The ADDA

What does it take to build a market for something people don't yet know they need?

Albana Meta returned to Tirana after 12 years abroad and built Albania's first contemporary art café and pottery studio; not just a business, but a genuinely new idea about what people deserve access to.

In this episode, Deepa and Albana get into the real work of cultural entrepreneurship: convincing people to show up, creating a space that gives people permission to make something, and what it means to build something countercultural in a city remaking itself at speed. They also talk honestly about what it takes to carve out space as a female entrepreneur; not as a story of struggle, but as a lived reality worth examining.

This is a conversation about belief; in art, in people, and in the stubborn act of building something that didn't exist before you decided it should.

Topics covered: creative entrepreneurship, building new markets, art and community, female entrepreneurship in Albania, Tirana's cultural transformation, the power of making.

Do share it and better yet, start your own ADDA to talk about it!

This is the first in our Phenomenal Women Series.

For further information:

Muzart Café: https://www.instagram.com/muzatartcafe/

Tirana Pottery Studio: https://www.instagram.com/tiranapotterystudio/

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

Boundaries - real or imagined?

What does it take to consciously cross borders, navigate different cultures, languages, and ways of living? What does it take to do that responsibly and respectfully?

In this episode, Deepa talks to Laura Payette about navigating nomadic life as a family. This conversation looks not just at the joys that travel brings but also speaks to some of the loneliness and isolation that you can encounter along the way, how our perceptions of home changes and we get into the responsibility and privilege of travel and how to navigate those when you’re a guest in someone else’s country. We also get into the personal transformation that happens along the way and how to hold, navigate and respond to the shifts in perspective that curiosity and wonder bring.

This is a special episode as it’s the first in-person recording that we’ve done as Deepa navigates the start of her own nomadic journey. This was recorded in Tirana, Albania.

Do share it and better yet, start your own ADDA to talk about it!

For further information:

Laura’s substack: https://laurapayette.substack.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laura_joyce_coaching

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

Can you transform institutions from the inside without them transforming you first?

What happens when consciousness work meets UN bureaucracy? And how do you harness inner transformation without killing what makes it transformative?

In this episode, Deepa talks to Thomas Legrand, author of Politics of Being and lead of the United Nations Development Programme's Conscious Food Systems Alliance. They explore how integrating science, spiritual wisdom and inner transformation creates more effective pathways to systems change - and what gets lost or found when these worlds collide.

Thomas brings shamanic training and ecological economics to institutional development work, asking hard questions about "consciousness washing," the paradoxes of mainstreaming spirituality, and what real maturity looks like in how we design systems and institutions. They dig into why understanding our inner conditions might be more radical than any policy change, and whether there's genuine hope for transformation from within the systems that created our crises.

This conversation is a rare bridge between worlds that don't usually talk - and Thomas offers practical insight into the uncomfortable work of creating change at institutional pace when the world is burning.

Do share it and better yet, start your own ADDA to talk about it!

For further information:

The Conscious Food Systems Alliance Summit: https://consciousfoodsystems.org/bhutan-summit-2026/

The Politics of Being (Thomas’ book): https://politicsofbeing.com/

Details about the BookClub: https://politicsofbeing.com/book-club/

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

What comes first, the regenerative venture or the systems change? Is it about the modality to venture design, funding and execution that makes the difference? Or does it actually come down to how well an entrepreneur knows themself?

In this episode, Deepa talks to multi-award winning entrepreneur Neelam Chhiber, founder of Industree Foundation. They explore whether designers have the secret sauce to being regenerative and systems changing entrepreneurs, the complexities of capitalisation and finance in achieving scale and what kind of relationships it takes; with risk, with collaborators and with one’s self to stand the course of time. They also get into the personal and talk about values, humility and spirituality and how these influence and shape not just what is done but how it’s done too.

Neelam is a power house in the social venture world and this conversation is a masterclass in thinking about systems change with both disruptor and pragmatist lenses at play.

Do share it and better yet, start your own ADDA to talk about it!

For further information:

Industree Foundation: https://www.industree.org.in/

Creative Dignity: https://www.creativedignity.org/

Catalyst Now: https://catalystnow.net/

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

Is it morally corrupt to need an incentive to show up for your local community or is it just the reality of today’s modern age?

In this episode you get a glimpse into a recently held Group ADDA session where Deepa was in session with Lauren Scott-Harris, founder of the platform Earnt, and an incredible group of leaders all working at engaging people to show up and take action in response to different societal challenges.

What does it take to get people on board? Earnt’s going with the shiny carrot approach by partnering with cool brands and providing often VIP or exclusive access in exchange for local community activation hours.

The discussion wove through all the angles; behaviour science and mental models, storytelling frames, brand greenwashing and societal disconnect. We even got into exploring what we need of each other in order to take an ecosystem approach to championing different kinds of community building. It was a lively discussion and we hope you enjoy this edit.

For more information and to connect with Earnt:

Web: https://earnt.co.uk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earnt_/

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

What happens when we look at our relationship with nature from a moral lens? It turns out, everything becomes far less complicated.

