Meet Amrita, Our Founder

Hi! I’m Amrita, the Founder and CEO of Kudos.

I am obsessed with elegant sustainability. What do I mean by that? A product can be sustainable, but it is unlikely to be impactful unless it has elegance in the eyes of the beholder. Elegance involves both style and simplicity.

Sustainable products should not compromise on style - in fact, they should out-style their non-sustainable counterparts (think Tesla, not Prius). Sustainable products need to be just as simple to use as their non-sustainable counterparts - we can’t just replace plastic diapers with cloth diapers, creating more labor and effort for the consumer.

Progress in the world will be defined by our lives becoming easier and more sustainable at the same time. We need to get to a place where we would naturally prefer to use sustainable products, even when we don’t know they are sustainable.

That is what elegant sustainability can deliver. It's a product you'll come to for its sustainability -  and stay with because of its performance, simplicity, and aesthetics. 

What led you to start Kudos?

When I was a Junior in college, I landed an internship working as a manufacturing engineer for Always Pads. I had a conversation with my Grandma that I hadn’t had until then - what did she do during her periods growing up in India during the 1940s? Turns out she used old rags, had to sleep outside the house while on her period, and was not allowed to go to school. Woah. I remember feeling shocked, believing that this was something purely historical - but no, many women in India are still experiencing this today. 

The method of using rags was certainly sustainable, but it clearly was not elegantly sustainable. It didn’t enable women to go about their lives as they would on any day they weren't having their period. For my senior project as an undergrad at MIT, I developed a sanitary pad made of sustainable banana tree fiber, one which had all the function of a sanitary pad you could pick up at CVS, but that was sustainable. This was successfully commercialized after I graduated, improving the lives of thousands of women in India. 

As I entered my thirties, many of my friends started having kids, and they wanted a diaper that followed the principles of elegant sustainability: a diaper that was as convenient and reliable to use as the industry standard disposable diaper, but that was as sustainable as a cloth diaper. I knew that through innovative engineering we could do better. Out of this realization, Kudos was born. 

Guilty pleasure? Favorite comfort food?

Eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch and chocolate chip cookies are my most primal urges. It’s how I celebrate the highest highs and lowest lows of life. 

What is a special talent you have?

I like to weave together things that seem like they don’t fit together. 

One's trajectory in life can seem deterministic. But I have always cherished the notion that paths can be made to cross - that I can bring together people who would have otherwise never known each other, and that the crossing of their paths can completely change the way our collective experience unfolds. The team at Kudos reflects this principle: that by bringing together people of divergent experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives, we can do something special. In this way, I feel lucky to be working with Emily, Moira and Jim every day. 

The Kudos Team: Amrita, Emily and Moira

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Hello world, we’re Kudos! The first and only natural disposable diaper where your baby sits in 100% clean, breathable, soft cotton all day. Not plastic. Join our mailing list below to learn more.