Storytelling Mentor for Brands & Businesses
Hi, I am Sushma Tripathy.
I work with CEOs, coaches, consultants and founders to shape their lived experience into stories that carry authority.
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- 1000+pieces of content written
- 50+clients across EdTech, hospitality, wellness and corporate
- 10+books edited or ghostwritten
- 6years of drawing mandalas
My story
Read My Story
It is fascinating to see how our lived experiences, across cultures, nations, and across seas, write the story you tell the world. I grew up moving. Across Indian states, across countries including Japan and Singapore, and across years spent at sea on merchant ships before I ever sat down to write a brand story for anyone else. That movement taught me the thing I now teach: a story only holds together when you can name its centre, no matter how many places, people or roles pull at its edges.
A story only holds together when you can name its centre.
I started as a blogger, writing for guest sites. Today I am a writer, editor and book mentor, working with publishing houses, authors, CEOs and founders to shape both fiction and non-fiction into finished, credible work. Over time that work has grown to 1000+ pieces of content, 10+ books edited or ghostwritten, and 50+ clients across EdTech, hospitality, wellness and corporate industries.
Each project taught me something no writing course does: how to listen for the story a person does not yet know they are telling, and how to give it a structure strong enough to carry into a leadership room, a keynote or a book.
The framework
ନବଗୁଞ୍ଜରNine moves, one story, seen whole.
That listening is also where Nabagunjra came from. I found Navagunjara, the nine-form creature from a fifteenth-century Odia telling of the Mahabharata, during my own research into Odia storytelling traditions. The more I studied it, the more I recognised the same pattern I was already using with clients: a story does not come from one clean idea. It comes from parts that look unrelated until they are seen together. Nine moves, one story, seen whole.
I built NABAGUNJRA to teach that pattern deliberately. It now runs through my keynotes, including the Future Leaders Forum and Future Tech Congress 2026, through the Business Storytelling Deck, and through every book, pitch and keynote spine I help a client build.
Rooster
The headMove 1Peacock
The neckMove 2Bull
The humpMove 3Lion
The waistMove 4Serpent
The tailMove 5Elephant
A legMove 6Tiger
A legMove 7Deer
A legMove 8Human hand
The arm, holding a lotusMove 9
Mandala practice
One concentric ring at a time.
Alongside the written word, I practise mandala art, a quieter companion to storytelling but no less structural. Six years of drawing mandalas have taught me that a pattern reveals itself slowly, one concentric ring at a time, the same way a story reveals its centre once you stop rushing toward the ending. The symmetry, the repetition and the deliberate pace of mandala work show up directly in how I build a keynote spine or shape a manuscript: start from the centre, build outward, let every ring earn its place before you add the next.
The other constant
Writing keeps the rest honest.
Writing has been the other constant, and the one that keeps the rest honest. Across 1000+ pieces of content and 10+ books edited or ghostwritten, writing is where I test whether an idea actually holds together before I ever bring it into a workshop or a keynote. It is the discipline behind Nabagunjra itself: a framework is only as credible as the sentences that explain it, and I have spent years making sure mine do.
What I Believe
A story is not decoration on top of a strategy. It is how a strategy becomes something a room remembers.
Most leaders already have the story. What they are missing is the structure to tell it without losing what made it true in the first place.
Along the way
Highlights
- 1000+ pieces of content written
- 50+ clients across EdTech, hospitality, wellness and corporate sectors
- 10+ books edited or ghostwritten
- Keynote speaker: Future Leaders Forum, Future Tech Congress 2026, Asia Pacific HRM Congress (moderator, AI-Native Futures panel)
- Creator of Nabagunjra and the Business Storytelling Deck
- Author, Mandala: Your Mindful Companion
Let us talk
Your story already has a centre.
Thirty minutes, one conversation, and a clear sense of where your story wants to begin.
Book a Discovery Call