Maybach Foundation Interview Series Episode 5: Insights from Dr. Ravi Gundlapalli

Dr. Ravi Gund­la­pal­li is the founder and CEO of Men­tor­Cloud. He has ded­i­cat­ed his life to help­ing peo­ple reach their full poten­tial through the pow­er of men­tor­ing. With a back­ground in engi­neer­ing and glob­al lead­er­ship, he com­bines tech­ni­cal exper­tise with a deep com­mit­ment to human growth. Men­tor­Cloud con­nects peo­ple across more than 100 coun­tries and con­tin­ues to grow as a glob­al movement.

We invit­ed Ravi for this inter­view because we are proud to col­lab­o­rate with him. Our work togeth­er is guid­ed by a shared belief in the val­ue of men­tor­ship. For the May­bach Foun­da­tion, men­tor­ing has always been a way to car­ry for­ward the lega­cy of vision­ary think­ing — sup­port­ing indi­vid­u­als who strive to make a mean­ing­ful impact, just as Wil­helm and Karl May­bach once did.

In this con­ver­sa­tion, Ravi shares his per­son­al sto­ry and the expe­ri­ences that shaped his mis­sion. He reflects on the pow­er of men­tor­ing peo­ple to change lives and to build stronger, more con­nect­ed com­mu­ni­ties. His vision is bold and root­ed in purpose.

Here’s the Inter­view between the May­bach Foun­da­tion (MF) and Dr. Ravi Gund­la­pal­li (RG):

MF: You have ded­i­cat­ed your life to men­tor­ing oth­ers and help­ing peo­ple unlock their poten­tial. What first inspired that pas­sion? Was there a moment or per­son that set you on this path?

RG: Through­out my life, I’ve always had the mind­set of giv­ing. I was part of the scout­ing move­ment where I used to serve, and even in my high school, I used to teach my fel­low stu­dents as I felt teach­ing oth­ers is the best way to learn some­thing very, very deeply. But the moment that real­ly set me on this path, it was a life-chang­ing moment when the flight I was on in Mum­bai in late 2000s almost crashed into the heli­copter that was car­ry­ing the then Pres­i­dent of India, Mrs. Prat­i­b­ha Patil.

Our flight was asked to take off, but then our pilot saw a heli­copter land­ing on the exact same run­way, so he avert­ed the acci­dent in less than 1.2 sec­onds before what could have been a mid-air col­li­sion. I was for­tu­nate that the acci­dent did­n’t hap­pen, and I kind of reflect­ed on it and asked the ques­tion, „Why is it that I was giv­en this addi­tion­al day and years to live? What was that unfin­ished job?“

The next day, there was news about how the Indi­an pres­i­dent was saved, but I kind of felt, „How come nobody is talk­ing about Dr. Ravi Gun­da­pal­li being saved?“ So that set me on this reflec­tive jour­ney. A few weeks lat­er, when I came upon the idea of stream­lin­ing what I call the flow of human wisdom.

It did­n’t come sud­den­ly; I have a PhD in flu­id mechan­ics where I stream­line the flow of flu­ids. I worked in sup­ply chain man­age­ment where I dealt with the flow of prod­ucts, so the flow of flu­ids or the flow of wis­dom was almost like a nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion of what I have always done in my life but now applied to peo­ple. That was the turn­ing point.

As you know, the world always has a plan for you. I met one of my first mentees, whose name is Srikanth Bol­la. He was a blind stu­dent at the age of 17 who had the aspi­ra­tion to go to MIT in Cam­bridge, USA. So, I was able to men­tor him, I was able to help him get into MIT. He even­tu­al­ly grad­u­at­ed with hon­ors from Sloan School and is now a suc­cess­ful entrepreneur.

So, I saw the mag­ic of when the wis­dom flows from peo­ple who have it to peo­ple who need it — mag­ic hap­pens. The inci­dent of this you know, if air­line crashed that didn’t hap­pen, and soon after meet­ing some­one who I was able to men­tor and trans­form — these two moments that set me on this path.

MF: You have built a pow­er­ful vision through Men­tor­Cloud. What does men­tor­ship mean to you and why do you believe it’s such a trans­for­ma­tive force?

RG: To me, men­tor­ship is the human-to-human trans­fer of wis­dom. Humans have always been trib­al; we’ve always thrived by shar­ing what we know with the peo­ple who need to know that infor­ma­tion. This basic human trait is so inte­gral to us being human that it real­ly caught my atten­tion. Men­tor­ship to me is such a trans­for­ma­tive force because it brings peo­ple togeth­er, cre­at­ing that mech­a­nism for humans to share their life expe­ri­ences and wis­dom to oth­er humans that they care about.

