Shownotes:  According to the Social Mobility Commission Report from last year only 35% of adults in the UK believe that everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their hard work will take them and 46% said that where you end up in society is mainly determined by your background and who your parents were. It is hard to disagree with what the commission has to say. But, every once in a while you hear stories of people who make it despite the challenges, the hurdles that they may have faced in...

Shownotes Most of the narrative around climate change, net zero, SDGs is framed from a global north perspective. Most of the studies (90% or more) on climate change are by academics and institutions based in the global north - primarily North America, Europe and Australia. Ironically the countries that have contributed most to global warming. Not only is there a lack of diversity in the current discourse but crucially there is a missing perspective from some of the poorest regions of the...

Shownotes:  The angst associated with the imposter syndrome is something that a lot of us have felt or continue to feel at various points of our life.  This angst is different to the fear that comes with not being a ‘culture fit’. For decades organisations have weaponised ‘culture fit’ to exclude those who do not conform to the dominant cultural norms in a workplace. The global majority, the neurodiverse, people with disabilities or those on the margins tend to be punished for being...

Shownotes: TRIGGER WARNING:  I have mental fatigue because I live between two countries, I feel unsettled, cannot plan too far into the future and there is a constant sense of restlessness, a journey not completed……..But, all of this I do out of choice (difficult though it may be). This is not about me but about perspective. Most of us cannot even being to fathom the personal cost, the emotional and mental stress, the economic, social, physical cost of a never ending war forced upon peaceful...

According to a Deloitte Report from last year, “The UK has one of the poorest rates of social mobility in the developed world. This means that people born into low-income families, regardless of their talent, or their hard work, do not have the same access to opportunities as those born into more privileged circumstances”.  Charities like The National Tutoring Programme, the National Access programme, the Sutton Trust, The Social Mobility Foundation, Career Ready, UpReach are working hard to...

Shownotes Not all Asians have the same stories and experiences. My guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast this week Farzana Baduel, a successful entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Curzon PR was inspired by her mother and her aunts who ran their own successful businesses in Pakistan. She also considers her identity as a British Asian to be her strength, something that has helped her straddle two worlds.  In the episode we spoke about her entrepreneurial journey, setting up multiple...

Shownotes:  One of the best things about hosting my podcast is that I get to spotlight some incredible people from across the world, especially people from previously underrepresented groups and communities. A couple of weeks back I spoke with @Leela Stake, Global Lead FH4Inclusion, Co-Lead True MOSAIC DE&I Practice. Out side of work she is Vice Chair of the Board of Stanford’s Haas Centre for Public Service.  In the course of our conversation we spoke about her influences, childhood, her...

In November 2021 Indian announced its updated NDC - to achieve net zero carbon emission by 2070. And to meet 50% of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources by 2030. This was a bold and significant moment not just for India, but for the fight against climate change.   India is the third largest emitter of CO2 in the world, though CO2 emissions per person put it near the bottom of the world’s emitters. The numbers are lower still if historical emissions (per person) are...

Draft Questions: Everybody wants to talk about fintech - apparently it is the new normal. I recently learnt that a staggering 95% of the founders of the FinTech 50 list are male. Not difficult to do the math here - it means women founders make an abysmal 5%. An International Monetary Fund Report from Dec 2022 - Digital Gender Gap, says that women represent less than 13 percent of leadership - both as founders and members of executive boards of fintech firms. Women’s representation in...

It has not been long since the PR/Comms Industry started to be conscious about the impact of inherent racism, prejudice and discrimination on employees from black, and ethnic minority groups. Moving from talk to taking action for change has been painfully slow. It is important to acknowledge that organisations in the industry are at different stages of the journey. Some have been quicker to authentically address issues to reflect their values and also recognise it as a business resilience and...

Shownotes 36 %: No of women employees In the Indian tech sector (the biggest employer by far) 51%: Women entry level recruits 🤩🤩🤩 25%: Women in managerial positions 😕☹️ (how bad or unsupportive does the culture need to be to get educated women to leave) 1% : Women in the C-Suite 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️ (This cannot happen without entrenched and systemic biases) The statistics are so predictable it is almost boring. We have seen similar statistics in other markets, markets that are supposed to have...

Shownotes:  India was ranked 121 out of 163 countries in the 2022 Global Index of SDGs. It has also been identified as a global hotspot by the IPCC in terms of geographical and socio-economic vulnerabilities. In 2023 India is expected to become the most populous country in the world. As a rapidly growing economy with decades of infrastructure growth ahead of it, India’s energy demand and emissions are projected to double if not triple by 2050. Then there is the all important commitment the...

Shownotes: According to a report from last year by a leading consulting firm - compared with the other developed countries, the most disadvantaged in the UK are less likely to climb the income ladder and economically advantaged tend to stay at the top. No surprise there… It is no secret that, the on going impact of the pandemic, cost of living crisis, economic recession and global uncertainty has pushed more households and therefore young people into poverty. For young people from...

Shownotes:  👉🏾 How many of you know that Africa is home to approximately one third of the world’s languages?  👉🏾 That there are at least 75 languages in Africa which have more than one million speakers 👉🏾 That it has a combined landmass of China, US, India, Japan and much of Europe (11.7 million sq mi)?  👉🏾 Considering its size, demographic dividend, economic potential, achievements , we know that it does not have the voice or representation that it deserves on all matters, including climate...

WARNING: THE INFORMATION BELOW MAY BE TRIGGERING 1.64 lakhs, a daily average of 450 or 18 per hour….. That is the number of deaths due to suicides in India in 2021 The statistics for death by suicide amongst young people is worse. Not surprising then that this is the third leading cause of death amongst young adults and a significant problem amongst college students in India.  Mental health can bye impacted due to a myriad of factor amongst young people. The two big issues that stand out are...

Shownotes:  What is it like to be brought up in a conservative, small town where girls are groomed from their childhood to just be good daughters, wives and mothers?  For the 85th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast I spoke with Tehseen Zaidi, Head Communications, Syngenta India. Growing up in a small town in UP, Tehseen was unlike her peers, she was opinionated and spoke her mind. She was influenced and supported in large measure by her father (her role model) who believed in...

Shownotes:  In the 84th Episode of The Elephant in the Room Podcast, I spoke with Dhruvi Shah, Executive Trustee and CEO of Axis Bank Foundation about her journey as a banker and transitioning to working for the foundation. In the episode we talked about the work being done by Axis Bank Foundation in the ‘sustainable livelihoods’ in rural India, priorities for the Foundation, the state of the social sector in India. We also chatted about 👇🏾👇🏾   👉🏾 The importance of taking into account the...

Shownotes:  Racism/casteism comes in various forms across the world, sometimes it is overt and sometimes it is coded. In either form it negatively impacts the life and life chances of millions of people who move to a different country to seek a better or more stable future. Sometimes it can break people and other times it makes them more resilient and more determined.   Did you know that Sweden is a country where every fourth resident(24.9) has a foreign background and every third (32.3) has...

At the first PRCA EIAC Conference in September this year, Kantar launched its 2022 Inclusion Index. The Inclusion Index covers 24 industries across 14 countries and 18000 respondents. For Kantar a key purpose of the report, is to enable organisations to understand, measure and track and their own progress in developing an inclusive workplaces. Interestingly, there is data from key markets and geographies - so it is easier to figure out progress or lack of in markets.  A shocking but not...

Shownotes: We all know that countries and cultures are not monolithic and homogeneous. That when we speak about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), we are at different points in our journey; sensitivity and awareness levels may wildly differ from country to country within a region or a continent. So, the drivers for DEI will differ from one geography to another. For practitioners to not force fit HQ policies in local markets, a level of cultural intelligence is critical to understanding...

Shownotes For the 80th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast, I met with the amazing Sheeraz Gulsher, one of the co-Founders of People Like Us. People Like Us is an award winning not-for-profit that celebrates and supports media, marketing and communications professionals from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and minorities ethnic backgrounds.  According to the website they are also working towards building a fairer workplace through equitable pay. A couple of weeks ago I met with Sheeraz to...

Shownotes In several episodes of The Elephant in the Room podcast I have spoken with CEOs, academics, influencers on what leadership means. This is a part of my own quest to understand leaders and leadership by listening to others and to redefine it through the lens of my own experience.  In this episode of the podcast I speak with @Dave Guerra the author of best seller ‘Super Performance’, a transformist and a proponent of servant leadership.  In this freewheeling conversation we spoke...

78: Rich world view, poor Adivasi: Status of Adivasi Livelihoods Report: Dibyendu Chaudhuri and Parijat Ghosh, PRADAN: “I would say that this report presents a contradictory picture, which is probably a feature of this report. And this contradiction is about rich Adivasi and poor Adivasi. Rich Adivasi in terms of their world view and cultural practices, but poor Adivasi in terms of the deprivation” The 78th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast, is a follow up episode, on the first...

Shownotes My guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast this week took the path less trodden. After a BA in History from Yale and an MBA from Judge Business School - she didn’t follow the path of her peers to investment banking but decided to pursue a career in the social sector in spite of the disapproval of family and friends.  Rachita Vora is co-founder of India Development Review. India Development Review (IDR) is India’s first and largest independent media platform for the development...

76: Building a clean label brand - the highs and lows of being a female entrepreneur: Anusha Bhushan, CEO and Co-Founder, Smoodies: "And it is really hard, I think, especially when imposter syndrome sort of plays on your mind saying, do I deserve to be so audacious with my dreams. And actually, for some time, I think I used to say the right thing, so I used to say that I'm playing a go big strategy, but when it came to actually making decisions, I would take a slightly safer route. And in...