South Asian Trailblazers

We're mid-season and to celebrate, Simi welcomes Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot to Trailblazers. HubSpot is a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform and publicly-traded company.

Prior to becoming CEO, Yamini served as the company's first-ever Chief Customer Officer. In September 2021, she succeeded CEO Brian Halligan, the co-founder of HubSpot who had served as CEO for the 15 years since the company's inception. A tech industry veteran, Yamini has more than 25 years of experience ranging from product marketing, sales, and strategy. 

She previously served as Chief Customer Officer at Dropbox, where she was responsible for embedding a customer focus across the organization. Before Dropbox, she served as the VP of sales strategy and operations at Workday and she held several customer-facing leadership roles at SAP. Yamini holds a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering, a Master's in Computer Engineering and an MBA from Berkeley. In 2019, she was recognized as one of the most influential women in business. In this episode, she takes us on her journey through tech, sharing how she found her sweet spot in customer-facing leadership and her transition to the top job.

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, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

Beck, Paul McCartney, Troye Sivan, Maggie Rogers, Katy Perry, Sam Smith, Halsey, Masego, Doechii, Norah Jones — just a few of the greats on Arjun Pulijal’s star-powered artist roster. In our latest episode, Simi speaks with the esteemed President of Capitol Music Group.

Capitol Music Group is a premier American front line umbrella label owned by Universal Music Group. As President, Arjun oversees the company’s multiple labels and all areas of artist development including creative, marketing, and operations. Based in Hollywood, Arjun joined the company in 2013 as the Director of Marketing. In 2016, he ascended to the role of Vice President and was promoted to Senior Vice President Head of Marketing in 2020.  

Prior to Arjun’s work at Capitol Music Group, he spent 7 years in New York at Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment. There he served as Director of Marketing & Artist Development, Manager of Digital Marketing, and started his career in A&R (Artists and Repertoire). Arjun graduated with a degree in Music and Computer Science from NYU in 2006. In this episode, he reflects on his adolescent dreams of being a musician and his ascent in the music business — now stewarding one the most prominent, star-powered labels in the industry.

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, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

In this episode, Simi catches up with a legend in the League, Sean Desai, Associate Head Coach-Defense for the Seattle Seahawks. 

Sean has over a decade of experience as a coach at the NFL and collegiate levels. When he became defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears in 2021, he became the first Indian-American NFL coordinator in U.S. history.

Sean joined the Bears in 2013, where he served on staff for 8 years, initially as a defensive quality control coach, before coaching safeties. Previously, he spent the 2012 season as the running backs coach and special teams coordinator at Boston College. In 2011, he served as Assistant Director of Football Operations at the University of Miami. And prior to this experience, he spent five seasons at Temple University first as a graduate assistant for the Owls’ defensive/special teams and academics. He joined the Seahawks in early 2022. 

After graduating from Boston University, Sean earned a master's in higher and postsecondary education from Columbia University before moving onto Temple University where he earned his doctorate in educational administration. In this episode, Simi probes into Sean’s unexpected academic path to coaching and how he thinks critically about representation in sports -- reflecting on a time when his own 4-year-old son asked if he could 'paint his skin white' to make it big in baseball. More in our 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, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

In this episode, Simi sits down with a familiar face, Seema Mody, CNBC Global Markets Reporter.

A leading business journalist, Seema is CNBC’s FIRST South Asian on-air personality. She joined the network in 2011 and currently focuses on the intersection of foreign policy and Wall Street, as well as the travel industry. She also hosts European Close, a daily segment that keeps U.S. investors informed on European market happenings.

Seema has appeared on several additional CNBC shows including Street Signs, Closing Bell, and The Kudlow Report. In 2014, she spent a year in London, co-anchoring Worldwide Exchange as well as other live reports for CNBC Europe. Her journey in journalism actually kicks off with CNBC-TV18 in Mumbai, India, where she covered the country’s economy and co-anchored programs like Power Breakfast and After the Bell.  Her reporting to date spans COVID-19, biotechnology, Brexit, Indian elections, and more. A graduate of the University of Washington, Seema initially began her career at Accenture.  And beyond the newsroom, she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations — the prominent American think tank. In this episode, Seema reflects on her return to India as a reporter and the intricacies of covering global markets in today's fast-paced world.

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, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.

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, TikTok, 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, TikTok, 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, TikTok, 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, TikTok, 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, TikTok, 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, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify.