Founder · Speaker · Builder ChennaiDubaiGreenwich

I build what
I wish existed.

Founder & CEO of RoleColorFinder. TEDx speaker. Rethinking how leaders lead under pressure and how schools prepare people for the real world.

FounderRoleColorFinder — behavioral leadership, US & India
SpeakerTEDxThiagarajar College of Engineering · Aug 2026
Based inGreenwich, Connecticut
Hello

I'm Sanjay Divakar. I grew up between Chennai, Dubai, and Greenwich, Connecticut, and every move taught me the same lesson: the systems around us were designed by someone, and they can be redesigned. Today I run RoleColorFinder, a behavioral leadership platform used by teams in the US and India. I also speak about why the way we measure people, at work and in school, is overdue for a rewrite.

Featured talk · TEDxThiagarajar College of Engineering

“Somebody Wrote the Grading Scale. It Wasn't You.”

As seen at TEDxThirdWard TEDxThiagarajar College of Engineering

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About

Three cities. One question: who decided it had to be this way?

I was born in Chennai, spent formative years in Dubai, and now live in Greenwich, Connecticut. Moving between three very different cultures meant constantly learning new rules: how classrooms worked, how people earned respect, what "success" was supposed to look like. Somewhere along the way I noticed that most of those rules weren't laws of nature. Someone wrote them.

That question became the thread through everything I do. At RoleColorFinder, it's about how teams work. Most leadership tools describe who you are on a calm day. I wanted to measure what happens under pressure, when people drift out of the roles they're best at and the whole team pays for it. I call that cost the Behavioral Tax.

In education, it's about how we grade, sort, and prepare young people. I've spoken about it on TEDx stages in the US and India, and I keep pushing the same idea: the future of schools starts with letting go of the parts that no longer serve students.

What I'm working on now
→Scaling RoleColorFinder across the US and India, including our first India partnerships →Speaking on leadership and education reform
How I think
1Measure people under pressure, not at rest.That's where the real behavior shows up.
2Every system was designed by someone.That means it can be redesigned.
3Build the proof, don't just argue the point.Ideas earn credibility when they work in the real world.

Bios

Short bio~50 words

Sanjay Divakar is the Founder & CEO of RoleColorFinder, a behavioral leadership platform that helps organizations reduce the Behavioral Tax: the cost of role misalignment under pressure. A multi-time TEDx speaker raised across Chennai, Dubai, and Greenwich, he speaks on leadership and on rethinking how schools measure and prepare students.

Long bio~150 words

Sanjay Divakar is the Founder & CEO of RoleColorFinder (RCF), a behavioral leadership assessment platform with headquarters in Greenwich, Connecticut and operations in Chennai, India. RCF's Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue framework measures how people actually behave under pressure, helping organizations reduce what Sanjay calls the Behavioral Tax: the hidden cost of people drifting out of their best roles when stakes are high. Unlike static personality tools, RCF focuses on alignment between people, roles, and pressure.

Sanjay leads a distributed team across the US, Canada, and India, and is expanding RCF through partnerships in India. He is a multi-time TEDx speaker whose talks include "The Future of Schools Starts with Letting Go" (TEDxThirdWard, Houston) and "Somebody Wrote the Grading Scale. It Wasn't You" (TEDxThiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai). Raised across Chennai, Dubai, and Greenwich, he draws on a third-culture perspective to challenge how institutions measure people.

Ventures

What I'm building, and what I learned building it.

Now · Founder & CEO

RoleColorFinder

RoleColorFinder measures how leaders and teams behave under pressure, so organizations can stop paying the Behavioral Tax.

The problem

Most leadership assessments capture who you are on a calm Tuesday. But teams don't break on calm Tuesdays. They break under deadlines, conflict, and change, when people drift out of the roles they do best. That drift has a cost in missed decisions, burnout, and turnover. I call it the Behavioral Tax.

Why it's different

DISC and MBTI describe personality at rest. RCF measures alignment under pressure, and ties it to the roles a team actually needs filled.

The approach · four roles
RedThe MotivatorEnergizes people and drives momentum.
YellowThe ExecutorTurns plans into results.
GreenThe ArchitectBuilds the systems and structure.
BlueThe VisionarySees where things need to go.

The Behavioral Alignment Score then shows where a person's natural role and their actual role under pressure line up, and where they don't.

Where it's going

Headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, with operations in Chennai, India.

Visit RoleColorFinder →
Speaking

Talks that question the rules we inherited.

I speak to conferences, schools, and leadership teams about what happens to people under pressure, and why so many of the systems we use to measure them were never designed with them in mind. Every talk is built for the room, and every audience leaves with something they can use on Monday.

TEDx talks
Somebody Wrote the Grading Scale. It Wasn't You TEDxThiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai Aug 28, 2026Watch →
The Future of Schools Starts with Letting Go TEDxThirdWard, Houston Jun 14, 2026Watch →
Signature talks
01 · Leadership teams, HR, conferences The Behavioral Tax: What Your Team Pays When Pressure Hits Why great people underperform in the wrong roles, how to spot role drift before it costs you, and the four roles every high-performing team needs.
02 · Education conferences, schools, parents Somebody Wrote the Grading Scale The systems that judge students were designed by people, for reasons that may no longer hold. What it looks like to redesign them around how people actually learn.
03 · Youth, entrepreneurship, global Building Across Borders Lessons from growing up across Chennai, Dubai, and Greenwich, and from building a company with a team spread across three countries.
Formats Keynote (20–45 min) Fireside chat Panel Workshop (RoleColorFinder team session) Virtual
Booking

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Writing

Thinking out loud.

Essays on leadership, education, and building things across borders. New pieces go to subscribers first.

Big ideas
The Behavioral Tax Every team pays a hidden cost when people drift out of their best roles under pressure. You can't see it on a balance sheet, but you can see it in missed deadlines, quiet burnout, and good people leaving.
Letting go Schools keep adding: more tests, more requirements, more rankings. The bigger opportunity is subtraction, letting go of the parts that measure compliance instead of growth.
Who wrote the rules? Grading scales, job titles, org charts. Each was designed by someone, for a reason, at a moment in time. Asking who wrote a rule is the first step to rewriting it.
Coming soon
What three countries taught me about how people earn respect
Why I shut down a startup to focus on one
Personality tests describe you at rest. Your team needs you under pressure.
Running a company across three time zones: what actually works
The grade I'd give the grading system

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Press

Press and recognition.

For media inquiries, interviews, and podcast bookings, everything you need is below. For anything else, reach out through the press contact.

Press kit

Short and long bios, high-resolution headshots, the RoleColorFinder logo and one-pager, and approved talk descriptions.

Stages and programs
TEDxThiagarajar College of EngineeringMadurai, India
TEDxThirdWardHouston, Texas
Contact

Let's talk.

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Emailsanjay@sanjaydivakar.comSpeaking, press, RoleColorFinder, or anything else.
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