Terms of Use

Terms of Use

The Huddle Institute

Effective Date: 19/10/2026 | Website: www.thehuddleinstitute.com

1. Introduction and Acceptance of Terms

Welcome to www.thehuddleinstitute.com (the "Site"), operated by Rahul Nair Consulting (OPC) Private Limited, doing business as The Huddle Institute ("THI," "The Huddle Institute," "we," "us," or "our").

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Site, our online curriculum of on-demand lecture series, structured modules, downloadable frameworks, and live workshops and member research briefings (the "Digital Library"), and our one-on-one Private Executive and Creative Advisory (the "Private Advisory," and together with the Digital Library, the "Services").

By accessing or using the Site or Services, creating an account, purchasing a Digital Library subscription, or executing an advisory mandate, you agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated herein by reference. If you do not agree, do not access or use the Site or Services.

These Terms apply to all visitors, registered members, and advisory clients (each, a "User" or "you"), regardless of jurisdiction. Section 12 governs our public educational content and social channels, which operate outside our contracted commercial Services.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years of age and possess the legal capacity to execute a binding contract in your jurisdiction to use the Services. By accessing the Services, you represent and warrant that you satisfy these requirements.

If you access the Services on behalf of an enterprise, corporate entity, studio, network, or institution (for example, where an enterprise or board funds your advisory engagement), you represent that you possess the requisite authority to bind that organisation to these Terms.

3. Description of Services

3.1 Digital Library Membership

We provide digital access to the Digital Library, an educational curriculum covering behavioural science, systems dynamics, applied philosophy, and contemplative inquiry through pre-recorded, self-paced lecture series and structured modules, downloadable frameworks and notes, and live workshops and member research briefings, accessed via paid subscription. A subscription grants a revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access Digital Library content for personal, non-commercial educational use for as long as your subscription remains active, subject to Section 7.

Live workshops and member research briefings may be recorded to enable on-demand replay access for active members. By attending live sessions, you consent to the capture of your voice, video feed, and written chat contributions. If you prefer not to appear in session archives, you may disable your camera and participate under a non-identifying display name.

3.2 Private Executive & Creative Advisory

We provide dedicated one-on-one strategic, executive, and creative advisory ("Private Advisory"), focused on organisational architecture, systems dynamics, governance clarity, and sovereign decision-making for founders, chief executives, and creative principals.

Advisory engagements are structured as dedicated 90-day quarterly mandates, delivered virtually and/or in person as agreed. Each mandate is governed by its own engagement letter (the “Engagement Letter”) and Mutual Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality Agreement (the “MNDA”), which set out its scope, cadence, between-session access, fees, confidentiality and other terms. Where these Terms and an Engagement Letter or MNDA deal with the same matter, the Engagement Letter or MNDA prevails. At the start of each mandate we also record, together with you, a working agreement on how we will work in practice (the “Working Agreement”), which supplements, and does not override, the Engagement Letter and MNDA. Online dialogues are held on Google Meet and, as set out in your MNDA, are recorded and transcribed using Gemini for record-keeping, understanding and quality; you can ask us to stop or not start recording at any time.

4. Scope of Advisory: Non-Clinical & Professional Practice

Private Advisory offered through The Huddle Institute constitutes professional, strategic, and organisational advisory counsel. It does not constitute psychotherapy, clinical psychology, medical advice, psychiatric diagnosis, or mental health treatment, and must not be used as a substitute for licensed healthcare or clinical intervention.

Neither the Site nor the Services are designed or intended for crisis intervention, mental health care, or medical diagnosis. If you are experiencing acute personal distress or require clinical mental health support, you must seek immediate assistance from a licensed medical professional or regional emergency services.

The Adviser reserves the right, at his professional discretion, to decline to initiate, to pause, or to conclude an advisory engagement if matters raised fall outside the legitimate scope of strategic, organisational, or executive advisory.

