Empowered People: Zoya Brar
As an accomplished entrepreneur who both founded and scaled a successful startup, Zoya Brar was already an ideal…
As an accomplished entrepreneur who both founded and scaled a successful startup, Zoya Brar was already an ideal candidate to mentor young founders during their own entrepreneurial journeys. But it took a significant change in her life to make her realize that she wanted to.
“They say that becoming a mother rewires your brain. And I felt it happen. I felt my priorities, my thinking, and who I was as a person entirely shift after I had my first baby,” Zoya explains. “Somewhere during that one year that I took off between doing my startup and joining Empowered, I did a lot of reflection. And one of the things that surfaced for me was that I get a lot of meaning from being able to impact other people and watching them become their best versions or watching them be able to do what they want to do. That drives me in a really, really significant manner, and mentorship is a great way to do that.”
“There are many ways I could have achieved that sense of fulfilment, and I considered them. Eventually though, since I knew entrepreneurship, I could bring subject matter expertise, if I mentored entrepreneurs. I wouldn’t be just giving somebody advice that wasn’t based in real experience, which was important to me.”
Zoya most certainly does that as a Startup Leader with Empowered Startups, a role she began in February of 2022. Though she describes her professional journey prior to that as “a random walk”, it seems more like a well-executed ascent of a famous peak.
After being recruited by Google straight out of university, Zoya joined Google and embarked on what many assumed would be a lengthy career with the multinational tech giant. Although she performed well in her position as an Account Planner, the lure of entrepreneurship beckoned. So Zoya quit her job, and founded her startup, CORE Diagnostics.
“The company I founded was a molecular diagnostics laboratory., We were testing for cancer and other genetic diseases that need advanced analysis of the genes and other mechanisms. We were the first laboratory in that region to do that kind of work, which was what made it thrilling because I wanted to do something for the first time. And we did end up doing it. We were able to access 13 other countries around India where we were providing those services. Eventually, we were one of the first labs in that region to also provide COVID testing. PCR is now a household name, but we’d been doing that for over a decade.”
Those ten years were filled with trials and tribulations, all of which Zoya either overcame or learned valuable lessons from. She is quick to point out that while she founded and built the company over time, she would never have been able to navigate that evolution without a great deal of help and insight.
“I think mentors are the most important ingredient in success or failure. At least in my journey, if the mentors that I had did not exist, I don’t think my business would exist, to be frank,” she humbly reveals.
Her first investor in CORE Diagnostics, Ajit, proved to be an invaluable resource in that regard. Ajit’s experience as an operator of a business, an investor, and an advisor allowed him to provide Zoya with guidance in several areas as her company evolved and encountered the challenges that accompany growth. She also credits an earlier mentor, Vinay, with instilling in her a “get the job done” mindset, which enabled her to tackle obstacles that threatened to derail progress.
“A mentor has the ability to look out in the distance for you and say, ‘Okay, you have no idea where you’re going.’ or ‘You know what… have you even considered X, Y, Z?’. For entrepreneurs that are maybe serial entrepreneurs, it still is important, but it becomes less critical. But if you’re doing it for the first time, having somebody who’s been there, done that, who understands your industry or understands even the questions that need to be asked, it’s the most important ingredient.”
Very few, if any, entrepreneurs would contest the value of such guidance. Zoya reminds her founders that starting your own business is an adventure that involves many unexpected scenarios and drawing on the experience of others is vital when these situations arise. However, having success as an entrepreneur does not automatically translate into becoming an effective mentor. The best teachers, whether in school or business, are the ones who connect with their students by meeting them where they’re at through keen observation, meaningful conversation, and, most importantly, listening.
“A good mentor asks the right questions. A good mentor understands where you need help,” Zoya opines. “One entrepreneur may need support on understanding what they need to do financially to make the business robust, another might have complete understanding from a financial perspective but may have no idea from a go-to-market lens or may not understand hiring. So, zeroing on what is it that this specific mentee needs and then responding or helping from there, I think makes a key difference. And the third thing I would say is a good mentor is a good listener. Being able to shut up and let the entrepreneur talk and being a sounding board, more than anything else, I’d say is what makes a good mentor.”
In her position, that means listening to challenges and questions that founders have about more than just business. Mentoring entrepreneurs who are transitioning to life in Canada while simultaneously launching a startup requires an understanding of what adapting to a completely new environment is like. Zoya is particularly well-equipped to relate to the challenges her founders encounter and provide them with pertinent perspective given she too has experienced what immigrating to Canada encompasses.
“I get their struggles firsthand. I know what it is to not be able to open a bank account. I know what it means to not have credit history. Those seem like simple problems, but they become extremely complex when you’re trying to navigate them for the first time in a new country. Every conversation I have with an entrepreneur, I can’t remove that lens. It’s there and I bring it. I guess it makes me more empathetic by design, which is a great trait as a mentor, I think, to be able to really put yourself out there in their shoes and see where they’re coming from.”
Zoya’s empathetic nature was most certainly influenced by her own lived experience, but the trait was instilled in her at a much younger age. From the time she was a small child, she saw it being modeled in her own home as her first true mentor was her mother. Zoya’s mom was an entrepreneur in the healthcare industry and provided her daughter with a daily example of how to navigate the rigors of running one’s own company.
“I often say this, I learned leadership through osmosis just by watching her do it, and I think I learned entrepreneurship through osmosis as well in some ways. The one thing she’s taught me by being who she is, is to be fearless.”
Now with children of her own, Zoya has an even greater appreciation for the positive example her mother set while raising her. When asked what entrepreneurial trait she hopes her own children inherit, Zoya pauses and grins before offering her answer.
“I would say the ability to take risks and just be who they want to be… like follow their heart. I think entrepreneurs do that really well. They’re able to not be stopped by fear or by somebody who said, ‘This won’t work’. Entrepreneurs are crazy people, right? They just do what they put their minds to, and I hope my kids have that.”
Given that children often emulate the behaviour their parents model, there’s a very good chance they will. It’s a remarkable gift to give any child, and one that has the potential to impact the world as Zoya herself has already proven.