When I define this men­tor­ship as human-to-human trans­fer of wis­dom, it is the human who wants to share what he or she knows to some­one that he or she tru­ly cares about. It is not about shar­ing wis­dom on some social media chan­nels; it is shar­ing with some­body you care. So „share and care“ is the men­tor’s per­spec­tive, and for the mentee, it’s about trust­ing in that wis­dom and that human being and then act­ing to be able to real­ize the results.

MF: The col­lab­o­ra­tion between the May­bach Foun­da­tion and Men­tor­Cloud is just get­ting start­ed. Where do you see us going togeth­er in the next five years?

I feel extreme­ly for­tu­nate that our paths crossed between the May­bach Foun­da­tion and Men­tor­Cloud. When I read the May­bach Foun­da­tion’s book on men­tor­ship and then kind of reflect­ed on my own book, „The Art of Men­tor­ing,“ it almost seemed like we were con­nect­ed in spir­it and in our mis­sion. So, I see us as cham­pi­ons of men­tor­ship, cham­pi­ons of human trans­for­ma­tion, and the desire to do men­tor­ship at scale because men­tor­ship at scale means human trans­for­ma­tion at scale.

In the next 5 years, I see us engaged in sev­er­al joint ini­tia­tives: iden­ti­fy­ing the right kind of strate­gic part­ners, investors, and col­lab­o­ra­tors for us to be able to trans­form 10 mil­lion lives around the world. There are so many pos­si­bil­i­ties. The May­bach Foun­da­tion is very focused on cer­tain social prob­lems like home­less­ness and reduc­ing recidi­vism in the US. Ensur­ing edu­ca­tion access to col­lege is anoth­er area. In all these sit­u­a­tions, a good men­tor can make a huge dif­fer­ence. Being able to do these kinds of projects at scale with the help of a tech­nol­o­gy plat­form like MentorCloud.

The next 5 years my big hairy auda­cious goal for us is to trans­form 10 mil­lion lives.

MF: AI is rapid­ly chang­ing the way we live and work. How do you see it influ­enc­ing the future of men­tor­ing and how can we make sure it deep­ens, rather than replaces, real human connection?

RG: My mind­set is we should think about how AI can be used to ele­vate peo­ple, not elim­i­nate them. Because there are close to 8.5 bil­lion peo­ple and pres­ence of humans is what makes our life, our soci­ety, our fam­i­ly, our world so beau­ti­ful. Now I would always main­tain that if the human con­nec­tion did not mat­ter, all the air­ports will be emp­ty. Isn’t it? So, the way I see it is AI is a fan­tas­tic assis­tive tech­nol­o­gy that can make humans to be even more human.

So, the way we are look­ing at from a tech­nol­o­gy per­spec­tive is mak­ing the pro­fil­ing eas­i­er so that men­tors and mentees are able to tru­ly describe the sit­u­a­tion they are in so that the sys­tem knows exact­ly who are the best men­tors or mentees and vice ver­sa. And using AI to also guide them once they get on to a rela­tion­ship — how can the tool sup­port them with the right con­tent, with the right kind of nudges, with the right kind of meet­ings and action items so that humans do focus on shar­ing of knowl­edge and wis­dom and build­ing a trust vs hav­ing to deal with all the tac­ti­cal items around that men­tor­ing relationship.

We’re also look­ing at AI for con­tent rec­om­men­da­tions and to make the expe­ri­ence hyper-per­son­al­ized. Anoth­er inter­est­ing devel­op­ment is I have built my own avatar. I have cre­at­ed a dig­i­tal twin of Dr. Ravi Gund­la­pal­li, feed­ing into it my books, my blogs, my pod­casts. Now there is an AI avatar or a dig­i­tal twin of Ravi who can answer all the basic ques­tions around men­tor­ing around the impor­tance of doing a Ph.D. etc. So imag­ine if experts in orga­ni­za­tions can be avail­able to younger employ­ees even if they them­selves are unable to meet due to their own sched­ule con­straints. So AI is being inte­grat­ed into Men­tor­Cloud in a way that makes every human more human, and for the addi­tion­al time that we now get with the help of AI, I hope humans take the time to take a walk in the park, go vis­it an old friend or a rel­a­tive, give some­body a hug, or share empa­thy — because all those things only a human can do.

MF: What advice would you give to young peo­ple with big dreams but lim­it­ed access to resources?

RG: I love this ques­tion because it talks about young peo­ple with big dreams. I think the advice is: young peo­ple dream big because the world today is abun­dant with online resources, mate­ri­als, cours­es, now chat GPT or Per­plex­i­ty or so many AI-sup­port­ed tools that give you access to infor­ma­tion on any­thing in the world. You can earn full degrees or learn cod­ing or learn design prin­ci­ples all with­out pay­ing a penny.

