The Elephant in the Room

A conversation with Saleem Khan, British Asian Trust on responding to the pandemic in India: It is difficult to forget the harrowing stories/scenes of patients dying for lack of oxygen in India earlier this year, when it was ravaged by the pandemic. A BBC report called it 'A nightmare on repeat'. It was heartening however, to see governments and businesses the world over step up to support India d...

Shownotes:  Sumita Ghose my guest on this episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast is the founder of Rangsutra - a social enterprise working with artisans in rural India. A Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship for Leadership, Ghose set up Rangsutra with a goal of bringing about socio-economic development and inclusive growth to rural India by engaging both the co...

The Elephant in the podcast is now 40 episodes old/young, I am not fussed💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽 For the 40th episode I had a quick catch up with Kavita Lakhani, about the first edition of the 'I Lead' survey by WICCI PR & Digital Marketing Council & IIM Kozhikode. The survey which had over a 1000 respondents from across India, looks at the barriers women face as they move up the career ladder; progr...

Shownotes:  Indigenous people make up 8.6% of the Indian population i.e. a staggering 104 million people (give or take) but they continue to live on the fringes of society and development.  In terms of scale only 13 countries in the world have a population over 100 million .  In India, they are known as Adivasis (or the earliest inhabitants of the continent), they are not a part of...

Shownote 'Performance Vocabulary' is it just jargon? Or does it serve a purpose? The pandemic has forever transformed how we live and work, it has already thrown out of the window traditional wisdom that workers need to be in the workplace to be productive. The only certainty in today's world is the uncertainty. In this uncertain environment, businesses are having to rethink ways to being abl...

Reams have been written about how Facebook's grand plan to connect millions of Indians to the internet went horribly wrong and they faced one of their biggest setbacks ever. You would expect that a company of that size would know better than to trip on poor understanding of local culture and aspirations. As someone who started my working life in India, I have lost count of the number of times...

Major fan girl/woman moment, last week when I met the incredibly inspiring Ekpehdeme 'Pamay' Bassey to interview her for The Elephant in the Room podcast 💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽 I have been stalking her for a while now on LinkedIn, after reading her book 'My 52 Weeks of Worship'. The book really resonated with me - it helped me move forward at a difficult time.  In this episode we speak about her backgr...

SHOWNOTES My guest for the 35th episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast is Ruby Raut co-founder and CEO of WUKA. Founded in 2017, WUKA is a female-led start up, making the UK’s first ever reusable and leak-proof period wear. The business idea came to her while studying environmental science and learning that 200,000 tonnes of tampons and pads end up in landfills in the UK.  WUKA stands fo...

Shownotes:  My guest on this episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast is Alexandra Evreinoff, Managing Director at Involve a global network and consultancy championing diversity and inclusion in business since 2013.  We spoke about role models and why it is important to see people like ourselves succeeding in the workplace. Involve publishes several annual role model lists recognising...

Shownotes So, age and ageism. Where do I start? Recognition of the issue comes I guess with lived experience and empathy. I truly believe that the intersectionality of my age and ethnicity were a barrier to my progress in the industry here in the UK. 6 years back when I was making my way back into the country after a longish stint abroad - I don't believe there were women who looked like me a...

Shownotes:  Nicky Merrick my guest on this episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast is the owner of a small business Pink Giraffe, a podcast host, blogger and a speaker. She is also a disability advocate and wheelchair warrior (I quote from her LI bio) creating awareness about how small businesses can be disability inclusive. Since she started the business, Pink Giraffe has pivoted a numbe...

Shownotes: We all know that diaspora communities maintain and nurture their culture differently to people in their home country. They feel the need to foster their personal cultural identity but are also under enormous pressure to assimilate in their adopted countries. For societies to be inclusive and flourish - this is essential. But, for the diaspora more often than not this means hiding some p...

