South Asian Trailblazers

Simi speaks with Karan Bhagat , Founder and CEO of 360 ONE — one of India's largest wealth and asset management firms, advising nearly 9,000 of the country's top families with almost $80 billion in assets under management, including industrialists, tech founders, Bollywood stars, cricketers, and some of India's most prominent public figures. Recorded at the India Conference at Harva...

Sakshi Sindwani is one of India's most prominent curve models, content creators, and body-positivity advocates who has built a community of 700,000 women. In 2021, she became the first curve model to appear in a Manish Malhotra bridal couture campaign, and in 2026, the first Indian creator to walk the Grammys red carpet.  Recorded at the India Conference at Harvard , Simi's conversation...

Simi Shah sits down with Sid Sriram — one of the most distinct voices in global music — for a live-recorded conversation at Harvard. Born in Chennai, raised in Fremont, trained at Berklee, mentored by A.R. Rahman , Sid Sriram has spent 15+ years alchemizing Carnatic and R&B music and putting Eastern and Western music " in conversation with each other ." He was the first South Indian...

Simi speaks with Masoom Minawala — one of India's pioneering influencers. Masoom bet her career on the internet at 17, starting her fashion blog Miss Style Fiesta in 2010, a decade before the world knew what an influencer was. She became the first Indian content creator to walk at Milan Fashion Week, a fixture on the Cannes red carpet, and has collaborated with over 500 brands, including Loui...

In a first-ever live multi-founder panel from South Asian Trailblazers , Simi Shah sits with 4 South Asian beauty founders at the vanguard of South Asian-inspired beauty: Diipa Büller Khosla ( indē wild ), Rooshy Roy ( Aavrani ), Nisha Phatak ( Lion Pose ), and Lisa Mattam ( Sahajan ). The conversation was born from a single line. When Rooshy returned to Trailblazers to announce Aavrani's acq...

Simi speaks with Raj Shamani — India's #1 podcaster, ranked #25 in the world — in a special live-recorded episode in New York City. Across 540+ episodes, 15 million subscribers, 400 million annual views, the Host of Figuring Out , Raj Shamani, has interviewed Bill Gates, President of France Emmanuel Macron, Aamir Khan, MS Dhoni, MrBeast, Vijay Mallya, and several other notable figures. Raj sp...

Simi speaks with Revathi Advaithi , CEO of Flex — a $24 billion global manufacturing company that builds the critical infrastructure behind AI, cloud, healthcare, and automotive. Flex operates in 30 countries with over 140,000 employees, and under Revathi's leadership, the stock has soared from ~$7 to over $60. Revathi started her career on a factory floor in small town Shawnee, Oklahoma. She...

Simi sits down with Ananya Birla , business leader, artist, mental health advocate, and 7th-generation scion of one of India's oldest and most storied family businesses — the Aditya Birla Group . Ananya is building across more industries than most people will touch in a lifetime. At 17, she founded what is now India's second-largest microfinance institution. After dropping out of Oxford...

Simi sits down with power duo Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Anjula Acharia — like you've NEVER seen them before. In this first-of-its-kind conversation, Priyanka and Anjula — best friends and business partners of 15 years — sit down together to tell the full story of how they built one of the most extraordinary careers in global entertainment. 15 years ago, Priyanka was searching for her next cha...

AAVRANI has been acquired — and founder Rooshy Roy shares the full story for the first time on South Asian Trailblazers. Six years ago, in Season 1 (2020), Rooshy first sat down with Simi as a freshly-funded, newly-married Forbes 30 Under 30 founder building one of the first beauty brands rooted in Indian heritage. Today, she becomes the first trailblazer to ever return to the podcast — here to sh...

U.S. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08), Representative Shri Thaneda r (MI-13), and Representative Suhas Subramanyam (VA-10) join South Asian Trailblazers Host Simi Shah for a timely and wide-ranging conversation live from the Impact Summit 2025 in Washington, D.C. WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE . On this special panel concluding Season 8, we dive into: 💬 How increased political violence is shaping...

Brothers Ani and Ayan Sanyal , Co-founders of Kolkata Chai Co. , join Host Simi Shah ahead of National Chai Day for a conversation around building one of the most iconic South Asian brands in America. WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE . What started as a side hustle in 2018 is now an 8-figure empire spanning viral NYC cafés, a booming e-commerce arm, and a cult following. The Bengali-American brothers have buil...

