Member since October 2025
Radhika Khandelwal is a strategic advisor, executive coach, and founder of RNK Coaching & Advisory. Her career includes serving as Chief of Staff for a $2 billion business unit at Deloitte and Divisional COO overseeing strategic services at Vanguard. She advises senior executives facing consequential decisions. Her signature keynote, “The Cost of Going First,” draws on her experience moving from India to the United States and entering leadership roles no one in her family had navigated before. Through her First-Gen Toll™ framework, she helps audiences recognize the hidden costs of figuring it out first and examine how those experiences shape their decisions.
My passion comes from building a career in the male-dominated worlds of finance, technology, and professional services. I was often the only woman, or the only person with my background, in the room. Those experiences shaped my interest in whose judgment gets heard and how leaders learn the unwritten rules. I created The First-Gen Toll™ to help people recognize the hidden costs of figuring it out for themselves. Through speaking, I help audiences put words to their experiences and examine how those lessons still influence their decisions.
Delivering “The Cost of Going First” at the National Women’s Collaborative’s We Mean Business Summit in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, was a defining experience. The gathering brought together more than 100 women (and men) from over 20 countries and regions. I introduced my First-Gen Toll™ framework, exploring the hidden costs of going first and the lessons learned along the way. Women across generations recognized their own experiences in my talk. They expressed gratitude and shared how my story helped them reconsider decisions in their own lives, giving them a fresh perspective and the words to understand their experiences differently.
I grew up in India and wanted to become a management consultant from fifth grade. In 1998, I moved to the United States for my MBA. My ambition eventually took me to Deloitte and Vanguard, where I stepped into roles no one in my family had navigated before. On my first day as Chief of Staff, I stayed silent during a call with senior partners. I had learned to listen when people with greater authority spoke. My boss called afterward and made clear that representing them required me to speak. I had earned the role and was still waiting for permission to contribute. I created The First-Gen Toll™ to name the hidden costs we learn to normalize when we are figuring things out for ourselves. One conversation helped me recognize how a lesson learned earlier in life could influence my judgment years later. “The Cost of Going First” grew from experiences like these. Through my speaking and RNK Coaching & Advisory, I help leaders examine how those unwritten rules affect their decisions and trust the judgment they have built through their own experience.
About:
Radhika’s signature keynote explores the hidden costs carried by people who were the first to enter rooms, roles and levels of leadership no one in their world had navigated before, and what changes when they stop paying for lessons they have already learned.
Through her proprietary First-Gen Toll™ framework, Radhika gives audiences language for the often-unseen costs that can continue shaping how accomplished leaders make decisions, navigate influence and exercise authority.
Ideal Audience:
Senior leaders and founders, with particular relevance for first-generation and cross-cultural executives.
Well suited for executive leadership programs, women’s leadership conferences, corporate leadership events and organizations developing senior talent.
Audience Takeaways:
Audiences examine a consequential decision of their own through The First-Gen Toll™ framework.
They gain language for hidden costs they may have normalized and explore how those patterns affect judgment and influence.
They leave with a practical way to identify the toll they may still be paying, along with greater clarity about what they want to do differently.
Delivering “The Cost of Going First” at the National Women’s Collaborative’s We Mean Business Summit in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, was a defining experience. The gathering brought together more than 100 women (and men) from over 20 countries and regions. I introduced my First-Gen Toll™ framework, exploring the hidden costs of going first and the lessons learned along the way. Women across generations recognized their own experiences in my talk. They expressed gratitude and shared how my story helped them reconsider decisions in their own lives, giving them a fresh perspective and the words to understand their experiences differently.
I grew up in India and wanted to become a management consultant from fifth grade. In 1998, I moved to the United States for my MBA. My ambition eventually took me to Deloitte and Vanguard, where I stepped into roles no one in my family had navigated before. On my first day as Chief of Staff, I stayed silent during a call with senior partners. I had learned to listen when people with greater authority spoke. My boss called afterward and made clear that representing them required me to speak. I had earned the role and was still waiting for permission to contribute. I created The First-Gen Toll™ to name the hidden costs we learn to normalize when we are figuring things out for ourselves. One conversation helped me recognize how a lesson learned earlier in life could influence my judgment years later. “The Cost of Going First” grew from experiences like these. Through my speaking and RNK Coaching & Advisory, I help leaders examine how those unwritten rules affect their decisions and trust the judgment they have built through their own experience.
About:
Radhika’s signature keynote explores the hidden costs carried by people who were the first to enter rooms, roles and levels of leadership no one in their world had navigated before, and what changes when they stop paying for lessons they have already learned.
Through her proprietary First-Gen Toll™ framework, Radhika gives audiences language for the often-unseen costs that can continue shaping how accomplished leaders make decisions, navigate influence and exercise authority.
Ideal Audience:
Senior leaders and founders, with particular relevance for first-generation and cross-cultural executives.
Well suited for executive leadership programs, women’s leadership conferences, corporate leadership events and organizations developing senior talent.
Audience Takeaways:
Audiences examine a consequential decision of their own through The First-Gen Toll™ framework.
They gain language for hidden costs they may have normalized and explore how those patterns affect judgment and influence.
They leave with a practical way to identify the toll they may still be paying, along with greater clarity about what they want to do differently.