This bullpit required a high degree of agility, training her to "keep flipping in and out of roles" on command. It was an environment that perfects the craft of immersing oneself in the lives of others, of understanding their behaviors and desires with a granular precision necessary to build compelling campaigns. This was a "deep domain ecosystem," a world of competitive specialists where communication was the pivotal force. The implicit rule in such an environment is that expertise confers authority. Here you are, the "boss of what you're doing". Yet, transitioning to the social impact sector, this highly refined model of expertise created deafening friction. The very principles that ensured success in one world became unexpected barriers to navigate in the next.
The world of social impact is not a deep domain, but a "mixed ecosystem". Here, communication is not the “product” but a single “component” in a complex, interconnected system of programmatic work, on-ground implementation, and long-term community engagement. In this new context, an expert is not the "boss of anything" but a single contributor among many, "bits and pieces in a larger ecosystem". This structural difference demands a different operational doctrine. The clean handoff from expert to client, a hallmark of agency life, does not exist. Success is not a deliverable but a collaborative, often messy, and continuous process without tangible milestones. This realization triggered the most daunting task of Ganguly’s transition: the uncomfortable process of unlearning. She had to actively dismantle the assumption that her corporate seniority and specialized knowledge would grant her immediate authority. The most challenging work was not in learning new skills, but in letting go of old identities. It required a conscious effort to shed the mindset of a siloed expert and adopt the humility of a collaborative partner, acknowledging that the solutions to complex human problems are co-created, not delivered in a single strike, by a single authority. Reminding herself that unlearning is not about going back, but about doing something in a new and different way.
This process of unlearning is intellectual and emotional. It involves recalibrating one's relationship with time, success, and authority. In the corporate world, speed is a virtue, and results are measured in finite campaigns. In the impact sector, "behavior change in itself takes time", and progress is measured over years, sometimes generations. The crisp logic of a business plan collides with the ambiguous, often frustrating inertia of human systems. This requires a leader to unlearn the addiction to immediate, visible metrics and develop a tolerance for ambiguity. It is this specific challenge that trips up many corporate leaders who enter the impact space.
Intimate Details
From the ground floor, the view is different. Once stripped of the assumptions of corporate seniority, a leader can see the structural flaws of an industry that are invisible from the penthouse. Paroma Ganguly’s primary discovery was a critical vulnerability. The social impact sector, a world rich in purpose, was impoverished in its approach to communication. She saw a pervasive tendency to treat it as an afterthought, a final promotional task, reminding her of an ungrateful task to conduct only after the “real” work was done. This oversight is a fundamental strategic error that cripples the potential for scalable impact. A brilliant intervention is worthless if it cannot be communicated in a way that inspires genuine adoption by the people it is meant to serve.
This strategic flaw is most visible in the sector’s widespread social media fallacy. In Ganguly's view, the default equation of "communication" with "social media" is wrong because it mistakes a tool for a strategy and a platform for an audience. This leads to a performative cycle of engagement. Organizations create content about grassroots communities on digital platforms that those same communities may not use, in a language that fails to resonate with their lived reality. The outcome is a self-congratulatory echo chamber, not the deep, on-the-ground connection required to shift behavior. Ganguly’s methodology is a direct counter-proposal. It is a demand to return to a first principle she mastered in advertising. You do not begin work until you understand your audience in intimate detail. This discipline requires moving beyond sterile demographics to a textured, human portrait. An audience is not abstract, like ‘women aged 25 to 30’. It is a specific person like Sunita, 27 years old, who lives in Lucknow and runs a parlor from her house while making tea for her husband’s family.
This level of granularity is the entire foundation of a successful strategy. Only by understanding the intricate reality of Sunita’s day can one determine the correct format, message, and moment to introduce a new idea. This is the rigor required to sell a product. To inspire a behavior change, a far more difficult proposition, demands greater strategic discipline. Ganguly’s work is an argument for this translation of rigor. It is a call for the impact sector to see communication not as a final promotional layer, but as a core component woven into the fabric of an intervention from its very inception.
"We always think of comms as an afterthought right now. But if you look at products which sell… they don't use communication as an afterthought."
A Designer of her Own
To notice flaws in a system is simple. The world is full of critics. Dedicating oneself to building an alternative requires conviction. Paroma Ganguly’s work in the impact sector results from a quiet but determined declaration of independence. After two decades of operating within a framework shaped by necessity, she reached a point of clarity. For the first time, she was free to make a decision unburdened by external expectation.
She kept her spark alight by recalibrating her ambition into the impact space. Having led an agency and experienced the high of conventional corporate success, she sought a new challenge that would keep her "supercharged." She looked at the societal print that ends in a quiet retirement at sixty and chose to keep writing. Her purpose became to build something of her own that would allow her to "keep thriving, growing," exchanging a finish line for a perpetual horizon. This choice is the output of a core operating principle. Ganguly treats time as a finite, non-renewable asset. This worldview compels a constant, rigorous personal audit of what is essential, what generates meaning, and what one wishes to "pay forward." Her career stance is the direct, logical outcome of this philosophy.
The unintentional journey that began as a coping mechanism forged a deep professional expertise. The difficult process of unlearning allowed her to translate that expertise into a new and challenging context. Her current mission is the application of that hard-won knowledge, driven by the decision of a leader who has finally claimed the authority to author her own act. The woman who began her career fulfilling a legacy has become her own designer, demonstrating that the most potent form of impact begins with the unwavering choice to define one’s own terms of engagement with the world.
"I just felt, for the first time in my life, that mentally, physically, financially, I was at a place where I could tell people that this is what I want to do."
What I Learned From Paroma Ganguly
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Expertise can be an unintentional inheritance. A career path is not always a deliberate choice. Sometimes it is an unconscious search for answers, and the most profound expertise can be forged while trying to understand a legacy rather than trying to build one.
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True translation requires unlearning. The greatest test of expertise is not the ability to apply a toolkit but the humility to dismantle it. Moving between different ecosystems, such as corporate and social impact, requires a leader to let go of old identities and start from the "ground floor."
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Communication is strategy, not promotion. The impact sector's most significant strategic error is treating communication as a promotional afterthought. Understanding an audience with "intimate detail" is the non-negotiable prerequisite for driving genuine behavior change.
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Ambition must be recalibrated over time. Conventional metrics of success have a ceiling. A durable and meaningful career requires a conscious decision to redefine ambition, exchanging the finite goal of a finish line for the perpetual horizon of a purpose.
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Purpose is a declaration of personal independence. A meaningful professional life is not discovered; it is chosen. It is the result of a rigorous personal audit of one's own finite time, leading to a declaration of independence from external expectations and the authority to author one's own story.