How LEAD School's Smita Deorah Built India's EdTech Platform From Early Learning Insights
From teaching her one-year-old to read to co-founding a $1.1 billion education company serving 5 million students
The experiment that would eventually reshape education for millions of Indian children began with thirty word cards scattered across a living room floor in Mumbai. A one-year-old baby crawled methodically from card to card, selecting the correct words as her mother called them out. Elephant. Pigeon. Penguin. When the child successfully identified all thirty words, Smita Deorah realized she had discovered something that challenged fundamental assumptions about when and how children could learn.
“The first time she did it, I was like, oh, this is like a fluke, you know, I mean, come on. And she just did that with some 30 words. I think I’ve never felt so successful in my life.”
That moment in 2008 planted the seeds for what would become LEAD School, India’s largest school transformation platform. Today, Deorah serves as co-founder and co-CEO of a company valued at $1.1 billion, reaching over 5 million students across 8,500+ schools in 400+ cities. Her journey from Chartered Accountant to education innovator demonstrates how systematic thinking, applied to foundational learning principles, can create sustainable impact at extraordinary scale.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
Breaking Traditional Boundaries
Deorah’s path to entrepreneurship began in the conservative context of a Marwadi family from Uttar Pradesh, where her grandfather made an unusual choice that would influence generations. Rather than prioritizing wealth in marriage arrangements, he selected an educated husband for his daughter based on a progressive belief in education’s transformative power.
“My grandfather chose my father more than money, for him it was about an educated guy who is living in the city because that’s a better life for my daughter.”
This emphasis on education over traditional wealth accumulation created a family culture where learning was valued above conventional expectations. Deorah’s mother pursued a Master’s degree in English after marriage, unusual for women in conservative families of that era. This progressive lineage laid the groundwork for Deorah’s later decision to pursue professional qualifications in male-dominated fields.
After completing her Chartered Accountancy qualification at 22, Deorah joined PricewaterhouseCoopers before transitioning to Procter & Gamble in 1999. Her eight-year tenure at P&G took her from India to Singapore, where she rose to Associate Director of Treasury, managing currency risk and entity restructuring across ASEAN, India, and Australasia markets.
The corporate experience provided more than professional credentials. P&G’s systematic approach to problem-solving, combined with responsibility for forecasting across 9 countries and 100+ brands, developed the operational discipline that would prove essential for scaling LEAD’s complex education logistics across India’s diverse markets.
The Motherhood Laboratory
In 2008, Deorah made a conscious decision to step away from her corporate career to focus on raising her daughter. This wasn’t a traditional career pause but rather an intensive research project in early childhood development, informed by Glenn Doman’s work on brain development in young children.
“That book basically just completely opened my eyes to all that’s possible with a young child and how a brain develops.”
Deorah designed a systematic reading program for her six-month-old daughter, applying research-based methodologies to test assumptions about learning capacity. The results challenged conventional wisdom about developmental timelines. By age three, her daughter was reading independently, requiring no assistance with books thereafter.
This hands-on experience with early childhood pedagogy became Deorah’s entry point into understanding how children actually learn, rather than how educational systems assume they learn. The success with her own child led to deeper research into foundational learning principles that would later inform LEAD’s breakthrough approach to English language instruction.
The Social Justice Awakening
While developing her expertise in early childhood education, Deorah began visiting Anganwadi centers in Mumbai’s low-income communities. What she witnessed fundamentally shifted her perspective on educational equity and social responsibility.
“I saw three-year-old babies cleaning and there were no teaching learning aids. They were just there with this basic midday meal. The older kids were taking care of the younger kids.”
This exposure to systematic educational neglect motivated Deorah to develop practical solutions. Working through her non-profit organization Sparsh, she created an early version of a “school in a box” - comprehensive kits containing teaching aids, structured lesson plans in Marathi, and research-based curricula for 16 Anganwadi centers across Mumbai.
“I can’t let my learning and my life be about just raising two great kids. It has to be a lot more great kids.”
The Anganwadi project provided valuable lessons about implementing educational solutions in resource-constrained environments. However, the slow pace of government partnerships and bureaucratic processes convinced Deorah that private sector partnerships would be necessary for achieving meaningful scale.
The Strategic Partnership Decision
When her husband Sumeet decided to leave Zee Learn in 2012 to start LEAD, he made an unconventional offer that reflected their collaborative approach to both family and business decisions. He proposed staying home with their children while she led the new educational venture.
Deorah’s response revealed the strategic thinking that would define their partnership: rather than pursuing solo leadership, she chose collaboration that leveraged their complementary strengths. Her finance background provided the operational discipline needed for sustainable unit economics, while her early childhood expertise informed LEAD’s pedagogical innovations.
The decision proved strategic for scaling complex operations across India’s diverse education market. Deorah’s systematic approach to financial management ensured sustainable growth, while her deep understanding of learning principles guided product development.
Building the Learning Architecture
LEAD’s breakthrough innovation emerged from applying Deorah’s early childhood insights to the challenge of English language learning in Indian schools. Working with their first school in Areri village, Gujarat, she identified that students from non-English speaking families needed fundamentally different approaches than traditional curricula provided.
