SEEMA JAIN, founder and CEO of Seva Global, is a first-generation Indian-American, growing up in Oxford, Ohio, a small town that’s home to the Miami University, where her father was a professor.
There were not many other South Asians in Oxford so Seema and her family learned how to assimilate to the local community while maintaining their own values.
Seema today calls Chicago home and she’s taken the stories and lessons of her precious heritage and the power of her unique culture far beyond small-town borders.
She founded Seva Global amidst the COVID-19 pandemic after leaving her job at Marriott International, where she was senior director of multi-cultural affairs for more than a decade.
Seva Global is a continuation of Seema’s commitment to helping businesses and understand, accept and integrate diverse cultures and viewpoints into their management processes and company ethos. She calls it becoming “culturally competent.”
Seema provides cultural training, workshops, webinars and consultation services. She’s given keynotes and participated in panels at various organizations and corporations interested in learning about people groups – including the LGBTQ+ community and Jewish culture – and countries such as Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and nations in the Middle East as well as communities throughout the U.S.
The overall goal is to improve a company’s business impact. Seva Global focuses on business development, sales and content creation to help other companies become more culturally competent.
In the hospitality industry, Seema works with many clients to help them become more culturally aware, whether it is with their teams in different countries, employees from different backgrounds or international guests.
Seema started her professional journey in 2008 while working in sales at a Marriott-branded hotel. It was the start of the Great Recession and hotels were struggling to generate income and create new business. Seema researched Marriott competitors to learn about their customers and how they were attracting customers. She noticed a group of Asian Indian guests at a nearby property and thought about how to draw such travelers to her hotel. She worked closely with the general manager to showcase cultural amenities, such as Indian breakfast, Indian newspapers, Indian TV stations, Bollywood nights, and educating the staff on Indian culture.
Within three months, they had exceptional results. Despite having an outdated property and being further away in proximity to the client office, they were able to attract new guests by appealing to their cultural needs. Occupancy from Indian clientele increased 15 percent to 30 percent in one year. Room nights increased by 2,000 in three months and the hotel’s revenue soared. Once one group of travelers came to the hotel, others shifted their business as well because they heard of the cultural amenities offered.
Seema graduated up the ranks at Marriott, landing in its multicultural affairs office. There she adapted her original sales tactics for other cultures, teaching other hotel managers and employees how to cater to guests’ specific needs.
Today, through Seva Global, Seema uses her experience, expertise and knowledge to help other hotels and companies achieve similar success.
Over the past 12 months, Seema has significantly grown her company. She has worked with more than 25 organizations across many industries – hospitality, food, technology, cybersecurity – helping them bring cultural confidence to their teams from sales to operations to public relations to human resources to learning and development.
Seema says she’s worked extremely hard to achieve success for her company and to be a strong and compassionate leader for her team. She also keeps others in mind.
“Seva” is a Sanskrit word meaning the act of selfless service, and Seema brings this into many aspects of her life. She has created the “Seva Giving Back” program, through which the company donates to more than a dozen nonprofit organizations. She organized a retreat for the Seva Global team this past May where they volunteered together at the Center of Halsted, an LGBTQ+ community center in Chicago.
Additionally, Seema has provided some of her time pro bono to bring cultural competency to nonprofit organizations.
She is co-founder of two nonprofit organizations: Supporting Excellence in Education Foundation, which awards scholarships to high school students, and Young Jains of America, a national youth organization created to share Jain heritage and culture. She served on the Equity, Race and Diversity Committee at Stevenson High School, one of the leading high schools in the country.
Seema earned her Bachelor of Science in Finance from Miami University of Ohio and her MBA from DePaul University in Chicago.
In May, Seema earned a Women’s Business Enterprise National Council certificate, designating Seva Global as a women-owned business.
Seema and her husband, Sunit, have three adult children. In her spare time, she enjoys yoga, cooking and traveling.
