Mumbai entrepreneur hires mother as manager, fires her in 2 weeks. Here's why

A Mumbai entrepreneur once turned to her mother to manage her growing creative career, but ended up firing her just two weeks later.Mumbai entrepreneur hires mother as manager, fires her in 2 weeks (Photo: Avanti Nagral/LinkedIn) An entrepreneur based in Mumbai has shared how she ended up “firing” her mother from managing her career just two weeks after asking her to handle the business side of her work.In a post on LinkedIn, Avanti Nagral recalled her gap year before attending Harvard, when she was performing across different stages around the world in theatre, music and other creative projects.At that time, Avanti realised she needed someone to manage tasks such as emails, negotiating rates, logistics, outreach and operations. Her mother, who had more time on her hands, volunteered to take on the role.Avanti initially thought she would be a good fit. She said her mother had reinvented her own career several times and understood the demands of working hard, as well as some aspects of Avanti’s work. However, the arrangement lasted only two weeks.“Two weeks in, I fired her. Not because she didn't care. Because she cared too much. She said no to almost everything, because she felt I deserved much better. She'd also often say no to opportunities where it felt like something could go wrong: a late-night show, an unfamiliar city tour, a crowd she couldn't vet in advance,” Avanti said in her post. She eventually realised that her mother was approaching the role as a parent rather than as a professional manager.“She wasn't managing my career. She was protecting her daughter,” she said, adding that the two were “very different jobs."Over the following decade, Avanti found professional managers, agencies and others who could maintain a clearer boundary between her personal and professional life.However, the experience also made her think about the difficulties faced by other people working in creative fields.She argued that there is little formal infrastructure for artists and other creatives to find professional support for areas such as negotiations, managing schedules and evaluating deals.As a result, she said many creatives rely on people close to them - parents, partners or friends - to fill those roles, even when they may not have the expertise or emotional distance required.“This gap has been sitting with me for a while now,” Avanti Nagral said as she concluded her post.Read the entire post here:Avanti Nagral is also a digital creator who has 384k followers on Instagram.- EndsPublished On: Aug 21, 2026 11:38 IST