ShowNotes

Advita Patel my guest on The Elephant in the Room Podcast is on a mission to empower women of colour in the PR Industry. A Board member of the CIPR and founder of Comms Rebel, last year she founded A Leader Like me with her co-founder Priya Bates to help career ambitious women of colour. Later in the year the duo launched the Diversity in PR conference(Oct 2020) and Diversity in Action conference(Mar2021) and have ambitious plans to broaden the programme by opening it to other groups. In this wide ranging conversation we speak about her journey to becoming an entrepreneur, 

👉🏾 Priorities as a Board Member of the CIPR

👉🏾 Inspiration to setting up A Leader Like Me 

👉🏾 The importance of networks and networking 

👉🏾 The London vs North divide

👉🏾 The people who inspire her and much 

Listen to the full episode here 👇🏾

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Memorable passages from the conversation:

👉🏾 Thank you so much for inviting me on to be a guest I've listened to your previous podcast and I've enjoyed it immensely. So it's a privilege to be here with you today. Comms Rebel for me started in January, 2020, like you said. And it was because I think I got to a certain point in my career where I felt like I needed something a little bit different and I wanted to be in control of my destiny. I know that sounds a little bit cheesy, for anyone that’s listening. And I think age plays a big part in this as well. I was approaching quite a big birthday. I knew that I had greater things to achieve still, and I felt a bit suffocated, I suppose, in certain roles that I was working in. And I wanted to do something that I could control and had a sense of purpose under. So it wasn't an overnight decision, you know, so I didn't wake up one morning and go right that’s it. I'm doing Comms rebel and I'm cracking on. It was a two year journey. So for two years I dug a bit deep in terms who of am I? What do I want to do in this world? What's my purpose? How do I want to kind of grow and develop my career and work towards Comms Rebel. And launched it in January, 2020. And then as you know and as people who are listening will know the pandemic started two months after I launched. So it was definitely an interesting time for Comms Rebel. Definitely interesting times. 

👉🏾 So I'm just going to go back a little bit. So I decided that I was going to be part of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, which is our professional membership for people who work within communications and PR. I've been a member for a while, but I've been a volunteer for them for a roundabout seven years. And I started off being a volunteer in the internal communications group, which is called CIPR Inside and worked on various different projects. And then eventually became Chair for them for two years. I recognised that there weren't many people who looked like me in the profession. So there weren't many women of colour. There weren't many people of colour, not only women of colour. And if there were, we were probably in certain roles, and not many directors or senior directors in that role. 

👉🏾 So when I looked at CIPR as a whole, and it's a profession. I thought, how can I be part of this community and incite change? So rather than being an armchair critic, and we'll talk about that a bit later on Sudha, but I am against being an armchair critic. I don't believe in sitting there being a keyboard warrior and complaining about how unfair life is and how things are not right. I'll always go back to, well, what can I do about it? Be the change I want to see. And that's exactly what I did with CIPR. So I became a board member for CIPR because I wanted to try and bring some change, and also inspire others who may look at me and see a woman of colour and think "actually if she can do it, why can't I go there?" Why can't I be that? So when I put my nomination forward for the board director role, there were two things I wanted to focus on, one was diversity, equity and inclusion. And what can we do as a profession to support PR and comms practitioners to not only feel like they can belong in this space but also what can they do as allies to support others to belong? You know, we can be quite London centric in the UK when it comes to PR and comms. and being from Manchester, it was really important to me to look at how can we bring some of these amazing courses, training outside of London and allow access to other people as well. So they're the two key priorities that I'm still driving through CIPR, as a board director. As bad as COVID and the crisis has been, it's also on the other flip side of the coin, it's also made us recognise that we can do things remotely. And how we can bring the world a bit closer together and that's really helped with the regional piece of work that I've done. 

👉🏾 So A Leader Like Me started when I actually approached Priya who's my co-founder to be my mentor. Like I said to you before that Comms Rebel was a very slow journey for me and I wanted to do things properly and I wanted to make sure that it was the right thing for me to do. Don't get me wrong. There was still a bit of frustration for in-house working. I did enjoy working in corporate life. I enjoyed working together in teams and being a part of that community and building relationships with leaders and all that kind of stuff. 

But I wanted to reach out to a mentor who had been there and done that and understood it. But also a woman of colour was really important to me because I knew there'd be certain challenges that I would face as a business owner being a woman and being a woman of colour. And I know Priya. who I'd stalked, online for a number of years before we actually met in person in Vancouver. And I asked her to be my mentor. And as we were talking in our first mentoring session about why I left corporate life, it was pretty clear I think that there were certain things in corporate life that really resonated with both of us. In terms of, senior comms practitioners feeling that they have to leave in-house. Why was that? Why did we feel that we couldn't progress our career in-house and even though we both had pretty good support. I had amazing managers and leaders around me at times, we still felt that we couldn't progress. And it was Priya actually, who said, it's a case of not seeing leaders who look like us. Leaders who we can look up to and leaders who have carved a path and where we can look up to them and be like, we can belong there as well. 

