South Asian Trailblazers

Sheel Mohnot is a serial entrepreneur, fintech investor, and acquired podcaster — so naturally this was quite the conversation for Simi.

A graduate of Carnegie Mellon and University of Michigan, Sheel was formerly a General Partner with the the FinTech Fund at 500 Startups. More recently, he co-founded Better Tomorrow Ventures, a fund leading pre-seed and seed rounds in financial technology companies around the globe. BTV raised a $75 million debut fund in 2020. 

But before delving into investing, Sheel was a founder — multiple times over. He first founded Innovative Auctions, a provider in auction software and consulting services. Later, he exited FeeFighters, a Stripe-like product that sold to Groupon in 2012, and also a food delivery company called Thistle. He even “exited” his popular podcast, “The Pitch,” a spin on Shark Tank where entrepreneurs pitched investors. It sold to Gimlet Media which was then acquired by Spotify. In this episode, Simi and Sheel chat about why fintech is the future, how he met one of his co-founders on a train in India, and how he landed himself in Ariana Grande’s “Stuck With U” music video. Put two startuppers and podcasters in a room? This one is a must-listen.

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 quite the role reversal for Anita Kumar,  Simi interviews the White House Correspondent and Associate Editor at POLITICO.

An expert on the institution of the presidency, Anita Kumar is currently covering her third president, Joe Biden, following eight years reporting on Donald Trump and Barack Obama. Prior to moving to POLITICO in 2019, she covered the White House for McClatchy’s, one of the country’s biggest local news companies.

She began her career in local and state politics, writing for the Washington Post and the Tampa Bay Times. She reported on Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020, Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016 and Obama's reelection campaign in 2012. Anita also became the first Indian American journalist elected to the board of the White House Correspondents' Association. In this episode, we leave few stones unturned. We chat about why Anita doesn't usually lean into her South Asian identity and what life covering the presidency really looks like -- from the White House greens to Air Force One.

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.

Rabia Chaudry is an attorney, advocate, and author of the New York Times bestselling book "Adnan's Story.”  

Her book follows the story of Adnan Syed, a very close friend of Rabia’s who was convicted for murder in 2000. His story and the plot holes revealed in the world-renowned podcast, Serial, which garnered national attention. But what many people don’t know was that it was Rabia who first brought the case to host, Sarah Koenig. 

Rabia herself is the co-host of 3 podcasts, one of which, Undisclosed, has accumlated 360 million+ downloads with its focus on wrongful convictions and that has led to the exoneration of nearly a dozen defendants. She previously practiced immigration and civil rights law for over a decade before moving into the CVE (countering violent extremism) policy sphere.  

In 2011 Rabia founded the Safe Nation Collaborative, a CVE training firm, providing cultural competency training to law enforcement officials and providing CVE training to Muslim communities. She has worked closely with the US Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and several other prominent and internationally-recognized policy-driven institutions. In this episode, we discuss the power of media as it related to ajudication, and Rabia's passion projects from wrongful convictions to a new book called, "Fatty Fatty Boom Boom."

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 Hitha Palepu to the pod. Hitha is the definition of a multi-hypenate -- an entrepreneur, investor, writer, and speaker.

With a background in pharma, she currently serves as CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals. Rhoshan Pharma is an early stage life sciences company creating enhanced versions of existing drugs to provide essential early treatment to the acute leading causes of death. Hitha also doubles as a startup investor and advisor, having invested in primarily in female-founded  companies like MM.LaFleur and The Juggernaut. In addition, Hitha's runs a blog, Hitha On The Go, which has gained a significant following and paved the path to her first book.

In this episode, Hitha delves deep into why she believes in the future of pharma and what it's like to wear the hat of operator as an investor. She gets candid about "doing it all," and offers advice for young South Asians who aspire to do the same. 

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 opens the season with Rinki Sethi, the Chief Information Security Officer at Twitter.

Rinki’s hiring at Twitter was a watershed moment. Not only because she's trailblazer as a South Asian women holding traditionally male-dominated position, but also because she  joined the team after the platform suffered a major hack in July 2020. The Twitter crypto scam compromised the accounts of figures from President Joe Biden to Elon Musk.

Previously, Rinki served as the CISO at cloud data management company Rubrik, and also held senior cybersecurity roles at IBM, Palo Alto Networks and Intuit. She began her career at the PG&E, Walmart, and Ebay. On the side, Rinki serves as an advisor to several startups, including LevelOps, Authomize, and organizations like Women in Cybersecurity. In this episode, we catch up on everything from the moment that unlocked her passion for cybersecurity to what it's like to fend off threats on a platform used by 330 million people across the globe.

