What we discussed: The fabric of society is a fine mesh of cultures. When we change world views – from western to Indian to Maori – we find different interpretations of how each culture considers their environment.

Why it matters: A sustainable future requires us to make new connections and partnerships with unlikely stakeholders. Yet each of these stakeholder groups are going to have their own expectations, assumptions and modus operandi. Shruthi is really teaching us how to be aware of the different groups we identify with, and how we can translate across those groups to achieve a sustainable future.  

What it means for you: This episode highlights the importance of understanding a person’s cultural roots and heritage as a lens of how they view sustainability. We can apply the same principles of listening, curiosity, and inviting others to join our journey, to our professional lives and our personal lives.

Interviewee’s Bio:

Shruthi Vijayakumar, Global Shaper, World Economic Forum, Auckland, New Zealand

MBA, Saïd Business School and Skoll World Forum Fellow

Shruthi is an educator, coach, facilitator and strategist in the field of systems leadership, sustainability and innovation. She has been recognized as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum and a Global Changemaker by the British Council. She has spoken at WEF’s Annual Meeting in Davos and TEDx. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shruthivijayakumar/

In this interview, we discussed the following questions:

• What is your favorite Haka moment?
• What is the relationship between the Maori people and the New Zealand Government?
• How does your multi-ethnic background frame your work in equity, justice and inclusion?
• How would you frame environmental world view from these different frames?
• How would you say that influences the work that you do? 
• What would you consider your most important skill?
• When you're facilitating these conversations, how do you impart that fabric of society onto the people you're facilitating?
• When did you first noticed the interconnected web of moving parts?
• About what age were you?
• What were some of the grassroots projects you participated in?
• When did you realize you could leverage change within this tangled web?
• What was it like being inside the Boston Consulting Group?
• How did you see innovation work within consulting vs. the work you do today? 
• What's the difference between inclusion and building the table together?
• What does Emerge Institute do?
• Can you please speak to some of your work at ocean lab?
• When you have big systemic change goals, how do you bring people along?
• If you were to re-imagine the education system, what would you do?
• What skill or expertise would you encourage students to learn?

About the Levers of Exchange

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)

Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/

Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University.

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