To kick off Season 5, Simi sits down with Kal Penn, esteemed Actor, Author, and former White House Staffer.

Kal jumpstarted his acting career in the early 2000s, with performances in The Namesake and Harold & Kumar franchise. He has also starred in a host of other fan favorites: Designated Survivor, House, and How I Met Your Mother to name a few.

In 2009, Kalpen made a left turn out of acting and into the Obama Administration where he served as the Principal Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. He eventually co-chaired President Obama’s re-election campaign and also served on the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Before becoming a professional actor, Kal studied film and sociology at UCLA.

Today, Kal continues to build his robust repertoire in Hollywood, with a forthcoming show about climate change, Getting Warmer with Kal Penn, a biopic about famed Raptors Superfan, Nav Bhatia, and several other projects. Last year, Kal released his You Can’t Be Serious which recounts his phenomenal journey and where he first publicly revealed he was gay and engaged to be married to his partner of 11 years. In this episode, Simi discusses Kal's dual passions: politics and acting and the road to representation that he paved for so many.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

For our Season 4 finale, Simi sits down with Megha Rao, Fashion Designer and Founder of holiCHIC.

A renowned global fashion brand, holiChic offers South Asian-inspired fashion ensembles with a Western twist. Megha’s brand made its runway premiere at New York Fashion Week in 2021, and was also featured in the iconic Jalebi Baby remix video with Tesher and Jason Derulo. Before starting holiChic in 2014, Megha spent a decade modeling for iconic Indian fashion brands. She also spent 15 years in corporate America at CitiBank, a career she recently left in 2020 to go full-time as a founder. Megha is a graduate of Hofstra University, where majored in communications. Tune in to hear from our first trailblazer in fashion discuss how she broke into the industry and what its meant to outfit some our community's icons, from her mentor Payal Kadakia to actress Mindy Kaling.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

Simi sits down with Dr. Sreekanth Chaguturu, Chief Medical Officer at CVS Health.

Shortly after this episode was recorded, Sree ascended to this role, becoming CMO for all of CVS Health. He previously served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for CVS Caremark — the patient benefits arm of CVS Health that ensures that patients have access to safe and affordable prescriptions. Before joining the company in 2019, Sree was the Chief Population Health Officer for Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital. 

Sree completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he continues to practice internal medicine today. He also serves as a Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. After initially graduating from residency in 2007, Sree spent time as both a practicing physician and a healthcare consultant at McKinsey and Company, leading the firm’s Hospital Institute. To date, his articles have appeared in publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, and Health Affairs. He received his B.A. in biology from Brown and also his M.D. from Brown University’s Medical School. 

In this episode, we traverse Sree's unique positioning a leader who’s operated from the industry's 3 critical vantage points: that of business leader, practicing physician, and distinguished academic.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

Simi welcomes our first trailblazer in fitness, Aditi Shah, Instructor at Peloton and Global Ambassador for PUMA.

Aditi joined Peloton in 2018, having been recruited to help launch their Yoga and Meditation practice. She first discovered her love of yoga while living in Mumbai after graduating from Rutgers University, where she studied math. While in India, she pursued modeling, appearing in campaigns for Garnier, Revlon, and BareMinerals.

Some years later, she moved to New York, where she pursued a career in acting, making appearances on hit shows like Elementary and Inside Amy Schumer. In recent years, she’s spent time as an entrepreneur and founder, and as as a digital marketing consultant for companies like health tech startup, Parsley Health. Today, she is Peloton’s only South Asian instructor and one of its most renowned. Recently, she also became a global brand ambassador for PUMA. In this conversation, Aditi covers everything from the cultural appropriation of yoga to spearheading this new practice at a major pandemic player like Peloton.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

In our latest episode, Simi is joined by Maneesh Goyal, Founder & Partner of NY-based restaurant SONA.

Maneesh is a serial entrepreneur. In 2003, he launched his own event marketing company called MKG, where he worked with the likes of Google, Target, Delta, and other high-profile clients before selling the company in 2019. He’s since founded 3 other companies: Live in the Grey, a company culture consultancy; Pink Sparrow Scenic, a design and fabrication shop; and 214, a brand strategy and design agency. 

His latest entrepreneurial endeavor is in hospitality — having successfully opened New York’s iconic Temple Bar and SONA alongside partners Priyanka Chopra and David Rabin. Initially pre-med, Maneesh attended Duke and received in his Masters in Public Health from Yale. In 2014, President Obama appointed him to the Board of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship and more recently, he joined the National Board of Planned Parenthood. A champion of LGTBQ+ community, Maneesh is also the first out & proud individual to join us on Trailblazers. Today, he continues his professional journey as a startup investor and advisor through his company, Pineapple Co. In this episode, Simi digs into each of Maneesh's entrepreneurial endeavors and the catalysts behind them.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

In this special edition of South Asian Trailblazers, Simi sits down with Aparna Shewakramani in front of a live audience, hosting our first-ever live podcast at the World Trade Center in New York City.

