Being an Entrepreneur herself, Sushma, has first hand experiences of the vagaries of the business ecosystem in India for over four decades. Her traumatic experience of being one of India’s first women exporters, at the mercy of the public sector financial institutions and successive Governments, oblivious to the needs of small entrepreneurs, made her start a movement for empowering MSMEs in India, in early 2011. Her experiences as an Entrepreneur, with the society at large and social norms for Women In Business in India, made her commit her full time for creating an ecosystem to enable and support India's largest employment generating sector after agriculture.
As part of her commitment and vision, Ms. Sushma, oversaw the formation of the India SME Forum along with the Founder Trustees, where she was also appointed as the Director General, by the Trust Board, to lead the team. Sushma leads a team of researchers, analysts, experts and consultants for analysing, reporting and evangelising on the need and solutions for improving the status of MSMEs across India. Finance, digital transformation and digitisation, IP, market linkages, growth, quality and standards, and exports, are areas in which Sushma conducts extensive knowledge sharing activities for MSMEs in 279 industrial and rural clusters across 18 Sectors in India.
Sushma's belief in Economic Empowerment of Women and Entrepreneurship as the key for social and economic change in India, made her start encouraging & working in rural clusters with marginalised artisans, craftsmen and women, all aspiring for sustainable livelihoods. Sushma's passion for women entrepreneurs and her experience with Micro and small enterprises and grassroots startups has successfully lead to the development of innovative platforms, policy changes and progressive developmental strategies over the past decade, both by the Central as well as some State Governments for Capacity Building, Ecosystem Development and Empowerment Frameworks for business in India.
Sushma has been a nominated Member of the Government of India’s National Board of MSMEs, India’s apex body for MSMEs from 2015 to 2020 and a nominated member of the Governing Council of National Institute for MSME, Hyderabad, for the year 2016-17 and 2018-19 apart from advising various government agencies and international institutions on strategising and dealing with current issues and future challenges related to MSMEs and Women Entrepreneurship. Sushma is Vice Chairperson of the Permanent Commission on Social Issues and Women Entrepreneurship at the World Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (WUSME), San Marino.