As with any professional development, educational, or strategic advisory service, we do not warrant or guarantee specific commercial, career, or reputational outcomes from your participation in the Digital Library or Private Advisory.

5. Account Registration and Security

To access the Digital Library, you must register an account. You agree to provide accurate, complete information, preserve the strict confidentiality of your credentials, and notify us immediately of any unauthorised account activity. You are responsible for all actions occurring under your registered profile.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that breach these Terms or exhibit abusive, pooled, or unauthorised usage.

6. Fees, Billing, and Cancellation

6.1 Digital Library Subscriptions & Refunds

Subscription fees are displayed on the Site at the time of purchase and billed in advance according to the selected cycle (e.g., monthly or annual). Unless you cancel before the scheduled billing date, subscriptions renew automatically. You may cancel your subscription at any time via your account settings or by contacting support@thehuddleinstitute.com.

Cancellation and Refunds Policy:

Digital Library subscriptions (unless stated otherwise at the point of purchase) include a 14-day, no-questions-asked, 100% refund policy from the purchase date.

Refund requests submitted within this 14-day window are processed within 24 hours and credited to your original payment method within 3–5 business days.

After the initial 14-day period, you may cancel your subscription at any time to prevent future billing; however, we do not issue pro-rata refunds for remaining intervals within an active billing cycle.

Refund requests must be submitted in writing to support@thehuddleinstitute.com.

6.2 Private Advisory Engagements & Retainer Terms

Your Engagement Letter governs the retainer, invoicing, payment and refunds for Private Advisory.

In summary:

We accept up to three advisory mandates at any one time. Once you have signed the Engagement Letter and we have sent you our Wire Settlement Memo with our bank details, your place is held for five (5) working days from the date of that memo while payment is completed. Retainers are payable in full, in advance, by bank transfer only, and your mandate term begins when we receive your payment in cleared funds. Our tax invoice follows once payment is received.

Retainers are non-refundable once the mandate term has begun, except as set out in your Engagement Letter.

Dialogue rescheduling, asynchronous channels (via dedicated WhatsApp or Signal lines), and auxiliary on-site counsel terms are governed by your Engagement Letter.

Extended institutional access seats granted to an advisory client's deputy, Chief of Staff, or producing partner are tethered directly to the active advisory mandate and carry no independent refund or resale value.

6.3 Payment Processing and Taxes

Digital Library payments are processed via independent payment gateways, Razorpay and PayPal; Private Advisory retainers are paid by bank transfer only. We do not store complete payment card credentials on our servers. Transactions are subject to the terms and privacy frameworks of the respective payment processors. Displayed fees are exclusive of statutory taxes (such as GST), which are calculated and applied at settlement. GST is not charged on Private Advisory supplied to clients outside India, which is a zero-rated export.

7. Intellectual Property

7.1 Proprietary Materials & Ownership

Subject to Section 7.3, all original content, curriculum architecture, written lecture notes, bespoke syntheses, visual models, audio recordings, video lectures, and publications provided via the Site, the Digital Library, or Private Advisory—alongside the names "The Huddle Institute" and "THI", brand marks, and distinctive logos—are the proprietary intellectual property of Rahul Nair Consulting (OPC) Private Limited or its licensors, protected under applicable copyright, trademark, and intellectual property laws.

7.2 Third-Party Frameworks, Academic Research & Public Domain Traditions

The Huddle Institute frequently integrates, references, and synthesises established behavioural sciences, organisational frameworks, and contemplative traditions. We do not claim ownership over:

Third-party psychological, economic, or systems frameworks (including, without limitation, Transactional Analysis, Systems Dynamics, the Viable System Model, relational supervision and group-dynamics models, the Capabilities Approach, or mindfulness protocols such as RAIN), all of which remain the intellectual provenance of their respective originators, researchers, and institutions, and are referenced under standard educational attribution and fair-dealing principles; or

Classical philosophical and contemplative traditions (including Advaita Vedanta, Western philosophical inquiry, and related historical lineages), which reside in the public domain.

