About This Episode

What if the machines everyone fears could be built to protect the very thing they seem to threaten? In this episode, Mazarine sits down with Chloë Ryan; an artist-turned-engineer who sold her first paintings at fourteen, built her first robots at nineteen, and decided the two were never separate lives at all. Her company, Acrylic, builds robots that make real paintings, with real paint on real canvas, while the artists keep their copyright and earn on every piece. They talk about why culture is “melting” into grey sameness, how originality becomes affordable rather than rare, and the three C’s she builds everything on: consent, credit, and compensation. A conversation about identity, self-authorship, and putting colour back into a world that’s quietly gone beige, between two artists who see the same gap from different sides of the machine.

About Chloë Ryan

Chloë Ryan is the founder and CEO of Acrylic, the art partner that designers and hospitality groups trust to craft original work to brief; real paint on real canvas, at any scale from a single piece for a home to a hundred for a hotel."

An artist-turned-engineer, she sold her first paintings at fourteen and built her first robots at nineteen, then set out to do for painting what technology long ago did for music and the written word: bring it, at quality, to everyone. 

Acrylic’s model keeps the artistry human composition, palette, judgment while artists retain their copyright and earn on every piece produced. Her work has shown at Art Basel, Adobe’s Future of Art exhibition, the Canadian National Exhibition, AWS’s Generative AI Pioneers tour, and the New York Stock Exchange; she has pitched on Dragon’s Den and been featured in Barron’s, Yahoo Finance, the Associated Press, CBC and more and is the recipient of 20+ international accolades for her work at the collision point of AI, robotics, design and creativity.

What We Cover

–  Why an artist learned to build robots and when she realised the two were the same act of creation

–  What actually drove her in the early days: curiosity, joy, and the thrill of proving it possible

–  The difference between craftsmanship and creativity and why they aren’t the same thing

–  Why “culture is melting,” and how the world traded colour for grey walls and templated sameness

–  How AI could make conformity effortless and why she believes that will make originality cool again

–  The three pillars of self-authorship: cultural appetite, identity, and taste

–  Building the machine that makes originality affordable the opposite of the industrial revolution

–  The three C’s she runs her company by: consent, credit, and compensation

–  Why she builds tools to scale the vision rather than painting it all by hand

–  Perspective, pareidolia, and why art only works because no two people see the same thing

–  What it means to help every person own their identity and add colour back to their life

Standout Lines

“Art and engineering are really not that dissimilar the parts of engineering I love are the creative parts.”

“Conformity is going to become less and less cool.”

“The industrial revolution made objects cheap by making them identical. We built the opposite machine, one that makes originality affordable.”

“If I tried to make the world more colourful through my own paintings, I’d make a respectable dent. So I built a machine instead.”

Links & Resources

–  Acrylic: submit a brief & designer portal: www.artbyacrylic.com

–  Acrylic Robotics: the robotics & technology: www.acrylicrobotics.ca

–  Chloë Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloeryan2/

–  Acrylic on Instagram: @acrylicdesign

–  The Art Brewery: www.theartbrewery.com

–  Mazarine Memon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazarinememontheartbrewery/

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About This Episode

What happens when a client asks you a question you can’t answer? For Rahul Nagpal, the question was this: “What did my last campaign do to my bottom line?” He didn’t have the answer. And instead of deflecting, he let it change him. In this episode, Mazarine speaks with her long-time friend and colleague about the gap between what marketing promises and what business actually needs, why most marketing ecosystems are orchestras where everyone plays a different key, and what it took to build something the industry needed but didn’t yet know how to ask for. A conversation about intellectual honesty, the courage to start again, and what thirty years in Dubai teaches you about the rooms where real business gets done.

About Rahul Nagpal

Rahul Nagpal is the Chairman and CEO of GP Inc. a Dubai-based integrated growth and performance marketing business built around six specialist practices unified by one outcome: measurable business results. Before founding GP Inc., Rahul co-founded The Partnership Advertising, which became a WPP company, and led it as CEO. He began his career at JWT India, moved to Dubai in 1992, and has spent three decades building, running, and in his own words occasionally breaking marketing businesses across India and the GCC. He is the originator of BIZCOM: Business Communications, the philosophy that marketing must show up on the P&L or it is not marketing, it is aesthetics.