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.

Subramanian Raja Krishnamoorthi is an American businessman and politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district since 2017.  The Congressman is a member of the Democratic Party and serves on the House Oversight Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He is also Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. Krishnamoorthi attended Princeton for his engineering degree and went on to Harvard Law School, after which he served on two of Former President Obama’s congressional campaigns.

South Asians have shaped the Congressman’s career — from his campaigns to his policy agenda — a reality discussed we discuss in this episode. Congressman Krishnamoorthi details his path to policymaking, from serving on Former President Obama’s congressional campaigns to catering to a constituency that can’t always pronounce his name, endearingly calling him “Raja.” In a whirlwind of an election year, where policymakers must consider how to forge unity in the face of polarization and pandemic, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.

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 Shah catches up with Deepa Subramaniam, the first-ever Chief Product and Digital Officer for the ACLU. Deepa began her career at Adobe, where she spent a formative decade. She then transitioned to world of non-profits and politics. leading product at charity: water, a non-profit that provides clean water to populations in the developing world and on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Before landing her current role at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she served as the VP of Product and Design at Kickstarter, and launched her own product consulting business, Wherewithall. 

Deepa's been a trailblazer in product for going on 15 years. In this episode, we get an insider's look into her path to product, and the impact it can have on a broad range of organizations. Deepa shares anecdotes about her time spent with Former Secretary Clinton and actionable advice about how to consider a career in tech with real human impact. Whether you're an aspiring product manager or a newbie to the land of product, it's an episode you don't want to miss.

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 speaks to Priya Krishna, contributing food writer for the New York Times, the New Yorker, and other prominent news outlets.  Priya Krishna is a trailblazers in the world of food media. She’s the author of two cookbooks, Indian-ish, one of the top cookbooks of 2019, and also Ultimate Dining Hall Hacks, a college-themed cookbook. Priya’s also a YouTube personality, known for fashioning her famous dishes on video for the Food Network and Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen channel. As many of you know from our newsletter, Priya bravely exited the Conde Nast-owned video platform this Summer, in response to pay inequities for its PoC contributors.

In this conversation, Priya delves into her foray into the food world and also her exit from Bon Appétit. Priya's candor is salient: she shares harsh industry realities faced by minorities, and the ways in which she's struggled. But she also is careful to acknowledge the solidarity she's found among other food journalists and other South Asian trailblazers. The resounding message from the pod with Priya is about hustle: how a cold email led her to the path she's on today and the conviction with which she'll enter any future newsroom.

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 S. Mitra Kalita. Mitra is a media veteran who currently serves as Senior Vice President at CNN Digital. Mitra has served as Managing Editor of the LA Times, Executive Director of Quartz, and Founding Editor of Mint, an Indian newspaper. Under her stewardship, the LA Times won a Pulitzer Prize. While at Quartz, she oversaw the launch of Quartz India and Africa. She also spent time as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other esteemed outlets.

In this episode, we discuss Mitra’s journey through journalism. We discuss the longstanding challenges facing newsrooms and the litany of experiences she’s had in this world: from winning Pulitzers to managing the “fake news” cycle. We also dive into her why:  what drew her to media in the first place and what’s next for her. Mitra recently announced her forthcoming departure from CNN to pursue community media ventures, so don't miss the opportunity to hear about media's past, present, and future from one of the most powerful women out there.

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 catches up with Arianna Afsar. Arianna is best known for her starring role as Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in the Chicago production of Hamilton. But Ari has had a stage presence all her life. She won the title of Miss California in 2010 and competed in American Idol as a high schooler. She went on to pursue musical theater via Hamilton and her latest project, Jeannette, an original musical that honors Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress in 1916. Off stage, Ari works closely with the ACLU of Illinois and other women's rights advocacy groups.

In this episode, we dive into Ari’s journey on stage, from American Idol to her musical, Jeanette. She shares the ins of working with icons like Lin-Manuel Miranda and the outs of a Broadway shuttered by the coronavirus. Most significantly, Ari presents a career that intersects her passions: women’s rights and the theater. From hosting musical fundraisers for progressive candidates to opening for Michelle Obama at the United State of Women, Ari’s trailblazing a path forward in activism through the arts.

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.