So the best advice is to dream big and net­work with peo­ple. Oppor­tu­ni­ties don’t come if you are not vis­i­ble. Though recent­ly I was on a pod­cast when I said, „Vis­i­ble peo­ple get noticed.“ It kind of sounds like a cliché, but that’s what it is. Young peo­ple: get out of your sofas or chairs and go out there to attend events, vol­un­teer at any non-prof­its — that’s how you will meet oth­er peo­ple who can mag­i­cal­ly open doors for you.

So, my advice is: keep learn­ing, keep net­work­ing. What­ev­er oppor­tu­ni­ty you must do some­thing, whether it is in a for-prof­it or a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion, just do it. And you will see the mag­ic when peo­ple you come across are able to sug­gest new books for you, new con­nec­tions for you, new oppor­tu­ni­ties for you, and that’s when the whole world will open up to even­tu­al­ly take you to where you real­ly are enjoy­ing what you’re doing.

MF: One sto­ry that stands out is your men­tor­ship of Srikanth Bol­la, who went on to become CEO of a suc­cess­ful com­pa­ny despite major chal­lenges. What has that jour­ney meant to you personally?

RG: My jour­ney of men­tor­ing Srikanth Bol­la, a visu­al­ly chal­lenged stu­dent when I first met him at the age of 17 was very trans­for­ma­tive for me. That jour­ney taught me per­son­al­ly the val­ue one human can bring to anoth­er human if that rela­tion­ship is filled with com­pas­sion, empa­thy, sin­cer­i­ty, and honesty.

Srikanth being a visu­al­ly chal­lenged stu­dent, he also helped me to under­stand the dif­fer­ence between sight and vision. Here is a stu­dent who does­n’t have eye­sight but has an immense vision for his life. I would say in my talks that I’ve come across so many peo­ple with per­fect eye­sight but no vision for their life.

The jour­ney has tru­ly taught me the dif­fer­ence between sight and vision. It real­ly gave me the foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ples and the moti­va­tion and the inspi­ra­tion to build a tech­nol­o­gy and a method­ol­o­gy that can cre­ate paths for men­tor­ing mil­lions of peo­ple like Srikanth (sight­ed and not sight­ed) so that they are able to achieve their full potential.

MF: At the upcom­ing event, we are explor­ing how men­tor­ing affects orga­ni­za­tions. In your expe­ri­ence, how can men­tor­ship direct­ly help com­pa­nies attract and keep great talent?

RG: All the research that I have done, not a sin­gle leader denies the impact of men­tor­ing because when a new employ­ee is matched with a senior exec­u­tive, mag­ic hap­pens. The exec­u­tive can impart the over­all vision of the com­pa­ny, why he or she has been with the com­pa­ny for so many years, and real­ly imbue that feel­ing of belonging.

So now the chal­lenge is, how do we scale it? That is where many com­pa­nies are still try­ing out, and that’s where Men­tor­Cloud is hav­ing a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty because every­body agrees men­tor­ing works. It cre­ates a sense of belong­ing. It accel­er­ates the devel­op­ment of skills. It cre­ates more col­lab­o­ra­tion. It removes silos, and it also allows peo­ple to devel­op them­selves with the help of oth­er peo­ple, so it even­tu­al­ly impacts the employ­ee retention.

So men­tor­ship when imple­ment­ed at scale where employ­ees any­where in the world are able to find the most suit­able experts and men­tors to learn from, are able to get the sup­port they need so they can see that trans­form­ing their own careers can mean high­er engage­ment, high­er reten­tion, high­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and all of this leads to an impact on the top line as well as the bot­tom line.

MF: For lead­ers who are new to men­tor­ing pro­grams: What is one small step they can take today that could make a big dif­fer­ence over time?

RG: One step is to make your­self avail­able — 1 hour/​month, 1 hour/​quarter, 1 human being/​year does­n’t mat­ter. Start small, and I want every one of you lead­ers out there who are new to men­tor­ing pro­grams to expe­ri­ence the mag­ic now. I would always say I can describe the taste of ice cream all day long, but it is but I but you that the true mag­ic hap­pens when you take the first spoon and put it in your mouth. Men­tor­ing is like that — when you start see­ing oth­er peo­ple flour­ish in their own gar­den because of you, you feel so inspired and motivated.

The first step is to make your­self avail­able. Don’t feel com­pelled that you must spend a lot of time in men­tor­ing. Say that I would love to share what I know, I am hap­py to con­nect with one or two young peo­ple or entre­pre­neurs and put some bound­aries — I only have 1 hour/​month or 1 hour/​quarter, does­n’t mat­ter. Set your bound­aries, but start by being avail­able, and you will see the mag­ic that will even­tu­al­ly inspire you to open more time and, of course, open your heart to tru­ly share what you know with oth­er people.