In this episode Deepa speaks with Alastair Driver, veteran conservationist and rewilder extraordinaire. Ali’s been in the nature business for close to 50 years and has been an advisor and inspiration for local communities, regional and national governments at home and abroad, the EU, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the UN. This conversation itself was sandwiched between advising an international government and then going off to check out some hedgehogs in the village!

They cover a range of topics from the drivers of conservation in government, the responsibility of the private sector to acknowledge and manage its impact, to the implications of humans “playing God” by introducing species into an area in the interest of rewilding.

Ali’s no nonsense charm makes this a great listen, particularly when he talks about the responsibility we all have in encouraging younger generations to get out there with curiosity and wonder and discover all that nature has to offer.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

Ever wonder about the tone of your own voice towards yourself?

We are our own harshest critics and more often than not it’s because there’s a disconnect in understanding what we need and an inability to ask for it. That leads to conflict with those around us; at home, at work, in the community.

In this episode, Deepa chats to Nathan Ardaiz, a non-violent and compassionate communication facilitator, practitioner and coach. Their conversation touches on Deepa’s own experience of conflict in communication, the dynamics in intimate relationships and then to the professional and workplace and where changing the way people communicate can have transformative effects on what they do and how they do it.

Ultimately, Nathan’s work and the practice of compassionate communications starts within and asking ourselves some tough questions about what we want, what kind of state we want to be in and what we need to get there. It’s hard work, but luckily for us, he’s a compassionate guide.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

For more information about Nathan and his work, check out: https://www.nathanardaiz.com/

Sign up for Nathan's next Non-violent Communication course: https://www.nathanardaiz.com/compassionate-communication

Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathanardaiz/

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

What if we could not just appreciate nature, but be nature? Things would get a lot better, fast.

In this episode, Deepa speaks to Melina Angel about Biomimicry, from its practical application in design to its many values as a practice and a relationship with becoming nature, not just emulating it.

As a practitioner, academic and systems poet, Melina uses biomimicry to understand, work with and shift societal challenges. She lives in Bogóta, Colombia and teaches in Costa Rica, Colombia & the USA.

The conversation is fluid and weaves through the challenges of systems, explores the opportunity in seeing private sector businesses as living organisms and gets into what it takes to confront our own vulnerabilities. We flirt between the concrete and the visceral trying to see a way forward for much more intentional living, designing and creation new structures for society as a whole. It gets animated and into the messiness of what’s really needed to transform the social sector - and where that often starts with ourselves and holding up the mirror to challenge the role that we think we’re playing and the one that we really are.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

What if trauma carries a hidden gift; biological adaptability for future generations?

Join host Deepa Mirchandani and guest Dr. Rana Dajani as they unpack a ground‑breaking epigenetic study on three generations of Syrian women and discuss why decolonising science starts with decolonising our own minds.

This conversation is from one of our Group ADDA sessions and in it we share Deepa’s conversation with Dr. Rana and also snapshots of the rich group discussion that followed. We had participants from India, Kenya, the USA, Spain and the UK and what ensued was lively and heartfelt.

We hope you enjoy the conversation and keep it going.

For more information about Dr. Dajani’s research:

Epigenetic signatures of intergenerational exposure to violence in three generations of Syrian refugees: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-89818-z

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us.

Find out more about Deepa, sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at

In this episode, Deepa Mirchandani shares a conversation with Rajni Bakshi, an award-winning journalist and author known for her work on social, political, and economic issues.

The conversation explores corporate sustainability, the role of social and environmental responsible investment, and the challenges posed by violent structures and systems in our global society. They reflect on activism and the value placed on money, alongside Rajni’s critique of the East India Company and the evolution of marketplaces.

Rajni’s reflections invite us to question how we organise ourselves and reimagine a more just, nonviolent way of living. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Find more of Rajni's work here:

Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom (Book): https://g.co/kgs/rMUu12U

Ahimsa Conversations: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC63Bx1fQYOkCEom93k4T2tg/videos

Rajni’s recommendations:

• Samdhong Rimpoche - The non-violent essence of human beings
• Amy Domini - Socially Responsible investing (SRI)
• Lewis Hyde - Violence in the global market system ; Book recommended: The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, and Common as Air
• Satish Kumar - The Resurgence Trust
• Steffi Bednarek: Climate change, fragmentation and collective trauma
• Rajagopal P.V.: On indirect violence generating direct violence
• Nick Robbins - the value generation in terms of human well-being and ecological restoration. Book recommended: The Corporation that Changed the World
• Monica Sharma: The innate capacity of human beings to care beyond the self
• John Ruskin: Critique of modernity and modern industry. Book recommended: Unto this Last
• Economy of Permanence - JC Kumarappa

The ADDA is hosted by Deepa Mirchandani, a strategist, entrepreneur and curious observer of people, organisations and the world around us. Sign up for her monthly newsletter or discover upcoming Group ADDA sessions at www.deepamirchandani.com.

Music: Unreasonable World by Bernhard Schimpelsberger – www.bernhard.co.at