Soumya Rajan, Waterfield Advisors | Part 2 | Rohin Dharmakumar | First Principles by The Ken

We published an episode with Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors a few weeks ago.

On it, we discussed what it was like to bet your future on an idea no one had tried before in India. In Soumya's case, that idea was a business model around wealth management.

You might remember Soumya saying it really wasn't easy.

Her peers had doubts. Her clients had doubts. Her family had doubts. She had doubts.
But she dug her heels in.

Twelve years later, Waterfield Advisors is India's largest multi-family office and wealth advisory, managing over 40,000 crores for its clients. We covered a lot of ground around Waterfield's early years.

And then, we took a break. We had some coffee, looked around the studio offices, and came back in to record again.

And slowly, the next hour of our conversation became about looking ahead.

Soumya detailed her vision to me. Waterfield is planning to expand to Dubai this year. And perhaps even more international offices after that.

In fact, Soumya said she wants to build an organisation like J.P. Morgan—out of India.

JP Morgan traces its history nearly 150 years back. So naturally, I asked Soumya: how do you ensure you build a company that's around for 10, 20…even 50 years? How does one build a truly defensible and lasting moat?

She said Waterfield would continue what it started with, i.e. it would never manufacture products and remain only an advisory.

She explained that her firm would never go into distribution—which is where the money is.

It will always be an advisory.

Again, Soumya has a big bet—she believes that Waterfield needs to give up growth and scale in the short term to succeed in the long term.

And in this episode, she explains why this will work.

We also talk about:

• Being unapologetic about entrepreneurship
• Learning to let go as a CEO
• How to use AI as a friend
• Building a ritualistic work ethic

This is episode 35 of First Principles—The Ken's weekly leadership podcast.