Business In Colour

What do Branson, Bridgeton & Ms Marvel have in common, well you will have to tune into our conversation with the fabulous Shivani Gupta to find out.

Shivani is a Mental Wellness Expert, Speaker, Author and Mentor and is obsessed with everyone having tips and strategies to manage their mental wellness. Shivani has suffered sexual abuse, racial abuse and discrimination in her life. As she navigated through these challenges, she created rituals and systems to help her survive and thrive in both business and in life.
In this podcast we talk to Shivani about the move to Australia from India, the racism she faced that made her not want to be Indian and in the process she lost some of her heritage. Shivani shares her rituals and how we need to tune into the messages from the universe. A wonderful message in this podcast from Shivani is "there is no other authority higher than yourself"

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Michelle Gibbings is an author of 3 books, Dare to Lead coach, Global Keynote Speaker, and is on a mission to help leaders, teams and organisations create successful workplaces. 
Comfortable with getting uncomfortable, Michelle is at the forefront of creating workplace success by helping people embrace the unknown and fall in love with change.
We talk about how we make assumptions based on past experiences on how things should be, stereotype views we may have and her own personal experience around this. 
Being exposed to different cultures enriches how we think, problem solve and build relationships. When you come from a world where have a narrow view, you are missing out on great experiences and also will end up having a very narrow frame of reference from which to make a difference. Diversity of thought means you get better decisions. 
If you want to be a great leader you need to deliberately seek out people from different background to you. 

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When Mimi Kwa set out to change the world, journalism was her weapon of choice, and it has taken her further than she could ever have dreamed, to become the first Asian heritage female on Channel Nine, anchor news to 40 countries, and interview significant decision makers and notable figures from around the globe.

In Mimi Kwa’s memoir House of Kwa, published by Harper Collins 2021, she writes about her deeply personal journey of childhood trauma, as well as her Chinese father's large family of 32 brothers and sisters and her mother’s schizophrenia. For all the thousands of interviews and stories Mimi has told, her own multi generational sweeping family saga is undoubtedly among the most compelling.

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In this episode, we interview the brave and bold, Mallika Raj, who is the engagement lead for the Australian Labour Party, ACT Branch, the National Chair for the Young Leader Chapter for the Australia India Business Council and the owner and Founder of SAMA Health and Wellbeing – SAMA meaning Bodily Equilibrium or Homeostasis. I know you will feel this peace and grounding when you hear Mallika, she exudes this – she is clear about her purpose, passion and places she wants to make scalable impact. In this episode, we talk about her role as Engagement Lead, in the Labour Party, her reflections in the lead up, during and post the elections, representation in politics, what it feels like to be a young, Indian woman in politics, how she has had to carve her own path separate from her father, how she founded her business at 19, and her comments around the Australia-India business relationship. Mallika has some mic drop phrases that tell you what to expect in this episode, like: "Fall down 8 times, get up on the 9th"; "You are product of who you surround yourself with" and "People will see through you when you don’t have a genuine purpose". Please enjoy the authentic leadership of Mallika Raj.

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In this episode, we interview Koon Lai, whose energy and passion is just infectious. She has led some pretty major client transformations during her time as a PwC Director, but what is clear is how she had led her personal and professional transformation. This is what makes Koon a powerful executive coach, she has the lived experience to give to her clients. Koon shares how she felt an Invisible wall in Australia and how she used her cultural strength and communal spirit to make herself more visible. Koon connects her thinking on individual and organisational shifts… to be more inclusive around the concept of The Tempered Radical – find out what she means by this, she explains it beautifully with plenty of examples. Hear also about code switching, how Koon has an allergic reaction when others say, all you have to do is speak up…how we fear the risk of rejection and exclusion and can become self-critical, losing our confidence. There are so many aha moments in this episode, but the one that just fills us with a renewed sense of strength and pride is when Koon says, when referring to migrants: “We are the Majority” and Sadhana and I concur that we need a majority mindset and a revaluing of our identity and cultural strength. Thank you Koon for reminding us, please enjoy the brilliant thinking and compassionate leadership of Koon Lai.

