Nilima Bhat

Nilima Bhat is a facilitator of personal transformation, coaching individuals and organizations in their quest for conscious evolution. She is an international speaker and trainer on organizational culture, conscious business, women in leadership, and self-awareness for work-life balance, as well as Indian wisdom and wellness traditions. Previously, Nilima spent 10 years heading Corporate Communications and PR for major corporations such as ITC-Welcomgroup, Philips India, and ESPN STAR Sports.

Nilima graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, with a degree in Life Sciences and Biochemistry, followed by a diploma in Social Communications Media from Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai. She later qualified as a yoga teacher from the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre and is a teacher-practitioner of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.

A trained dancer and choreographer, she has co-founded a professional dance company (Sri Shakti) whose mission is to de-mystify Indian dance and spiritual sciences for international audiences. Having lived and worked for 10 years overseas (Singapore, London, Hong Kong), Nilima returned to India in 2004 with her husband to set up a leadership consulting firm, Roots & Wings, and an integrative medicine practice, Sampurnah. They have recently published authors of My Cancer Is Me, outlining their holistic and integrative approach to cancer.

A corporate refugee turned yogini, Nilima is now a global missionary. She travels the world leveraging her corporate experience and 17 years of consciousness-based health and growth practices to help build enduring institutions and change agents, especially women, who can lead the planet to sustainable solutions and positive impact. Her mission is the same as that of our publisher Berrett-Koehler: Creating A World That Works For All. She also writes a column titled Shakti Speaks, initiated by a leading Indian media house, aimed at restoring gender relations and based on dialogues within Women’s Circles.

Her integral approach synthesizes best practices and paths from around the world and is customized to meet audience needs. Her particular expertise is in developing Body Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence (BQ & SQ). Nilima has delivered leadership training and facilitation for Microsoft, Whole Foods Market, Tata, Societe Generale Bank, Vodafone, and YPO, as well as academic institutions and developmental organizations such as Indus International School and SKS Microfinance. She is an active supporter of the Conscious Capitalism movement and Women’s International Networking (WIN).

Approaching 50 and having “heroically journeyed” many times through her mother’s cancer, her father’s near-fatal car accident and brain injury, her husband’s cancer, and her own search for meaning from a sudden sense of failure in a thriving corporate career, Nilima looks back with amazement at her bucket list of world destinations that have very few places left to tick off. 

An avid traveler, Nilima has recently found great meaning in leading or joining Peace Pilgrimages to the world’s sacred spots, from Kailash and Mansarovar in the Himalayas to Machu Picchu and Titicaca in the Andes. Comfortable in every culture and socio-economic setting, from cleaning toilets to dining with CEOs and interviewing world leaders, Nilima speaks five languages and truly calls the whole planet “home.”