Aparna is the breakout star of Netflix’s hit series Indian Matchmaking — where she went from controversial character to overnight ambassador for women demanding to be heard. This conversation marked the launch of Aparna's highly-anticipated memoir, She's Unlikeable: And Other Lies That Bring Women Down. Born in London, Aparna spent part of her childhood in Dubai, until she moved to Texas, where she lived for 25 years. A recent New York City transplant, Aparna spends much of her time traveling and is the  founder of a luxury travel company called My Golden Balloon. Previously a practicing attorney, she holds a J.D. from Vanderbilt Law School and a B.A. from Rice University. In this conversation, Aparna recounts everything from surviving Hurricane Harvey to her battle with an autoimmune disease to the ways in which her life changed after the show.

A huge thank you to our event partners and sponsors: Brik + Clik, Brown Girl Magazine,  Tinto Amorio, and Anheuser Busch’s PAC-Asia Group.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

Simi catches up with Shilpa Shah, Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer of Cuyana.

Founded in 2011, Cuyana is a direct-to-consumer luxury fashion brand founded on the philosophy of “fewer, better” to encourage customers to invest in fewer, but higher-quality essentials. Over the past decade, the brand has become a favorite among celebrities like Jessica Alba, Ayesha Curry, Poorna Jagannathan. In addition, the  company has grown to encompass 7 brick-and-mortar locations and over 150 employees. During their latest funding round in 2019, they raised $30 million from H.I.G. Capital. 

Before co-founding Cuyana, Shilpa began her career in information architecture and built web and mobile interfaces for multiple Fortune 500 companies like Disney, AT&T, and Sun Microsystems, as a part of the early class of UI/UX designers. She received her MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where she also completed her bachelor’s degree in Human Computer Interaction and Computer Science. Shilpa is a mover and shaker in the new cohort of conscious and compassionate executives stewarding the future of consumer goods.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

Simi speaks with Usman Ahmed, Head of Global Public Policy and Research at PayPal.

Usman began his career in public service at non-profits focused on voting rights and good governance. Eventually, he decided to pursue his law degree at the University of Michigan. While there, he pursued a legal fellowship at eBay, quickly ascending to the role of Policy Counsel just a few years after graduating. 

In 2015, after PayPal was spun off of eBay, he decided to joined the newly-separated company as Head of Global Public Policy and Research — his current role. In addition to his work in the tech sphere, Usman teaches international and fintech law as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown.  He is also Millennium Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Security Fellow at the Truman National Security Project, and he has been widely published in the World Economic Forum Global Information Technology Report, MIT Press Innovations Journal, and elsewhere. Beyond his J.D., Usman holds an M.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a B.A. from the University of Maryland.  In this episode, we hear about Usman's early inclinations toward civic engagement and law, his role in building PayPal's policy arm post-spinoff, and what the future of fintech holds.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

In this episode, Simi catches up with Sushma Dwivedi, Head of Communications and Brand Marketing at Daily Harvest and Founder of the Purple Pundit Project. 

Sushma spent the early innings of her career with major global communications firms including Edelman and Fleishman Hillard. Focused on food and beverage space early on, she worked closely with companies like Chobani, Dannon, and Perdue Farms. 

In 2020, she joined Daily Harvest, a food startup that makes ready-to-blend smoothies, soups, and more all with the intent of making healthy eating easier. In November 2021, the startup raised their Series D at a valuation of $1 billion backed by investors like Serena Williams and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Sushma moonlights as a Hindu priestess or pundit. In 2016, she founded Purple Pundit Project to help South Asian couples more easily find modern, inclusive pundits and officiants for their weddings. To date, she’s officiated over 40 weddings, many of which were for LGBTQ+  couples — and one while she was in labor. More on that story and Sushma's vision for the future of food in this episode.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

Simi speaks with Saeed Ahmed, Director of Digital News at NPR.

Prior to joining NPR in 2021, Saeed served as Assistant Managing Editor of CNN Digital. He began his 13-year career at CNN as a news desk editor for The CNN Wire, and went on to spearhead content diversity efforts and create the top two newsletters in CNN's portfolio: 5 Things and The Good Stuff. Prior to CNN, Saeed spent seven years at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution,  where he was a part of the breaking-news team that became a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Recently, he was awarded a News Emmy Award for an interactive media piece: How American Police Gear up to Respond to Protests.

Originally born in Bangladesh and raised in the United Arab Emirates, Saeed first immigrated to the U.S. to attend Morehouse, a historical Black college. In this episode, Saeed takes us through his journey in journalism, from being an Atlanta-based cops and crimes beat reporter to shaping the future of news at National Public Radio today.

South Asian Trailblazers is an award-winning media platform, community, and agency dedicated to elevating leading South Asians. Join our community at SouthAsianTrailblazers.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to get new episodes and updates on our latest events in your inbox. Follow us @southasiantrailblazers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.