How Meghna Joshi Is Shaping Future Leaders Through Swan Livelihood and Purpose-Driven Skilling

StartupTalky presents Recap'25, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2025 and discuss their vision for the future.

In this edition of Recap’25, StartupTalky speaks with Meghna Joshi, Founder of SWAN (Skilled Workforce Advancing Nation) Livelihood, who reflects on a purpose-driven year focused on building inclusive, community-led livelihood ecosystems. Joshi shares how Swan Livelihood expanded from frontline workforce skilling to holistic, impact-first training models rooted in local socio-cultural realities, while introducing hybrid leadership and entrepreneurship programmes for students in 2025. She discusses the role of global fellowships, academic exposure, and government partnerships in scaling impact, the challenge of securing patient capital for long-term community development, and her belief in radical collaboration over competition. Looking ahead, Joshi outlines Swan Livelihood’s vision to evolve into a benchmark institution for sustainable, dignified, and future-ready livelihood creation in 2026.

StartupTalky: For readers new to Swan Livelihood, how would you describe your work and the kinds of training programs and support you provide to communities?

Meghna Joshi: SWAN (Skilled Workforce Advancing Nation) Livelihood is a Delhi based social enterprise aiming to empower workforce through customized training programes, mentoring, and hand-holding support that enable communities to access meaningful and dignified work opportunities. We work at the intersection of social impact and sustainability to create an ecosystem of sustainable livelihood opportunities aligning with emerging market needs while nurturing young minds to become future leaders.

StartupTalky: What inspired you to start Swan Livelihood, and what gaps did you see in skill development or livelihood opportunities when you began?

Meghna Joshi: I hold an interdisciplinary academic background with Bachelor’s in Business Economics (Honors) and post graduation in Environment and Development - along with a decade of professional experience across Corporate, Environment and Development sector. 

It was during my stint in the development sector, I closely observed a persistent mismatch between the aspirations of youth (18-35 years) coming from the under-served communities of Delhi/NCR eager to become front-line workforce in retail industry and the expectations of the Industry partners hiring them leading to a high attrition rate. 

This gap highlighted the need for a more holistic and inclusive skill development ecosystem and in order to bridge the gap and see more young minds coming from the economically weaker background realize their true potential, I founded SWAN (Skilled Workforce Advancing Nation) Livelihood.

Over the past six years we have evolved our work with respect to training design and target communities, from skilling towards front-line retail workforce to a broader mission of empowering rural communities and climate conscious growth while the core focus has remained anchored in skill development.

StartupTalky: In 2025, what new programs, partnerships, or initiatives did Swan Livelihood introduce, and how did they help your target groups?

Meghna Joshi: In 2025 we introduced a series of hybrid learning programe specially designed for school and college students to build their capacities of becoming future leaders and towards enabling innovative thinking and entrepreneurial mindset.

StartupTalky: Swan Livelihood focuses on areas like skill development, women’s empowerment, and sustainable change. What would you highlight as your key strengths or USPs in creating lasting impact?

Meghna Joshi: Our key USP’s lie is curating impactful training programmes and mentoring sessions based on the real needs of the target audience. We recognize that each state has got its own unique socio-cultural realities, aspirations, resource availability and existing skills sets. Understanding that becomes very important to make training programes more effective. Rather that one-size-fits all and replicating the exiting modules, our training programmes are solely based on the impact assessment, on-ground interventions and under-standing the pain-points of the community members for greater impact.

StartupTalky: Many social enterprises grow through partnerships or community networks. How has Swan Livelihood expanded its reach in 2025, and what role did partners or networks play in that growth?

Meghna Joshi: In 2025, SWAN Livelihood significantly expanded its reach through strategic partnerships and global networks. Being a part of One Million Leader Asia Fellowship Programme powered by NELIS we got connected with aspiring social innovators and sustainability professionals coming from 23 Asian Countries fostering peer learning, network building and cross-border collaboration. Additionally, through the programme, our I was selected to participate for an intensive ‘Creating Social Impact’ course offered by Shizenkan University, Tokyo. This academic immersion further deepened my understanding on social entrepreneurship through global lens.

At the National and State level, we were successful in forging partnership with Mukhyamantri Udhyamshala Yojana (MUY), a flagship initiative of Department of Rural Development, Government of Uttarakhand, to support rural micro-entrepreneurs across the state who are producing organic ‘Made In India’ products.

Collectively these partnerships moved us closer to our goal of creating and working in a more collaborative ecosystem and strengthened our commitment towards creating dignified livelihood opportunities. Further by integrating insights from Global Academia and ongoing Grass-root Interventions, will are sharpening our - ‘impact first’ approach to ensure that community driven solutions are both internationally informed and locally trans-formative.

StartupTalky: What was the biggest challenge you faced in 2025 while running training programs or scaling impact, and how did you and your team address it?

Meghna Joshi: One of the biggest challenge we faced in 2025 was securing sustained funding support to run community development programmes throughout the year. While there was a strong interest in impact driven initiatives however commitment for the ‘patient capital’ as a long term financial commitment remained a key hurdle. We addressed this challenge by actively building strategic partnerships and diversified our funding approach through skill based mentoring and social entrepreneurial initiatives for school and college students which created a scale-able and sustainable model for growth and inclusivity.

StartupTalky: Based on your experience in the social impact and livelihood space, what is one practical piece of advice you would give other founders working toward inclusive and sustainable growth?

Meghna Joshi: One practical piece of advice I would like to offer aspiring founders is that they should prioritize on radical collaboration over competition. We are able to amplify greater impact and share knowledge with one another when we join hands and work together, than working in seclusion. Additionally, the process of creating impact/change is a continuous journey - there maybe moments of fatigue and burnout. Staying connecting to your purpose and investing in well being plays an equally important role to sustain and build impact and leadership over long term.

StartupTalky: Looking ahead to 2026, what are the key priorities or goals for Swan Livelihood in terms of programs, partnerships, or community impact?

Meghna Joshi: As we enter into 2026, our primary objective is to forge high-impact and strategic partnerships through cross-sectoral collaboration. By expanding our footprints globally and into new geographies across India, we aim to deliver our bespoke skilling and mentoring models to a broader demography. Our goal is to evolve into a premier training and development institution, setting the benchmark for inclusive, sustainable and community driven economic empowerment leaving no one behind.

Explore more Recap'25 interviews here.