This might sound like very char­i­ta­ble, but I also say it in my talks in a very light-heart­ed way: being a men­tor is the most self­ish thing you can do. Self­ish thing you can do, even though we are all trained to be not self­ish, and the rea­son I say that is it will impact you lead­ers, it will accel­er­ate your career, it will build your lega­cy, it will cre­ate recog­ni­tion for you in the orga­ni­za­tion that you can now go to your boss and claim to be pro­mot­ed. So it will direct­ly impact your career. For exam­ple, one of our cus­tomers, Mar­riott Inter­na­tion­al, they have seen the men­tors in our pro­grams where twice like­ly to be pro­mot­ed than you know employ­ees in oth­er parts of the orga­ni­za­tion, so the pro­mo­tion rates will be higher.

So the small step is to be avail­able with­in the time lim­its that you are able to cur­rent­ly com­mit and expe­ri­ence the magic.

MF: When peo­ple leave the event after hear­ing you speak, what is the thing you hope they will remem­ber most?

RG: Fact that I hope peo­ple will remem­ber after my talk is that men­tor­ing is human. It is not a rock­et sci­ence. It is not some­thing that you have to go to school for. It is not some­thing that you need a man­u­al to fol­low. It is human. Share what you know with the peo­ple you care about. I hope every­body will live with „Who do I know in my net­work that I can shine a light on? That I can share my wis­dom and see them flour­ish and feel so blessed that I’m able to bring about this kind of trans­for­ma­tion. So, the one thing to remem­ber is men­tor­ing is the most human thing you can do.

MF: Ravi, May­bach as a brand has a long his­to­ry with India, and it was recent­ly in the spot­light again at an event there. Com­ing from India your­self, how did it feel to see May­bach rep­re­sent­ed in that con­text? Does that con­nec­tion between the brand and your home coun­try have sig­nif­i­cance for you?

RG: In a recent pod­cast, I had shared that India is where the con­cept of men­tor­ing first orig­i­nat­ed because India has a 10,000-year his­to­ry of its her­itage, and there are so many scrip­tures even before the rest of the world had ful­ly oper­at­ing civ­i­liza­tions. Indi­an scrip­tures talk about hav­ing a teacher or a guru and also hav­ing a men­tor because a guru or a teacher teach­es you how to do some­thing (you know, how to hold a bow and an arrow, or how to write, or how to swim, etc., or how to dri­ve — the ‚how‘ is taught by a teacher), but when and with what kind of respon­si­bil­i­ty is taught by a men­tor. So these con­cepts are inte­grat­ed into the Indi­an her­itage and philosophy.

The fact that May­bach did an event in India real­ly makes me feel hap­py because May­bach itself as an orga­ni­za­tion has imbibed men­tor­ing in its cul­ture. I have heard the sto­ries of Uli’s great-grand­fa­ther being a mentee him­self and even­tu­al­ly being a men­tor for so many peo­ple. To see such a long-stand­ing orga­ni­za­tion that has last­ed for sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions and still car­ries the torch from one gen­er­a­tion to the next with this idea of men­tor­ship, and then May­bach doing an event in India where men­tor­ship is so deeply inte­grat­ed into the Indi­an cul­ture, makes me extreme­ly hap­py. I think we can do a lot of good togeth­er because we both believe in that trans­fer of wis­dom from one gen­er­a­tion to the next. India specif­i­cal­ly has sur­vived so many occu­pa­tions, wars, and kept the tra­di­tion alive. It is only because of that human-to-human trans­fer of wis­dom from one gen­er­a­tion to the next that that so-called lin­eage in India you would say Parampara (the lin­eage) is so active. While many oth­er coun­tries have end­ed up in muse­ums, and we don’t know those civ­i­liza­tions yet, India has main­tained its civ­i­liza­tion, civ­i­liza­tion­al his­to­ry, and cul­ture because of the human-to-human trans­fer of that wis­dom — the arts, cul­ture, and so on.

May­bach also has demon­strat­ed the same kind of con­ti­nu­ity of that lega­cy. So, it means a lot and it is very sig­nif­i­cant that May­bach has done such a won­der­ful event in India. I hope Men­tor­Cloud and May­bach can do many more events together.

MF: Thank you, Ravi, for shar­ing your jour­ney and insights with us. We are hon­ored to col­lab­o­rate with you and deeply val­ue the impact of your work. We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing this part­ner­ship and to see­ing your vision for glob­al men­tor­ship unfold. Wish­ing you con­tin­ued suc­cess in all that lies ahead.