Personal · FAQ
The questions people actually ask.
The personal ones that come up in conversations, interviews and DMs — answered straight.
Personal questions, answered
Where did you grow up?
In a Marwari family — a community with entrepreneurship in its bones. My father is a builder with a PhD; my mother is a criminal lawyer at the Bombay High Court. Between them I got a respect for both building things and arguing a case well.
How did you get into marketing?
Early and by doing. I interned at thirteen and co-founded a digital studio at seventeen, pricing websites at eleven rupees. I was building brands before I formally studied marketing — the studying came after, in London, to make sense of what I’d already been doing.
Why did you spend so long in agencies?
A principle I was raised on: before you lead, learn to follow. I stayed in agencies for a decade, learning the craft properly, before crossing to the brand side. It felt slow at the time and looks deliberate in hindsight.
Why move from agencies to the brand side?
To own the outcome. On the agency side you advise; you can always point to the client if it goes wrong. I wanted to be the one accountable for the result — it’s harder and it’s the only way to really learn.
What’s the TEDx talk about?
The idea that I didn’t fail exams — exams failed me. It’s about how our standard measures of intelligence and ability miss the things that actually matter, and what that realisation did for how I think about talent.
What did studying in London teach you?
Perspective, mostly. A BA at Coventry and an MA at Westminster gave me the frameworks — but living in a different country in my early twenties taught me more about how culture shapes what works in marketing than any course did.
What do you do outside work?
I read widely, build small things out of curiosity, and think a lot about how brands and people earn trust. The honest answer is that the line between ‘work’ and ‘interest’ is blurry for me — I find this stuff genuinely fascinating.
The full story: About · the professional FAQ: Who Is Varun Mundra.