Tell us about your career and what led you to co-found Pick a Book Sri Lanka?
The need to express, communicate and connect has been as old as humankind. Running several businesses, building world-class teams has been my goal because a business is only as good as its people. Being an avid reader, the power of books unlocked my teams to excellence as we started a book club. We should share from the book, not just the summaries but also why it moved us and what we can learn from it.
Being in the marketing profession and running a digital marketing and marketing consulting firm, this activity helped me make my team be dynamic and build leaders within the organization. My Co-Founder KVT Ramesh was the Head of Operations for Sri Lanka in BNI where I was the Area Director for Colombo, and we shared the passion for reading that we wanted to share with the world. While the world was chaotic during the pandemic, we brainstormed and conceptualised Pick a Book in Sri Lanka and also launched in India, as this helped people communicate better, feel more confident and become leaders.
Corporates started seeing PAB as a way to bring the culture of learning and growth from within. Teams started feeling more motivated, empowered, and equipped as sessions progressed.
We offer six models: PAB Clubs, PAB Junior for kids, PAB Community, PAB Students, PAB Corporate and PAB Teens, ensuring we inspire people of all walks of life.
What is the bigger mission of Pick a Book?
Legacy is not about leaving something for people, but leaving something in people’, and this is exactly what drives us to spread the movement. Every member of Pick a Book carries with them the power to inspire people around them and that is our biggest strength. Through our weekly sessions we are able to give people the exposure towards 52+ books in a year. Our subproducts like The Flip Side, Author Saga, and Readathlon give our readers a chance to connect and present worldwide. Our mission is to enhance the sense of self in everyone through the wonders of literature.
How has PAB added value to corporates?
The model of PAB is designed to enhance employee engagement and make everyone a reader. A company filled with like-minded people invested in learning are growing as leaders in their own field. Based on the situational need, books are selected to present, and this addresses the challenges at hand driving solutions and change. This, in turn, helps the company achieve its full potential and constantly have a team of motivated, agile, and empowered people. PAB is contributing to the success of corporations by building world-class teams.
Legacy is not about leaving something for people, but leaving something in people’ and this is exactly what drives us to spread the movement
How has the journey been so far, especially with the pandemic?
We have experienced a massive growth since inception. We introduced PAB in Singapore and the UK within a year, and membership is growing because of how the online sessions are adding value to people, corporations, and com – munities. We have over a thousand members in India, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the UK and we hope to reach 25 countries through franchising by the end of 2022. Our five-year plan is to have a presence in 100 countries with a membership of over a million book lovers.
Members present a book summary to their club as the idea is to inspire others to read the same book! We are developing the platform so that members can present book summaries not just to their clubs, but to others in other parts of the world too. Having piloted in Sri Lanka, this is proving to be a global phenomenon. PAB is a global community and members inspire this movement – a movement that is bringing together like-minded people who are inspiring change.
KVT Ramesh and I invested our own funds to build PAB as a sustainable company that focuses on a social good: enlightening and uniting people and communities. We are investing in AI-based search engines and digital technology to build virtual libraries and add value to our members. For PAB, technology is not an enabler but an acceleratory to go global. We are also investing in people, the people who will help take PAB global