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The bazaars of Mumbai taught a young Veena Sahajwalla that there is value in trash. Veena was the NSW Australian of the Year 2022...and in her acceptance speech she acknowledged those who traded in the bazaars of Mumbai....

"The award was a recognition that waste as a material, if it's valued, could have big positive consequences. We wouldn't throw it away, we would re-manufacture things, we'd pay fair wages to people."

She invented Green Steel which she describes as the "holy grail" formula by using coffee waste instead of coking coal.

Veena is an internationally recognised materials scientist, engineer and innovator who is revolutionising recycling science. She is renowned for pioneering the high temperature transformation of waste in the production of a new generation of ‘green materials’. As Director of the Sustainable Materials Research and Technology Centre at UNSW, she has built a world-class research hub. Sahajwalla leads a highly innovative research program that fosters innovation and promotes collaboration with industry to ensure that scientific advances in sustainable materials and processes are readily translated into commercially-viable environmental solution. 

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In this episode, we talk with Alicia Vrajlal who is the Culture Editor at Refinery29 Australia and the Founder of the blog, Draw Your Box. This interview was so wonderfully warm and educative as Alicia offers her story of navigation and sense-making with her identity, facing into the many judgements from others: not Indian enough, not Fijian enough, not Australian enough. This resonates with Sadhana and I, as we have also faced into these judgements and emerged stronger and clearer, just like Alicia, with who we are. Professionally, Alicia gives us a window into how pop culture shapes our thinking and how inclusive we are as a society – we discuss Neighbours, Melbourne Fashion week and Alicia’s red carpet experiences, where she has often been the only or one of two Indian women. It is a story of moving into spaces, like media and entertainment where traditionally women like us have not belonged, a story many of us can relate to. Alicia shows us it is possible to have a voice in these spaces or to create the space, like she has with her blog. Please enjoy the courageous leadership voice, of Alicia Vrajlal.

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Please enjoy this conversation with the co-hosts with the most-est, Div Pillay and Sadhana Smiles, as they celebrate their 60th episode. This is a reflective piece about how the podcast started, the impact the podcast is creating, with a little insight into how the co-hosts think on contemporary topics of inclusion in the workplace. Listen to their 'ask' or call out at the end for sponsorship - please flood their direct message box on Linkedin with offers to support them with your organisation's brand! This is role-modelling being brave and bold, in asking for what you need to progress. Please, like, share, subscribe and give them a rating and comment. Connect with them on Linkedin and tune into the next 60 episodes of Business in Colour. 

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In this episode, we talk with Mitu Bhowmick Lange, Indian-Australian filmmaker, film producer…and Founder and Director of Mind Blowing Films – a distribution company. Mitu’s story is one of creating choices, seeing possibility and choosing deliberately. She is a natural story-teller and you will be drawn in with her words and how she weaves in contemporary dialogues on diversity and inclusion. She generously walks us through the Indian film industry, its size, its reach, its impact and its growth globally. We talk about her own career journey, as a successful, award winning film director and producer in India to... not being able to get a call back for jobs in 2002 from employers in the film industry in Australia. Her first job here was cleaning tables at the Crown. We are lucky to hear first hand of her influence and impact to bring Indian film into the mainstream with a deal with Hoyts. Yes, she is the leader responsible for this. Mitu is unstoppable in her pursuit and life's work to create a platform for diverse voices to be heard in the mainstream. She is a trailblazer and a visionary, please enjoy the outstanding leadership voice of, Mitu Bhowmick Lange.

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Jahin Tanvir, is a leader and an advocate for marginalised young people. At 21 years of age, he shows us that leadership is not age dependent - you can lead yourself and others at any point in your life. He is reflective, deeply self-aware, disciplined, shows a vulnerability and strength that many take years to develop and master. He asks us to see our identity as our superpower, to strive for the extraordinary every day, to be obsessed with a problem enough to work with others to solve it. His passion is infectious, as he talks about BREATHE his social enterprise providing public speaking education to multicultural communities in cities and regional and remote areas. We learn that 3 out of 4 people are afraid of public speaking and talk about the real challenges for those public speaking in a language that is not their first. Hear Jahin’s top 3 pieces of feedback when public speaking and his call to action to mentor and support a young person. Please enjoy the energy and leadership of Jahin Tanvir. 

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