How Priti Sawant is steering JoulestoWatts towards becoming India’s first $100M GCC-focussed company In our Women in Tech series, we feature Priti Sawant, Founder & CEO of JoulestoWatts. She talks of building India’s GCC enablement industry from scratch, competing with global giants as a solo founder, and her mission to create the country’s first woman-led billion-dollar tech company.
In the early 2000s, as Global Capability Centers (GCCs) were shutting down across India or being acquired by large IT companies, Priti Sawant saw an opportunity. She started quietly building what would become India’s most successful GCC enablement story. Today, Sawant’s company JoulesToWatts employs 5,800 tech professionals across nine countries and is on track to becoming India’s first $100 million GCC-focussed firm, having helped establish over 330 GCCs, including 70% of the Fortune 500 companies.
Sawant’s entry into STEM was driven by circumstance. Growing up in Mumbai in the 80s, she had two conventional choices: medicine or engineering. “If you are doing well in academics, people will say, ‘What is wrong with you? Why do you want to take something else?’” she recalls. After completing her engineering degree, she joined Accenture Consulting, and gained early exposure to the GCC world and India’s emerging role in global offshoring. In 2004-2005, when the GCC model in India was struggling, Sawant founded her first venture, Magna Infotech. Though the timing seemed counterintuitive with GCCs failing, global companies pulling out, and the Indian tech ecosystem still finding its footing, Sawant had identified a fundamental gap.
Companies needed specialised support to successfully establish and grow their Indian operations. “In 2004-05, I realised the need to build an enablement ecosystem for Indian GCCs. Offshoring would only go so far, and eventually, the global market would recognise India’s potential and want to explore it directly,” recalls Sawant. Magna Infotech was eventually sold and led to the listing of Quess Corp. Armed with the experience, she launched JoulesToWatts in 2015 with funding from Mohandas Pai and Dr. Ranjan Pai.
The name, she points out, reflects her philosophy: “Joules–unit of work done. Energy per second creates power. If you have highly energetic people who are working at an accelerated pace, you create enormous power for your customers, for your people, and for all stakeholders.” First-mover advantage JoulestoWatts leverages on data and technology with a first-mover advantage. The company has developed four proprietary platforms–J2W, Align 360, J2W Premier Lounge, and J2W Offer Letter, specifically designed for the GCC market. “We capture business intelligence coming in all the time through our technology.
That really works. After God, we believe in data,” Sawant adds. This tech-first approach has enabled the company to make data-driven decisions on an hourly basis and build customer satisfaction scores in real-time. More recently, the company has leveraged AI to accelerate project delivery by 60-70%, and reduce proof-of-concept development time. The numbers tell the story of rapid growth: 100% year-on-year growth for the first four years, survival and growth through COVID-19, and rapid expansion. As a solo founder competing against industry giants, Sawant has turned JoulestoWatts’ agility into a competitive advantage. “We have worked significantly with BFSI, healthcare, retail, automotive. Our offerings are built out of problem statements the India heads come with,” she elaborates.
This customer-centric approach to product development and building solutions based on actual client challenges have paid off. It has also become a key differentiator in a market where many providers offer standardised services. The gender factors Sawant describes her early years as a period of unknowing struggle: “When women traverse the first five to 10 years, they don’t even know there’s a bias because you just wonder what is going on, why things are like this.” Years ago, being the only woman founder in the boardroom often drew raised eyebrows.
Today, she feels there is greater acceptance, and nurturing women leaders has become far easier.” At JoulestoWatts, Sawant’s direct reports are 50% women, the tech workforce is 32% women (higher than market standards), and the enterprise workforce is nearly 50% women–all achieved, she insists, through natural processes rather than quotas or special programs. Sawant believes in building sustainable, self-reliant leaders rather than creating dependency on organisational support structures.
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