Our proprietary rights apply strictly to our original syntheses, unique pedagogical expressions, bespoke advisory models, curated inquiry instruments, and instructional recordings built upon or integrating these foundations.

7.3 Licence & Permitted Use

Your subscription grants you a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access and study Digital Library materials for your personal educational development during your active subscription term. The working artefacts we write together during an advisory mandate are yours to keep. You own the content you contribute and the completed artefacts, and you may use them freely within your own organisation. Where an organisation funds the mandate, they belong to the individual receiving the Private Advisory, who decides whether to share them with the organisation. We retain all rights in the instruments, templates, frameworks (including MERIT) and methods used to produce them, and you may not commercialise them or present them as your own. Other materials we share with you during a mandate are licensed to you on the terms of your MNDA.

You agree not to:

Record, scrape, reproduce, syndicate, or publicly broadcast Digital Library or advisory materials (other than your own working artefacts) without prior written consent;

Commercialise, sublicense, or publish derivative instructional products directly replicating The Huddle Institute’s proprietary syntheses, curricula, or models;

Share account credentials or facilitate pooled access for non-registered users.

We may implement feedback, suggestions, or strategic concepts you voluntarily submit regarding our platform without confidentiality obligations or financial compensation.

8. Acceptable Use

When accessing the Site or Services, you agree not to:

Violate applicable regional, national, or international laws;

Compromise or disrupt the security, infrastructure, or operational integrity of the Site;

Gain or attempt to gain unauthorised access to other user accounts, systems, or data;

Impersonate any individual, corporate entity, or institutional affiliation;

Transmit malicious code, viruses, or disruptive digital mechanisms;

Harass, threaten, or discriminate against other users, advisory clients, or team members on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, disability, or any protected category;

Resell, syndicate, or commercially exploit Digital Library materials or advisory frameworks without prior written authorisation.

9. User Content and Testimonials

If you voluntarily submit a testimonial, review, or public comment, you grant The Huddle Institute a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to reproduce, adapt, and publish that feedback for promotional and educational purposes, unless written confidentiality is requested at submission.

Identifiable disclosures, notes, or materials shared during private advisory engagements are strictly excluded from this clause and will never be utilised for promotional, academic, qualification or training purposes without separate, express written consent.

10. Confidentiality of Advisory Engagements

Everything shared during an advisory mandate, including dialogues (and any recordings and transcripts of them), between-session messages and materials, is held in strict confidence under the MNDA for that mandate, which sets out the full terms. In summary, disclosure is permitted only where:

You have granted express written consent;

Disclosure is required by valid statutory authority, judicial subpoena, or governmental regulation;
We reasonably believe disclosure is necessary to prevent a serious and imminent risk of harm to you or another individual;

We become aware of the abuse or exploitation of a child or a vulnerable person;

It is discussed, in anonymised form wherever practicable, with a professional supervisor bound by a duty of confidence; or

Necessary for routine administrative, tax, or legal processing under binding professional confidentiality obligations.

This confidentiality commitment is contractual in nature and does not constitute statutory attorney-client or licensed clinical privilege under applicable evidentiary codes.

Please refer to other people by role rather than by name where you can, and share only documents and information you are entitled to share. In particular, do not share material that is legally privileged or restricted by law or contract (for example, unpublished price-sensitive information) unless you have first made sure that sharing it with us is permitted.

11. Third-Party Platforms and Tools

The Services integrate with third-party software applications (e.g., payment gateways, scheduling portals, encrypted communication and video platforms). We do not exercise operational control over external platforms and bear no liability for third-party performance, security failures, or platform terms. Counsel between dialogues, delivered by voice note and written brief on messaging platforms, is not an emergency service, and highly sensitive details are better raised in a dialogue than in a message.

12. Public Educational Content & Social Channels

In addition to the Site, we publish free educational, philosophical, and reflective content across public channels, including our WhatsApp Channel (The Huddle Institute), our YouTube channel (@TheHuddleInstitute, including long-form video lectures and YouTube Shorts), our Substack blog (thehuddleinstituteblog.substack.com), and professional commentary on LinkedIn.