Shownotes:  We are on our 30th episode. Yayayay 💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽  In this episode I speak with Laura Sutherland about PRFest 2021. PRFest 2021 is spread across 5 days, 15 sessions (across platforms) and has a brilliant line up of 29 speakers. The focus this year is on the sustainability of the PR industry and will include conversations on society, planet, future of work, corporate social inn...

Shownotes:  Pregnancy and motherhood for older women is the proverbial 'elephant in the room' in all societies but more so in cultures, where deep rooted patriarchal socio-cultural practices mean what women are supposed to be a married at a certain become mothers by a certain age.  My guest Manjari Thakur Gohil, my guest in the 29th episode is a regular trooper, she gave up a successful...

Shownotes Most of us have seen harrowing images in the media of the havoc wrought by the second wave of the pandemic in India and have heard stories of helpless and desperation from family and friends. The missing piece in this conversation is the impact on rural India - which constitutes above 65% of India.  In today's episode I speak with Narendranath Damodaran, Executive Director of PRADAN...

Shownotes My guest for the 27th episode of the podcast is Maya Sadasivan, a friend I have known for over three decades. A fortnight ago when I mooted the idea of creating a space for women in our network she didn't hesitate for a second. She stepped in, offering to facilitate the WellBeing+sessions, carving out time from her intensely busy work schedule. We recorded the WellBeing+ Mantra sess...

Shownotes: This week on the The Elephant in the Room podcast I spoke with Yves Veulliet, Global Disability & Inclusion Leader at IBM. In this episode he talks about his book ‘Turning Point – The fall and rise’, the psychological consequences of acquiring a disability and its impact on his personal and professional life and strategies to make other people including employers, disability co...

Shownotes: "According to the World Health Organisation over a billion people, around the world have some form of disability. And with an ageing population it's estimated that more than 2 billion people will need at least one assistive communication or memory or hearing aid over the next 10 years. And here in the UK, it's expected that around 20% of the population will experience communication diff...

Shownotes For this episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast I had the pleasure of speaking with two stalwarts of the Indian PR and communications Industry Kavita Lakhani and Radha Radhakrishnan. Aside from being great leaders they are also great human beings. In this freewheeling conversation they share their own story; their perspectives on state of the industry; women in leadership, WICCI PR...

Show Notes:  I don't want to brag but in two weeks we will be 25 episodes old. So, I would like to thank my wonderful guests and listeners across the world for their unstinting support. The Elephant in the Room podcast is my continuous listening and learning project so I am pleased to say that it can be yours too - It is available on CIPR CPD Happy coincidence that today is Earth day and this...

Shownotes:  The past year has been brutal for women and gender equality - it has severely set back progress made in the last decade. And it is acknowledged that governments and the private sector will have to work twice as hard to reverse the trend. My guest this week Shamistha Selvaratnam speaks about the need for transformative change to achieve gender equality. She stresses on the need for...

Shownotes Reams have been written in the recent past about the future of work. But, long before COVID upended beliefs on WFH and remote working, Hoxby founded in 2015 had a vision to create a world of work without bias; without the barriers to inclusivity created by the 9-5, one size fits all system. Today, this hugely successful social experiment has a workforce of over 1000 people spread across...

For everyone working to tackle issues around inequality and racism it has been a frustrating week so the long Easter weekend is just what we need to recharge and renew our faith in what we do.   The proverbial ray of sunshine today was listening to Dr Doyin Atewologun in the 20th episode (yay 20 already) of The Elephant in the Room podcast.  She has a long list of accomplishments to her...

Dr Bola Olabisi my guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast is the founder of the Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network. She set it up in 1998 in recognition of the challenges that women face in bringing commercially viable products to market. Over the past two decades she has worked tirelessly to spotlight inventors and innovators across the world. I was lucky to be a part of her journey...

Shownotes An FT reviewer described the book as having ‘the most refreshing approach to diversity…. So, when Pooja Sachdev co-author of ' Rewire: A Radical Approach to Tackling Diversity and Difference ' agreed to be a guest I had a long list of questions for her. It was essential reading for the programme I did at INSEAD on gender diversity and I was fascinated with the essential premise behind th...