By: Gesche Haas
Gesche Haas is the founder & CEO of Dreamers & Doers, a highly curated community and PR Hype Machine™ for extraordinary women entrepreneurs.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the headlines told a grim and evolving story. While the virus ravaged communities worldwide, another, quieter crisis was intensifying behind closed doors. As time at home increased, so did the incidence of domestic violence, and Mathangi Swaminathan could no longer look away.
Compelled to act and frustrated by how often support came too late, she set out to build something different. The result was Parity Lab, a bootstrapped international initiative grounded in a powerful idea: that lasting leadership and systemic change begin with inner safety, self-worth, and connection.
Here, Mathangi shares more of Parity Lab’s story and reflects on what continues to inspire her vision for a more grounded, connected, and resilient future.
How and why did you start doing the work you do?
I realized we were building systems that responded to harm after it happened. Almost no one was making any investments in helping young people understand what healthy relationships feel like before harmful patterns take root. As a founder working in gender and leadership for over a decade, I was constantly wondering: Why do we teach financial literacy early, but not relationship literacy? That question became the seed of Parity Lab, and in the five years since we started, we have reached over 100,000 individuals across eight countries.
Across contexts, I keep seeing a consistent pattern: many forms of harm begin in adolescence. Our data shows that two out of three young people aged 15-25 stay in relationships that don’t feel good or safe. The choice to stay in unsafe relationships is rooted in common behavior patterns: confusion around boundaries, normalizing jealousy as love, mistaking control for care. Even as we begin to recognize unhealthy patterns, most young people continue to learn about relationships from social media, AI, and peers rather than structured guidance.
Today, we at Parity are leading one of the first large-scale youth- and parent-informed efforts to examine how AI, social media, and shifting norms are shaping expectations around relationships and what relationship education needs to look like in the present time.
What is the underlying mission of your work? How does it make a difference in people’s lives?
At its core, Parity Lab exists to prevent gender-based harm by building healthy relationship literacy at scale. Our ambitious long-term vision is a world where every person understands what emotional safety feels like before they ever have to recover from its absence. Over the past five years, we’ve reached more than 100,000 individuals across eight countries, working with community leaders, schools, and families to shift norms around respect, accountability, and power. We equip lived experts and community changemakers with tools to reshape norms in their communities. The impact has grown through ripple effects: from mobilizing young men to rethink masculinity to facilitating conversations in schools, colleges, and parent groups.
Our insight is simple: harm often begins early on in life, before adolescence. At the same time, many are forming their ideas about love and boundaries through social media and AI, with little structured support.
That insight led us to launch Project Greenlight. Through this initiative, we work directly with young people and parents to build practical relationship skills early, helping them recognize respect, set boundaries, and comprehend emotional safety before harmful patterns take root. When young people understand what healthy relationships feel like and when parents have the language to guide those conversations, we reduce the likelihood of harm before it starts.
What sets your company apart in a crowded market? What do you believe is your unique contribution to your industry?
We are building a category that has barely existed before. Most work in this space focuses on intervention after harm. Very few organizations are thinking about healthy relationships at the adolescent stage in a structured, research-backed way.
We are also leading one of the largest listening efforts of its kind across the U.S. and Canada, directly engaging young people and parents to understand how AI, social media, and shifting norms shape relationship expectations today. That depth of listening informs everything we build.
Another key differentiator is design. Lived experts have always been a core part of what we do. Our Youth Research Council helps shape the language, tools, and questions that we develop. At the same time, Project Greenlight bridges generations by working with parents and caregivers alongside young people. Most programs target one or the other. We intentionally bring both into the conversation. At Parity Lab, we are combining large-scale listening, cross-generational design, and early prevention to build this core life skill at a very crucial time when technology is reshaping how people understand relationships, love and even power.
Can you share a time when you struggled with burnout or stress? What steps or practices helped you regain your balance and well-being?
Last year, I hit a real point of burnout while navigating the fundraising space and experiencing constant pressure to shape our work into what other people wanted to fund. I found myself in conversations where I was explaining and re-explaining our vision, adjusting language, and chasing timelines that did not always align with our values or long-term strategy.
I began journaling, sought out mentors who’d been through similar challenges, and took time to reflect. Their guidance, along with books and conversations, helped me name what was wrong and what I needed to reclaim. I realized I needed to design a life that honored my integrity, so I stepped back from what depleted me and leaned into what lights me up: facilitation, coaching, and strategy. Burnout is often a signal of misalignment. Once I listened, it changed everything.
What has been your greatest challenge in blending work with life? How have you managed to create a sense of harmony between the two?
I’ve always been good with time boundaries; I know when to close my laptop and end the workday. But mentally switching off has been the real challenge, especially now as I juggle being both an entrepreneur and a mother. These roles require very different kinds of presence, and I found myself carrying work energy into parenting. What helps is setting thought and energy boundaries by building intentional buffer zones between the two aspects of my life: a short walk, a cup of tea, journaling, or simply sitting in silence. I also make it a point to put my phone away during these transitions. A quiet moment of recalibration helps me shift gears and show up fully in each role with more presence and less overwhelm.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your entrepreneurial journey so far?
Stay anchored to the problem, not the format. Early on, I believed that if we just found the “right” program structure and executed it perfectly, we would have the key to success. Over time, I realized that the format will always evolve. What matters is whether you are still addressing the problem you set out to solve.
Every meaningful solution requires constant learning. You test something. You listen. You adjust. You grow. If you are too attached to your original model, you start to defend the structure instead of improving the impact. Some of the largest companies in the world didn’t start where they are today. They kept reinventing themselves multiple times. What stayed consistent was the commitment to the core problem and not the initial format.
That shift in mindset changed how I lead Parity Lab. We are deeply committed to preventing relationship harm, but we are flexible about how we get there. Programs evolve. Strategies refine. Audiences expand. Detaching from the solution and staying loyal to the mission has been my biggest entrepreneurial growth edge so far.
Mathangi is a member of Dreamers & Doers, an award-winning community that amplifies extraordinary women entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders by securing PR, forging authentic connections, and curating high-impact resources. Learn more about Dreamers & Doers and get involved here.
