South Asian Trailblazers

In this episode, Simi welcomed Adi Raval to the pod. Adi currently serves as Head of Communications for Shield AI, a venture-backed AI company that serves the national security industry.  Adi's work in comms has spanned some of the best and brightest teams in the world: he served as Head of Communications for TaskRabbit, which was acquired by Ikea. He led global media relations at the Bechtel...

Sheel Mohnot is a serial entrepreneur, fintech investor, and acquired podcaster — so naturally this was quite the conversation for Simi. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon and University of Michigan, Sheel was formerly a General Partner with the the FinTech Fund at 500 Startups. More recently, he co-founded Better Tomorrow Ventures, a fund leading pre-seed and seed rounds in financial technology compan...

In quite the role reversal for Anita Kumar ,  Simi interviews the White House Correspondent and Associate Editor at POLITICO. An expert on the institution of the presidency, Anita Kumar is currently covering her third president, Joe Biden, following eight years reporting on Donald Trump and Barack Obama. Prior to moving to POLITICO in 2019, she covered the White House for McClatchy’s, one of the c...

Rabia Chaudry is an attorney, advocate, and author of the New York Times bestselling book "Adnan's Story.”   Her book follows the story of Adnan Syed, a very close friend of Rabia’s who was convicted for murder in 2000. His story and the plot holes revealed in the world-renowned podcast, Serial , which garnered national attention. But what many people don’t know was that it was Rabia who...

Simi welcomes Hitha Palepu to the pod. Hitha is the definition of a multi-hypenate -- an entrepreneur, investor, writer, and speaker. With a background in pharma, she currently serves as CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals. Rhoshan Pharma is an early stage life sciences company creating enhanced versions of existing drugs to provide essential early treatment to the acute leading causes of death. Hitha...

Simi opens the season with Rinki Sethi , the Chief Information Security Officer at Twitter. Rinki’s hiring at Twitter was a watershed moment. Not only because she's trailblazer as a South Asian women holding traditionally male-dominated position, but also because she  joined the team after the platform suffered a major hack in July 2020. The Twitter crypto scam compromised the accounts of fig...

Subramanian Raja Krishnamoorthi is an American businessman and politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district since 2017.  The Congressman is a member of the Democratic Party and serves on the House Oversight Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He is also Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer...

Simi Shah catches up with Deepa Subramaniam , the first-ever Chief Product and Digital Officer for the ACLU. Deepa began her career at Adobe, where she spent a formative decade. She then transitioned to world of non-profits and politics. leading product at charity: water , a non-profit that provides clean water to populations in the developing world and on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campa...

Simi speaks to Priya Krishna , contributing food writer for the New York Times , the New Yorker , and other prominent news outlets.  Priya Krishna is a trailblazers in the world of food media. She’s the author of two cookbooks, Indian-ish , one of the top cookbooks of 2019, and also Ultimate Dining Hall Hacks , a college-themed cookbook. Priya’s also a YouTube personality, known for fashioning her...

Simi sits down with S. Mitra Kalita. Mitra is a media veteran who currently serves as Senior Vice President at CNN Digital . Mitra has served as Managing Editor of the LA Times , Executive Director of Quartz , and Founding Editor of Mint , an Indian newspaper. Under her stewardship, the LA Times won a Pulitzer Prize. While at Quartz , she oversaw the launch of Quartz India and Africa . She also sp...

Simi catches up with Arianna Afsar. Arianna is best known for her starring role as Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in the Chicago production of Hamilton . But Ari has had a stage presence all her life. She won the title of Miss California in 2010 and competed in American Idol as a high schooler. She went on to pursue musical theater via Hamilton and her latest project, Jeannette , an original musical...

In Episode 5, Simi welcomes Rooshy Roy to Trailblazers. Rooshy is Co-founder and CEO of Aavrani. Aavrani is a premium skincare brand for women, inspired by ancient Indian beauty traditions and rituals. She co-founded Aavrani in 2017 while at Wharton, after spending a number of years in finance. To date, the company has raised upwards of $2 million in funding. In the last several months, she not on...

Nandini Jammi , brand safety expert and digital advertising activist, visits the pod. In 2016, she co-founded Sleeping Giants , a social media campaign that alerts companies about how their ad placements might fund hate speech. Within one year, the campaign's efforts resulted in a 90 percent drop in Breitbart News’ ad revenue. Since then, she has led campaigns that have convinced advertisers...

Simi catches up with Sujata Day , actress-model-screenwriter-director extraordinaire. She is best known for her starring role as CeCe in Issa Rae’s series, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and her role on HBO’s Insecure . Over the course of her career, she’s appeared in an array of TV shows from Greek to The Secret Life of the American Teenager . In 2017, she produced and sold a short film...

Simi sits down with Sarina Siddhanti and Arian Agrawal, co-founders of Riya Collective. Riya Collective is a YC-backed social shopping platform where customers can buy and consign clothing and goods from around the world, starting with Desi products. Riya Collective has been featured in Vogue and has raised $2.2 million to date.  Sarina and Arian are college classmates turned serial entrepreneurs...

In our inaugural episode, Simi catches up with Sopan Deb , a journalist for the New York Times . Previously, he covered Donald Trump's presidential campaign for CBS . His work has appeared on The Boston Globe , Al Jazeera, NBC News , and other prominent news outlets. Sopan recently published his first book, Missed Translations: Meeting The Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me , which recounts a po...

Welcome to Trailblazers! In this trailer, we introduce our new podcast. Trailblazers dives deep into the journeys of trailblazing South Asians, sharing the stories of the leaders and dreamers lighting the way across the Diaspora and beyond.   South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAs...