Parul Sharma: I’m Rewiring Leadership in the AI Era

With two decades in corporate boardrooms and global leadership roles, Parul Sharma has seen the gaps that keep high-potential women invisible in leadership conversations. Through Rewired by Parul and her signature Rewired Vault™ system, she’s challenging the performance trap, blending neuroscience, cultural intelligence, and AI insights to design workplaces where women can experiment, speak up, and grow without fear. For Sharma, leadership in the AI era isn’t just about adapting to change — it’s about reshaping the system so more voices can lead the future.

What first sparked your passion for transforming workplaces and developing leaders?

While having 20 years of corporate experience behind the wheel, and the last 6–7 in global leadership roles, taught me how to reinvent identities and create environments where people can develop, I also saw a gap that couldn’t be ignored. High-potential women were delivering results but remaining invisible in leadership conversations. In many workplaces, women are not given the space to experiment, take risks, and make mistakes without being penalised, something essential for leadership growth.

Over two decades across global boardrooms, I saw this gap again and again, which inspired me to start creating Rewired by Parul and the Rewired Vault™, a system I’m building to help women reinvent themselves, break the “performance trap,” and step forward with clarity. My focus is not just on preparing leaders, but on designing environments where women can experiment, speak up, and grow without fear, because leadership development is not complete unless the system itself is ready to support it.

How do you see AI changing the way we lead and work in the next five years?

AI will be the silent ally for leaders, but only if we feed it the right data. If the voices of women are missing from that data, the AI we use will reflect the same biases we’ve fought against for decades. As part of building Rewired by Parul, I’ve started using my Rewired Powercast™ on Spotify to spark these conversations, and in my second episode, “The AI Intimacy Gap”, I explore why women cannot afford to sit out of the AI conversation. This isn’t about coding or technical jargon; it’s about asking the right questions and making sure women’s experiences and perspectives are part of the digital record. If we don’t engage now, we risk turning the clock back 20 years on representation and influence.

Can you share a moment in your career that truly shaped your leadership philosophy?

When I moved from India to Singapore, I discovered that expertise alone wasn’t enough to influence decisions. I had to rebuild my leadership approach from scratch, listening deeply, adapting across cultures, and leading without formal authority. That was the turning point where I started thinking about the way our brain functions and then developed the 3M Power Rule™, the backbone of what I’m now creating through Rewired by Parul:

• Reclaim Your Mind – shifting thought patterns
  
• Redefine Your Mirror – building authentic presence
  

Redirect Your Map – aligning identity with action
Everything I’m building now, from tools to programmes, stems from this framework, so leaders, especially women, can lead from clarity, not burnout.

You’ve worked across multiple countries. What’s the biggest leadership lesson you’ve learned from different cultures?

I feel Western leadership tends to prize visibility; Eastern leadership often values quiet influence. The most effective leaders navigate both with ease. But what’s often missed is that, regardless of culture, the human brain drives behaviour in remarkably predictable ways. This realisation led me to train in neuroscience coaching, so I could integrate cognitive insights into leadership development. As I build Rewired by Parul, I’m weaving cultural intelligence with neuroscience to prepare leaders who can operate with precision across borders.

How does neuroscience help leaders make better decisions and perform at their best?

I feel neuroscience is the backbone of how we function, and for me in Rewired by Parul, neuroscience is not just a concept I admire; it’s the foundation I’m building on. I’m applying principles of neuroplasticity to create tools that help leaders and women in the workforce rewire unhelpful patterns and strengthen high-performance habits. This means embedding cognitive bias awareness, attention management, and emotional regulation into the very design of leadership systems, so decision-making moves from reactive to intentional.

What strategies have you found most effective for building truly inclusive workplaces?

Inclusion can’t be left to goodwill; it needs systems, measurement, and accountability. A McKinsey study shows companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 25% more likely to outperform financially. As I create Rewired by Parul, I’m building frameworks that focus not just on representational diversity but on cognitive diversity, integrating different problem-solving styles, lived experiences, and perspectives into decision-making. In AI-driven workplaces, these inclusive approaches are not just ethical, they’re essential for innovation and adaptability.

Many leaders struggle with balancing growth and people. How do you bring both together?

I see growth and people not as competing forces but as interdependent. In building Rewired by Parul, I’m designing clarity systems, a blend of AI tools, neuroscience-led rituals, and leadership processes, that allow businesses to scale without exhausting their teams. This is about creating structures where revenue growth and human well-being fuel each other.

Outside of business, how has organic farming influenced the way you think about leadership and sustainability?

The rhythm of farming shaped how I see the world, and when my family had a farmland, I found myself drawn to it every time I returned to India. You can’t rush growth; you create the right environment, nurture it, and trust the process. Leadership works the same way. You don’t “fix” people; you design environments for them to thrive. This philosophy shapes the culture-building work I’m embedding in Rewired by Parul. It’s also why I call myself a Cognitive Culture Engineer, because I’m designing workplace cultures using cognitive science to grow sustainably, not just survive the next quarter.

What advice would you give to women aiming to lead in the AI era?

The AI era isn’t coming; it’s already here, and the leadership and power of women will never look the same.In my Rewired Powercast™ episode “The AI Intimacy Gap” on Spotify, I explore how AI will transform the way we connect, decide, and lead, and why women must step into this conversation now. This isn’t about learning to code; it’s about leveraging AI as your ally to remove low-value work, freeing you to focus on influence, creativity, and strategic visibility. As I shape Rewired by Parul, one of my goals is to give women the frameworks to feed AI their perspectives, experiences, and data , because if women are absent from the datasets, the future it builds will reflect that absence.

If you could give one piece of leadership wisdom to your younger self, what would it be?

Stop waiting for perfect timing or permission. The people you think are more “ready” are often just more willing to step in before they feel ready. Clarity comes from action, not overthinking. If I had known that earlier, I would have started creating what is now Rewired by Parul years sooner, because leadership is built in motion, not in waiting.