👉🏾 And when you walk into a boardroom, it's hard walking into a boardroom as a woman, anyway I would say. But walking into a board room as a woman of colour, I would say is even more challenging because you're always kind of internally feeling are you worthy enough to be there? Cause you don't see anyone else around you looking at you around that table. So you're like, well, Why am I in this space? And that's where the whole imposter syndrome thing comes in. Right? I'm a fraud. They're going to catch me out. And I do feel women, in general, suffer with this, men do as well. Don't get me wrong, but women, in general, do suffer with this a lot, but women of colour in particular, because we just don't see leaders who look like us and not many leaders who look like us in those senior boardroom positions.

And that's where it all kind of started from. We said, how amazing would it be if we created a program for women like us who want to progress further, not only in, corporate life and businesses, but also if they want it to set their own businesses up. 

👉🏾 What is it that we would tell ourselves five, ten years ago, or we wished was out there for us, that we could learn from, and maybe our lives or careers may have been a little bit different and we wouldn't have faced some of the hardship that others have had to face, that we faced and others are probably facing. So we created a 12 week program as you know Sudha called Flight. And we talk about things like confidence and impostor syndrome and leaning into difficult conversations by negotiating well, and those kinds of topics.

I think that many organisations when they put people through leadership programs, don't tend to address very well. And especially don't consider the challenges facing an underrepresented group in stepping into those kinds of talks and chats as well. So that's how it all kind of kicked off 

👉🏾 Oh, incredibly important. I know, my success, I would say I owe it, most of it down to networking and conversations and building communities. And I am a huge believer in connecting folks and making sure that you put yourself out there and build relationships with other folks as well. And not only people who look like you. This is one of the key challenges and I know from the other conversations you've had with other guests on your podcast Sudha. The problem that we sometimes have is that we can be a bit tunnel-visioned in who we are. We relate and connect with the people who can look like us and behave like us, and not only in terms of colour and race and religion, but also in thoughts. And which is why it's so important to build that network a bit wider. You know, cause you're a part of that community. 

👉🏾 In A Leader Like Me, we do encourage the women on the program to look outside of their own network and to connect out and have their voices in spaces where they potentially may have thought they don't belong, and give them that strength to be there. Because if you don't have that network and you don't have that connectivity and you don't build those relationships. Then there's a danger of you feeling a bit alone and feeling like you don't have anyone that you can speak to and even in terms of career progression. And it's still a lot of work that we need to do in this space. So when it comes to networking, first of all, networking can put the fear of kind of anything in people. People find it really uncomfortable, especially when you are, you know a bit quieter or, you know, you're not quite sure what you'd have to say in this group, or you're struggling a lot with your own self-worth and self-esteem and confidence. Which is why, I work with a lot of women through Comms Rebel, and through A Leader Like Me, to work through what they have to offer and why they believe that they don't have something that they can share with the wider communities. So we always set tasks, if anyone who is listening to this podcast today is struggling with networking.  

👉🏾 My top tip is to take a small slice of that cake and work on that. So when I first started to network if you want to call it that. I wasn't one of those people who went into a room was like the life and soul of a party. I hung around near the coffee station and hope that somebody would come and speak to me, you know? And, and I'd, I'd look at my phone and scroll endlessly. Like I've got lots of friends on my phone. So I had to set myself tasks. So one of my tasks was I'm going to speak to somebody who's wearing a pair of glasses. The things you do to get yourself out of that comfort zone. Or I want to speak to somebody who has got a bright colour jacket on, and I look around the room and I'll go, right. I'm going to speak to at least three people and give my card out to three people at the very least. So setting yourself little mini targets can really help grow, I would say your kind of confidence. 