“We basically then built the entire English language and general awareness program, which actually is split into five components or sub-subjects.”
The ELGA (English Language and General Awareness) program treats English as a foundational skill rather than a standalone subject. Students undergo baseline assessments to determine their actual proficiency levels, then progress through individualized learning paths regardless of their grade level.
When a young teacher named Karen requested permission to group students by English ability rather than age, Deorah’s response captured the pragmatic innovation that would define LEAD’s approach:
“Karen, who cares? It cannot be that all school timetables have to be the same. I mean, that’s a shame, right?”
This flexibility led to mixed-age classrooms where siblings sometimes studied together, prioritizing learning outcomes over conventional grade structures. The approach proved highly effective, with some students advancing 1.5 to 2.5 years of skill development within a single academic cycle.
Scaling Systematic Change
From 2015 onwards, LEAD expanded from operating their own schools to partnering with existing institutions. Deorah’s finance background proved crucial in designing a business model that worked for affordable private schools charging ₹25,000-30,000 in annual fees.
The integrated platform provides schools with curriculum, teacher training, assessment tools, and management systems for approximately 8-10% of their fee income. This pricing strategy makes transformation accessible while ensuring sustainable unit economics for LEAD.
Deorah’s systematic thinking extends to teacher development. Rather than conducting traditional training sessions, LEAD deploys “excellence managers” who use platform data to provide personalized coaching. This approach scales more efficiently than individual school visits while maintaining quality standards through data-driven feedback.
The Unicorn Achievement and Financial Discipline
In January 2022, LEAD achieved unicorn status with a $1.1 billion valuation following a $100 million Series E round led by WestBridge Capital. The milestone made LEAD one of only five EdTech unicorns in India, alongside PhysicsWallah and Vedantu.
The growth metrics supporting this valuation reflect the scalability of Deorah’s systematic approach:
Revenue Growth: From ₹132.3 crore in FY22 to ₹370 crore in FY24
Student Reach: 5+ million students across 8,500+ partner schools
Geographic Coverage: 400+ cities and towns across 20+ states
Teacher Impact: 60,000+ educators trained and supported
Operational Efficiency: 55% reduction in net loss to ₹143 crore in FY24
Unlike many EdTech companies that pursued unsustainable hypergrowth, LEAD maintained focus on unit economics. Deorah’s CA background ensured fiscal responsibility to investors while building toward profitability. The company reduced its cash burn significantly while growing revenue 28% in FY24, demonstrating the financial discipline her background brings to scaling operations.
Mission-Driven Leadership
Despite impressive financial milestones, Deorah emphasizes that LEAD’s primary success measures remain educational outcomes rather than revenue targets. The company’s internal “wildly important goals” focus on student mastery levels and reach, deliberately excluding financial metrics from core objectives.
“We want a different future for our country. And we believe that a much better future is possible only if many more of our kids are a lot more educated and aware.”
This mission alignment has proven attractive to investors who share similar values. Rather than accepting capital from purely growth-focused funds, LEAD chose partners like Elevar Equity, GSV Ventures, and WestBridge Capital with track records in education and social impact investing.
Deorah’s approach to growth pressure also differs from typical startup dynamics:
“The pressure of growth always comes from Sumeet, not from any of the investors.”
This internal drive for impact, rather than external pressure for returns, has enabled LEAD to maintain focus on sustainable scaling while building measurable educational outcomes.
Current Impact and Future Vision
LEAD currently operates across India’s complex education landscape with demonstrated results. Schools using the system report 70%+ mastery rates across subjects, with learning outcomes improving 20-25% compared to traditional methods. The English proficiency gains are particularly significant, addressing what Deorah identified as the root cause of learning gaps in India’s English-medium schools.
The company aims to reach 25 million students by 2028, requiring continued innovation as India implements the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 with its emphasis on skill-based learning and technology integration. Recent policy developments favor LEAD’s approach, with over 100,000 schools incorporating digital tools and government initiatives promoting public-private partnerships.
Deorah’s continued professional development reflects her systematic approach to scaling challenges. Her 2019 participation in Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Executive Program for Growing Companies demonstrates ongoing investment in leadership capabilities needed for managing complex, high-growth operations.
The Systematic Legacy
Deorah’s journey from finance executive to education innovator illustrates how transferable skills can create unexpected innovations when applied to social challenges. Her early childhood experiments revealed learning principles that scaled to serve millions of students. Her finance background provided operational discipline needed for sustainable growth in complex markets.
The word cards scattered on a Mumbai living room floor in 2008 have evolved into a comprehensive platform transforming education across India. The core insight remains unchanged: children can learn far more than traditional assumptions suggest, provided they receive systematic support based on actual capabilities rather than age-based expectations.
As India’s EdTech sector matures beyond the pandemic-driven boom and bust cycle, LEAD’s focus on strengthening existing educational infrastructure rather than replacing it offers a template for sustainable impact. Deorah’s systematic approach provides evidence that authentic mission alignment, combined with operational excellence and financial discipline, can build lasting change in traditional industries.
The baby who learned to read at age one has grown up alongside an education platform that now serves millions. The experiment continues, but the results demonstrate how rigorous thinking applied to foundational problems can create extraordinary scale when guided by authentic mission and systematic execution.
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