The Elephant in the Room

Kavneet Dasra Shownotes: In my second innings I have been intentional about working with the third sector. Through The Elephant in the Room, I am able to engage vicariously with the sector without being a part of it. To some extent I have been able deepen my understanding and engagement with the sector through PRADAN where I truly believe there is an alignment between my passion and their purpose....

Shownotes Nelson Mandela famously said, “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does”. There are examples the world over whether it is Cricket, Football, Athletics, Tennis ……. It brings together fans and inspires current and future generations. However, like the rest of our society and business raci...

Shownotes On The Elephant in the Room podcast it has been my endeavour to spotlight leaders from the global majority. I recently had the privilege to speak with Taisha Nurse, Global Senior Director, Diversity Equity and Inclusion at McDermott. As a senior HR practitioner she has been responsible for building Centre’s of Excellence across multiple geographies before moving to her current role in 20...

Shownotes:  People recruit people from the industry, but also people who look like them, behave like them, are from a similar background, use a similar language... Would you agree?  If this is the reality, the question is how important is inclusive recruitment for the PR industry or businesses in general? And what does 'inclusive' recruitment actually mean? What can organisations do to b...

Shownotes The Elephant in the Room podcast was in hibernation in December and January. We are back this week with our first episode of the year with the indomitable Ritika Wadhwa. Ritika Wadhwa is a strategic advisory board member for British Transport Police, is a Fellow at the Society of Leadership Fellows, Windsor Castle, a Board Director and Trustee of the 5% club. But, above all of that she i...

Shownotes:  I talk a lot about women, mothers/carers, mid-career professionals, and leadership. Of course, these are intersecting identities that coalesce at different points in life to create additional barriers for working women. We are not even talking about race, disability, ethnicity, ageism etc. And I talk about these issues because I was squeezed out of what I thought should have been...

R7HlirRiUQqzThp7cBa8 Shownotes:  A couple of months back I spoke with Marcia La Rose, Group People and Diversity Director, Four Agency Worldwide. Her story is uplifting - she has been at the agency for over 2 decades with over a decade in leadership roles and has been heavily involved in the agency’s acquisition of B-Corp status.  In our freewheeling conversation we spoke about her journ...

SHOWNOTES: How does context help up define and be comfortable with who we are?  In a recent conversation with Akin Thomas we spoke the role of context and how it helps us define our identity. We also spoke about his entrepreneurial streak, how the Johnson and Johnson credo inspired him to define it for his business. In this very thought provoking and sometimes difficult conversation we also s...

Shownotes I recently spoke with Kirsty Leighton Founder and Managing Partner of award winning consultancy Milk & Honey PR, the highest scoring B Corp global communications agency in the world. As someone who speaks so much about purpose, it is always a great learning opportunity for me to engage with people/founders who believe in the power of purpose.  In this freewheeling chat with Kirs...

Shownotes A while ago I invited Samantha Ndiwalana, a Senior Researcher at World Benchmarking Alliance to talk about the pivotal role of the private sector in meeting the SDGs. The WBA maps 2000 of the worlds most influential companies. The influence is staggering, the companies have over $36.5 trillion in revenue and employ more than 97 million people across 85 countries.  How are these...

Shownotes:  As a podcast host I meet so many inspiring people - I recently met with Neha Arora, who quit her job after working for nearly a decade in the private sector to set up Planet Abled (2016) with a vision to make travel/tourism accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities. Today, Planet Abled has grown to become a destination developer and ecosystem enabler.  Her busines...

Shownotes After the initial high of 2020/21 DEIB/A or whatever you would like to call it, is facing rough going - budgets are being cut, dedicated DEI staff are being sacked or are leaving in droves. Organisations are using the cost of living crisis and economic slowdown as an excuse which doesn’t really make sense - are they easily expendable? What has not helped is that people have mistaken the...

Shownotes What does it mean for a business to be Carbon Neutral? Did you know that the buildings businesses inhabit can sometimes have the highest impact on their carbon footprint?  When businesses set ambitions to be Net Zero, what are the steps they take to get there? Does taking positive climate action mean sacrificing growth? According to @Serbjeet Kohli Sustainability Practice Lead at St...

Shownotes I don’t have to be a crystal gazer to say that w e have a long way to go before we achieve gender equality and even longer before we get to gender equity. This is not something unique to one part of the world, this is a reality across geographies in developed and developing countries. After decades of advocacy the only thing we can say with certainty is that there is too much talk, and v...

Shownotes In the midst of all the doom and gloom, here is a heart warming story and wonderful initiative that taps into the ‘kindness bone’ of people. My guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast this week is Shishir Joshi, a veteran journalist and the Founder and Chief Executive of the award-winning not-for-profit Project Mumbai (www.projectmumbai.org) a public trust striving for social transform...

Shownotes:  I think it is safe to say that 2023 has brought climate consciousness to more people than ever before. Extreme climate events across the world - forest fires, extreme heat, intense droughts, flooding, melting polar ice, changes in the weather pattern, rising air pollution, declining biodiversity have made it difficult for us to ignore climate realities - climate change is for real...

I can never say this enough - hosting my own podcast means I have had the privilege to meet so many wonderful people, some of whom have gone on to become friends and trusted advisors. My first meeting with Seetha Rani KP was last year when running a workshop for NASSCOM senior industry leaders in Bengaluru, we connected over our lived experiences (and we were both wearing green).  She shared...

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 y...

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 di...

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,...

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 e...

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 Ac...

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 wor...

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 Centr...

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 bott...