👉🏾 I mean, gosh, where to start. There's so many, but what is the challenges that we face? And a lot of people talk about bringing in people into the PR and comms world, you know, the access to entry and barriers to entry, and we need to speak to the university students and we need to speak to school kids. And we need to make sure that they understand that they could have a successful career in PR and comms. And I completely completely agree with that. And I think that is definitely a right way to do that. As an Asian woman, I know the stereotyping here a little bit, but there's this whole emphasis of working in sciences or working in tech. If you don't, you know, PR and Comms, it's not a profession that your parents are going to speak to you about. You know, my parents are not like, "Oh, well I think you should get a career in PR and communications" it's just not on their radar, you know, now they kind of get it. But even now, you know, it's still a little bit like, I don't know a hundred percent what she does, but she seemed to be having a good time doing it. So we'll let her be. But at the time, you know, it was like science, tech, science, tech, you know, one of them, two subjects And I think that's the challenge, which is why I believe that we need to get into universities and get into schools you know, when you are at GCSE level to have a chat, you know. I know that if I had some PR practitioners who look liked me came to speak to me when I was 15, 16, I might have considered the career in comms quite early on, rather than it being a second career. The other challenge we have in PR and comms is that once people are in the profession and are working, what are we doing to support them, to retain them? Right. 

👉🏾 You've spoken to folks who have like me and like yourself and like the others that we know have come into the profession, got to a certain level and then exited. Either set their own business up or left the profession completely or transitioned into something different. Because they just don't see where their next career move goes to, cause there is a very, very thick glass ceiling out there. And I'm yet to meet people who have not set their own business up to bypass that. I'm sure it's people listening that might have, but if there are, they're very few and far between of those people who started from the bottom and worked their way up, right to the chief executive or account director level of being a underrepresented group, not necessarily race, but you know, looking at disability and we're looking at gender and sexuality to an extent as well. Bringing people in and then keeping them once they're in, like that's why we talk about inclusion. So what are you doing to be inclusive? What are you doing to make sure that they feel like they can belong? Which is why I'm so passionate about some of the work we do in CIPR. And having that visibility as people who others may look to and think. Oh, theres Sudha, she's doing some great work in AI and that's an area that I want to get involved in. So let me have a chat with her about it. Oh, there's Advita talking about internal comms and sitting on the board of directors for CIPR. Let me see what that means for me and how can I get a bit more involved in this? Cause I see her in me and if she can be there or they can be there, then why can't I also be part of this world and not feel like you're kind of stuck.

👉🏾 Yes, well, two conferences we've launched was ‘Diversity in PR, ‘ which was in October. So it's all well and good talking to people who look like us, who understand the challenges that we're facing and we're building that community, but how do we go further than that. Right? How do we bring people into this conversation who are the decision makers in those organisations and those who don't know where to go to ask the uncomfortable questions or who don't understand why it's so important to have a workforce that represents the population that they're serving. What can we do for this population to support them? How can we encourage them to be part of the conversation and how do we stop the light dimming on diversity, equity and inclusion? Because I don't know about you Sudha, you've been involved in this longer, probably in the work that you're doing as well in PR and comms that there's peaks and troughs, right? With D&I, it's like, you know, when something tragic happens, people pay attention and like," Oh my goodness, we need to do something and we need to change the world da da da", and then it goes quiet. 

👉🏾 And I said to Priya, but how can we make sure that that torch just is, stays continuous on the conversation? So we decided, because our Leader Like Me is at the moment is focusing on women of colour. we are expanding that as we, as we go forward. We wanted to do a global conference, where other people could access. Some incredible people who have done some great work in this space and learn from them. Learn from their lived experiences, learn from their strategies, learn from the stories that they're sharing and understand how they could apply that to the work they are doing in their organisation. And also have a safe space to have that conversation. Like, I don't know about you, but I spoken to some of my white friends who have really struggled with terminology. Like at the moment in the UK, the term BAME is frowned upon, you know, it's archaic and it's something that people don't like using anymore, but yet people use it. So BBC, for example still use BAME, you know the government still use BAME to reference people, but the acknowledgement around that term is a little bit awkward. When we talk about the power of language, we haven't explained ourselves properly in terms of what it means and why people are so offended. and it doesn't help when other organisations and big institutes are still using it. So my advice to folks is ask people what reference points works for you? So I use women of colour. I use people of colour a lot. I know that some people don't like using that term, I ask the question like, and I'll explain myself saying that I'm not putting use BAME. Because I don't like the way it buckets everybody in one specific thing. 

👉🏾 I would say so the conference is a way for people to ask those difficult questions and understand what it means and speak to the people that they work with and ask them. What, is it that, you know, offends you about this term? And, you know, please forgive me if I get it wrong, because I'm just trying to learn. And it's been that, being open for learning, which people can forgive. If you genuinely make a mistake people are not going to shoot you down for it. Most people are understanding and they will be like, Oh, I get it, it's fine don't worry. You know, this is how I want to work and that's how you say it. But where people, I think get frustrated is when someone is being ignorant time and time again. And even though you've explained yourself that you don't like to reference in a certain way, or you don't want it to be acknowledged in that way and to still keep using that, that's when I think the frustration starts. 

👉🏾 Or they pretend it doesn't even exist. In the fear of getting it wrong, It means like you're not...