All the way from Mumbai 🇮🇳✈️ our latest LIVE ✨podcast features Karishma Mehta: Founder & CEO of Humans of Bombay, India’s largest storytelling platform. This memorable live conversation from June 2024 is finally here.  WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE . Born and raised in Mumbai, Karishma launched Humans of Bombay at just 21. Over the past decade, she has grown it into India’s largest storytelling platfor...

Globally-acclaimed Singer, Songwriter, and Author ‪Ali Sethi sits down with South Asian Trailblazers Host Simi Shah for a deeply personal podcast conversation on the heels of his debut solo album #LoveLanguage . WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE . Born in Lahore, educated at Harvard University and currently based in New York, he studied under acclaimed mentors across musical genres before rising to internationa...

On the night his new Netflix special Full Volume hits screens, global comedy icon Vir Das sits down with South Asian Trailblazers Host Simi Shah for an unforgettable podcast live-recorded at the ‪ Asia Society of New York.  WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE . 🎧 This is Vir Das off-script — raw, real, and as per always, hilarious. Born in Dehradun, raised in Lagos, and educated everywhere from Delhi to Knox Col...

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Sandeep Acharya — Founder and CEO of Octave, a company that’s quietly but powerfully transforming how we experience mental health care in America. WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE . Under his leadership, Octave has partnered with major insurers to make high-quality, affordable therapy accessible across 23 states. It’s been named a LinkedIn Top Startup and one of the best place...

On the nostalgic grounds of their shared alma mater, Wharton, Simi speaks with Dilawar Syed, the Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) . A role he was nominated into by President Biden, Administrator Syed was the highest-ranking Muslim official in the U.S. Government at the time of this recording. WATCH IT ON YOUTUBE . Syed came to the SBA from the State Department w...

South Asian Trailblazers at the Oscars 🏆 WATCH this episode HERE . Founder & Host, Simi Shah, takes us inside a celebration of South Asian excellence at the 2025 Academy Awards. She speaks with trailblazers across generations and genres about their journeys to the hallowed halls of Hollywood. Join us for interviews with and speeches from this Oscars Pre-Party! Interviews Charithra Chandran ,...

In this special edition of South Asian Trailblazers ,  Simi Shah hosts a LIVE podcast with Gurbir S. Grewal — the Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement and former Attorney General of New Jersey — at the law offices of Morrison Foerster in New York City. WATCH this episode on YouTube. This event was proudly hosted in partnership with global law firm, Morrison Foerster and The South Asi...

In this special, LIVE-recorded edition of South Asian Trailblazers , Host Simi Shah kicks off Season 8 with Jay Sean — multi-platinum artist, entrepreneur, and record label executive. WATCH this and EVERY FUTURE episode on YouTube . South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailbl...

Happy AAPI Heritage Month from South Asian Trailblazers ! 👋🏼 In this short soundbite, I’m sharing exciting updates about events we’re hosting around the world(!) , Season 8, and our Agency. The highlights: Season 8 goes live this Fall! But we couldn’t wait to share a sneak peek with you…which is why you can enjoy our latest LIVE recording with the esteemed Gurbir S. Grewal , the Director of the...

For our Season 7 Finale, we catch up with Amol Shah from OpenAI, one of the world's leading artificial intelligence companies and the creator of ChatGPT.  Amol's career spans roles at tech giants like Facebook and TikTok, and more recently, he served as the Chief Revenue Officer for blockchain startup QuickNode. Before his foray into the tech c-suite, Amol served as the Head of the US Di...

In this episode, we meet Nishant Roy , Chief Communications and Impact Officer at Chobani . Chobani is one of the fastest-growing food companies in the world and has been a pioneer in the natural food movement for the last decade. Nishant has an incredibly variegated career to date. He began his career with distinguished service in the United States Air Force as an airman where he served with the...

In this episode, Simi welcomes our first-ever sibling founder duo: Akash and Nikita Mehta, Co-Founders of Fable & Mane . Fable & Mane is an Ayurveda-inspired hair wellness brand.  Akash is a British entrepreneur and influencer. He graduated from Imperial College London with a degree in electrical engineering. His professional journey spans roles at Burberry, Estee Lauder, and Dior, where h...

Simi speaks with the revered RAJA KUMARI. Born Svetha Rao, Raja Kumari is a Grammy-nominated, international singer, songwriter, and rapper . With over 43 million monthly Spotify streams, she has launched multiple hit singles and albums and collaborated with John Legend, AR Rahman, Iggy Azalea, and Fall Out Boy. Drawing from her Indian roots, she is trained in multiple styles of Indian dance and is...