Akhila Krishnamurthy is a freelance journalist, director of communications at Krea University, and the founder of Aalaap, a boutique arts management company based in Chennai. Akhila founded Aalaap after a 15-year career in journalism where she worked across leading publications in India, including The Times of India where she was the Editor of all the supplements. As a freelance writer, Akhila has contributed essays and features across The Hindu, the India Today Group, Outlook, Tehelka, Open, Elle and Harper's Bazaar. Aalaap is Akhila's brainchild and is an ideas and innovations company that works with classical artistes from across the world across aspects of ideation, curation, production, publicity and strategy. Personally, she is passionate about artistes and the world they inhabit and is constantly investigating the many shifts that make it so dynamic and exciting. She is a mother of a nine-year-old and has spoken at TEDxNapierBridge on her two babies - Aryan and Aalaap - and how the principles of parenting and of entrepreneurship, in a sense, mirror each other. She is also the winner of the Original Idea of the Year award from Femina and the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year at the Startpreneurs by the CII.