Accessing, following, or subscribing to these public channels is voluntary and does not establish a private advisory relationship or contractual client engagement.

Content published across these platforms is provided solely for general educational, conceptual, and contemplative purposes. It does not constitute tailored strategic counsel, executive advisory, or a substitute for professional mental health support.

Interactions on external platforms remain subject to the respective terms and privacy policies of Meta Platforms, Google LLC, Substack Inc., and LinkedIn Corporation. All original content, video lectures, visual models, and written commentary remain protected under the intellectual property provisions set out in Section 7.

13. Disclaimers

The Site and Services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis without representations or warranties of any kind, whether express, statutory, or implied — including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

Advisory dialogues and Digital Library materials reflect the professional frameworks and perspectives of The Huddle Institute and its Adviser. They do not constitute formal legal, accounting, investment, or medical advice. Counsel is offered to inform your judgement: every decision, and responsibility for its consequences, remains yours.

While we maintain high operational standards, we do not warrant that digital access will be completely uninterrupted, secure, or free from minor typographical or operational errors.

14. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, The Huddle Institute, its directors, officers, advisers, employees, and affiliates shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, commercial opportunities, enterprise value, goodwill, or operational data arising from your engagement with the Services.

Our aggregate liability arising out of or related to these Terms or the Services shall not exceed the total fees paid by you to The Huddle Institute for the specific service giving rise to liability during the twelve (12) months preceding the claim. For an advisory mandate, the liability terms of the Engagement Letter apply instead.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be disclaimed under applicable law, including liability for gross negligence, wilful misconduct, or fraud.

15. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless The Huddle Institute, its parent entity, directors, advisers, and agents from and against claims, damages, liabilities, losses, and legal costs arising out of your breach of these Terms, unauthorised exploitation of the Services, or infringement of third-party rights. For an advisory mandate, the indemnity in the MNDA applies instead of this Section.

16. Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate access to the Digital Library or cancel advisory mandates in the event of material contractual breach, non-payment, or conduct disruptive to our platform or professional standards.

You may terminate your Digital Library subscription at any time pursuant to Section 6. Provisions that by their nature survive termination — including intellectual property, confidentiality, liability limitations, indemnification, and dispute resolution — shall remain in full force.

17. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These Terms and any dispute arising from them shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles.

The parties agree to attempt in good faith to resolve any dispute through amicable negotiation for a period of thirty (30) days. Any unresolved dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services shall be referred to and finally resolved by arbitration administered under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (India). The arbitration tribunal shall consist of a sole arbitrator mutually appointed by the parties. The seat and venue of arbitration shall be Kochi, Kerala, India, and proceedings shall be conducted in the English language.

Subject to arbitration, the competent courts situated in Kochi, Kerala, India, shall possess exclusive jurisdiction over matters arising hereunder. Nothing herein restricts either party from seeking urgent injunctive relief before a competent court to safeguard intellectual property or confidential assets.

18. Amendments to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms periodically. We will post updated versions on the Site with an amended "Effective Date." We will communicate material alterations via email or site notice. Continued use of the platform following modifications constitutes acceptance of the amended Terms.

19. Entire Agreement & Severability

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any applicable Engagement Letter, MNDA and Working Agreement, constitute the entire agreement between you and The Huddle Institute regarding the Services. If any provision is deemed invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the remaining provisions shall remain fully effective. Our failure to enforce a specific right does not constitute a waiver of that right.

20. Institutional Contact

For enquiries regarding these Terms, contact:

Rahul Nair Consulting (OPC) Private Limited

Building No. 60/44, V 1997, 3rd Floor, JC Chambers, Panampilly Nagar, Ernakulam, Kochi – 682036, Kerala, India

Email: support@thehuddleinstitute.com

Website: www.thehuddleinstitute.com