She left everything.
To build something real.
This is the story of Praveen Verma, Founder of Pahadan's Team and the movement she started deep in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh, India.
In January 2023, she walked away from a settled life.
Not towards a plan. Not towards a business.
Towards a feeling.
A quiet, unshakeable conviction that something needed to exist that didn't yet.
Praveen Verma had everything most people spend a career chasing. A comfortable life. Financial security. A settled family. She left it all, and arrived in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh with no blueprint, no investors, and no guarantee of anything.
What she had was a belief: that the people of these hills - the weavers, the farmers, the women who had spent generations creating beautiful things for invisible markets, deserved better. Not charity. Not sympathy. A platform. A partnership. A fair chance.
She went to the places no one else was going. Deep into Mandi district, to Bhurun; Post Parvara, a village with no tourist footfall, no market access, no infrastructure for what she was imagining. She chose it precisely because no one else would. She hired locally when outsourcing would have been cheaper. She worked with her hands, walked the paths, sat in the homes, and listened before she built anything.
Praveen Verma, Founder & Director, Pahadan's Team - Mandi, Himachal Pradesh.
The Artisan Community
Not a supply chain. A family.
From the very beginning, Praveen's approach was rooted in one belief: the artisan comes first. Not the product. Not the market. The person behind it. She put wool yarn into the hands of local artisans without a confirmed buyer in place, because the relationship had to come before the revenue. The trust had to come before the transaction.
These are not numbers on a spreadsheet. They are women who wake up in mountain villages knowing that their craft has a home. Weavers who no longer sell at throwaway prices to middlemen. Hands that have been making beautiful things for generations, finally making a fair living from it.
Artisan weavers and craftspeople from the Pahadan's Team community in Bhurun, Mandi District.
Two beliefs. One mission.
Rooted Fashion
Fashion that begins with the maker, not the market. Every thread, every weave carries the identity of the artisan who has made it. Not a label. Not a logo. A real person, always at the centre - seen, valued, respected and fairly rewarded.
Rural Slow Tourism
Tourism that belongs to the village, not to a company that has set up in it. The village is not the backdrop. It is the destination. The people who live there are the hosts, the guides, the reason guests come at all.
"Artisans are one of the most beautiful, humble communities in the world. And one of the most exploited. Pahadan's Team was founded to give artisans what they have always deserved but rarely received - good monetary return, genuine recognition, and long-term security."
The only way to achieve this is to create a bridge, built with pure intention, between artisans and the people who truly value art and the artisans behind it. Not a marketplace. A relationship. Where the buyer knows exactly whose hands made what they are holding, and the artisan knows exactly who values their work.
Every item sold through Pahadan's Team carries a tag with the artisan's autograph and photograph, along with their name, village, and craft tradition. The tag clearly states the exact percentage of the total price that goes directly to the artisan, not hidden in a footnote, not vague. Printed clearly, so the buyer understands the value they are honouring.
When someone buys a handcrafted piece from Pahadan's Team, they are not buying a product. They are buying a relationship with the person who made it.
Rooted in the hills. Built for the world.
Praveen Verma's connection to Himachal Pradesh is not romantic or borrowed. It is where she comes from. She received her basic education in a village in Himachal Pradesh; the same kind of village she would later return to and work for. She completed her professional degree in Mandi, the very district where Pahadan's Team stands today.
After her education, she built a strong professional career, beginning with ISRI as a GIS Engineer, working in geographic information systems, mapping, and spatial data, then going on to Infotech Limited. These were not small roles. This was a skilled, technical career that most people would have stayed in for life.
And then, in January 2023, she left it all. Not out of failure. Not out of restlessness. Out of a clarity that most people never arrive at: that the most valuable thing she could build was not a career, but a community.
Empowering Women Entrepreneurs
Alongside her work on the ground in Himachal Pradesh, Praveen is now extending the same ethos to small-scale entrepreneurs, especially women, across India. Through Pahadan's Team, she is actively supporting, educating, and providing technology access to women who are building their own enterprises but lack the tools, the knowledge, or the network to grow.
This is not a training programme. It is a sustained community of support, walking alongside women entrepreneurs the same way she walked alongside the artisans of Bhurun. Not doing it for them. Doing it with them.
The Pahadan's Team community: artisans, women entrepreneurs, and local families across Himachal Pradesh.
500,000 Families. No paid marketing. Ever.
Over 500,000 families follow Pahadan's Team across social media, not one of them reached through a paid campaign. Every follower came because the work spoke for itself. Because people saw a woman doing something real in the mountains and felt it.
The response has been overwhelming: messages, offers to help, people driving hours to visit, strangers becoming volunteers. This community did not find Pahadan's Team. It was drawn to it.
"She didn't come to the mountains to build a brand. She came because the mountains needed someone who would stay: and the people deserved it."