About Us

Rooted Rising facilitates deep transformation, learning and action to create a regenerative future where all life can thrive. We are led by Shruthi Vijayakumar along with a range of collaborators and partners.

Shruthi is of Tamil, South Indian ancestry with a strong connection and deep love of her Indian heritage. She grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand, a multicultural hotpot and has deep respect for the kaitiaki (guardians) of this land, the Indigenous Māori.

With respect to formal education, Shruthi has an MBA from the University of Oxford, where she specialised in sustainability, systems change and social entrepreneurship. She is also a Certified Coach from Coach Masters Academy. Though perhaps the biggest teachers in her journey have been Nature herself, various Indigenous Elders, Spiritual Teachers and Scriptures from her own Indian lineage.

Professionally, Shruthi has worked in a range of roles across business, education and social impact arenas in various countries giving her varied perspectives on the challenges before us.

This has included being a management consultant in Melbourne, working for the Boston Consulting Group, leading operations of an education social enterprise start up Better World Ed in India, supporting Kate Raworth to set up the Doughnut Economics Action Lab in Oxford, running a social enterprise accelerator and nationwide innovation festival with Inspiring Stories in New Zealand and working as a facilitator and coach with changemakers in many parts of the world including Rwanda, India, South Africa, China, UK, Solomon Islands, Switzerland, Australia and the USA.

Shruthi has shared her work on various platforms including the World Economic Forum Annual meeting in Davos, TEDx, Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

Systems View of Life - Frijtof Capra Course
Presencing Foundation Programme - training from Presencing Institute on Theory U
Certified Leadership Coach - Coach Masters Academy
Masters in Business Administration, University of Oxford

Certificates & Training

Climate Reality Leader - Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project Training
Haumanu Training - Centre for Social Impact’s trauma informed approach to healing and innovation in groups
Rongoā Māori Level 1 & 2 - traditional healing wisdom of Māori and their ways of caring for the mauri (life essence) of both people and the planet.

Our Community of Collaborators

Magic happens we collaborate and bring our different skills, experiences and perspectives together! Be it hosting a space with an Elder, co-facilitating courses, workshops and retreats or sharing learnings, connections and ideas. Here are some of the organisations and communities we are part of and regularly collaborate with. What might we create together?

With Fire Circle Elders Aunty Anita Sanchez (Nahua Aztec) and Grandmother Lánésáan Moonwalker (Yoeme Apache) who we brought to a retreat with young environmental leaders in the US

With Louise Marra (Ngai Tuhoe) addressing the Oxford MBA Regenerative Economy Class

Collaborating with Matt Sykes & Regen Projects on the Business with Nature Fellowship

Matt Sykes is founder of Regeneration Projects a consultancy building ecological literacy, leadership and entrepreneurship skills in leaders and organisations to create projects and business that restore and regenerate our Earth. Read more here.
The Fire Circle initiative has a community of Elders supporting a regenerative future. We collaborate in themes of leadership development, education, transforming business, social and ecological restoration opportunities! Our Elders: Anita Sanchez, Donna Kerridge, Grandmother Lánésáan Moonwalker, Partho, Louise Marra, Lorna Davis, Mac Macartney, span connections to a range of Indigenous communities and wisdom traditions, read more about them here.
A global leadership and organisation development consultancy specialising in fostering thriving leaders, teams and organisations. Thompson Harrison works with a range of corporate and community clients. They’re a team of seasoned leadership development experts, learning designers, coaches and world class faculty, of which Shruth is an Associate. Read more here.
New Direction supports leaders and organisations committed to transformation of society and our economy to lead from Inner Wisdom. Along with the father son duo, Christopher and Alexander, we run various online programmes such as the Tree House. Read more here.
A community built around a set of six principles coined by Pā Ropata and rooted in Indigenous Māori wisdom to care for people and planet. Read more here.
A facilitation team with Nature Conservancy helping teams build effective solutions to conserve and restore Nature, using agile, design thinking, continuous learning practices. Read more here.