What We Cover

–  The client question that changed the entire direction of Rahul’s career and why he let it land instead of defending himself

–  How an entire industry normalised not answering the most important question and how that happens

–  Why most marketing ecosystems are orchestras where every musician plays a different key and who has the power to fix it

–  The gap between what the client sees, what the agency sees, and what the consumer actually receives

–  What it took to walk away from a WPP company and build something new

–  How to hold six different disciplines in one direction when each speaks a different professional language

–  The thing that most often goes unsaid on both sides of the client table and what happens when someone finally says it

–  What BIZCOM really means as a leadership philosophy not just a marketing framework

–  What thirty years in Dubai teaches you about trust, relationships, and the way rooms work in this part of the world

–  How Rahul has changed as a leader and what he’s had to unlearn

–  Whether the gap between what we intend and what people see can ever truly be closed

–  Going back to that original room what would he say now?
Standout Lines

“If your marketing does not show up on the P&L, it is not marketing. It is aesthetics.”

“Most marketing problems are leadership problems.”

“Agencies think clients are buying solutions. Clients think they’re buying certainty. That is the tension from day one.”

Why This Episode Matters

Rahul’s episode is the only one in the series where the central leadership lesson came from a moment of public failure, a question he couldn’t answer. That kind of honesty is rare from someone at his level, and it gives this conversation a texture that most business podcasts never reach. The BIZCOM philosophy also gives the listener something genuinely actionable: a framework for thinking about whether the work they’re doing is actually connected to what matters. And the closing question, going back to that original room, is one of the most powerful closes in the series.

Links & Resources

–  The Art Brewery: www.theartbrewery.com

–  Mazarine Memon on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazarinememontheartbrewery/

–  Rahul Nagpal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-nagpal-gpinc2023/

–  GP Inc.: https://gpinc.agency/

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE

What does leadership look like when nothing is guaranteed? Daniel Oladejo has spent his career fighting for a place in rooms that weren't always ready to keep him practice rosters, releases, re-signings and building something in himself that no one could take away.

In this episode, Mazarine Memon sits down with Daniel to explore the kind of leadership that doesn't come from a title or a strategy deck. It comes from adversity. From belief. From understanding that the room you're in and the room the person next to you is in are rarely the same room and that real leadership begins the moment you decide to close that gap.

Daniel also speaks with uncommon honesty about mental health in professional sport, the limits of performative awareness, and what it actually means to show up for a team, for young people, and for yourself.

ABOUT DANIEL OLADEJO

Daniel Oladejo is a professional wide receiver for the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League. Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria and raised in Ottawa, he played university football for the Ottawa Gee-Gees before being drafted in the second round of the 2023 CFL Draft.

His path to the CFL has not been straight practice rosters, releases, and re-signings have defined a career built on resilience as a skill, not a personality trait. Beyond the field, Daniel speaks to students and young people about leadership, mental health, and what it means to walk into rooms where you weren't expected — and stay.

WHAT WE COVER

• Growing up in Nigeria and Ottawa and what navigating two worlds taught Daniel about walking into rooms where you weren't expected to be there

• Why leadership begins not with a title but with belief and the moment in high school when Daniel first felt it shift in him

• What team sport teaches you about leadership that no classroom, office, or org chart ever could

• How great leaders empower followers into leadership the difference between creating autonomy and creating dependence

• The view from the field: why receivers, quarterbacks, and coaches are all watching the same game and seeing something completely different and what that teaches us about listening

• Resilience as a mechanism, not a trait the Acknowledge, Reframe, Tailor framework Daniel uses to meet resistance

• The moment in his first two years of university football when everything in him wanted to walk away and what made him stay

• Mental health in professional sport: why we are stuck at awareness when what we need is action

• How society conditions men and especially athletes to perform being okay when they aren't, and what it costs

• What Daniel tells young people about presence and why there is no substitute for being genuinely in the room

• The Pareidolia Method: when the pressure is at its highest and the room is asking everything of you, can you find the opportunity where others see only the problem?

• The leader Daniel is building beyond the field and why it will outlast any season

  
  

  EPISODE QUOTE

  “Resilience begins with expectations. The expectation that things will always be easy will do more damage than any one difficulty.”

  — Daniel Oladejo

  
  

About This Episode

What does the shift from operator to observer reveal about the rooms you were in? In this episode, Mazarine speaks with Ashish Mahadwar, a global technology executive whose career spans Cognizant, Bain Capital, DXC Technology, and Microland, where he served as COO. Now an investor, adviser, and board member, Ashish brings a rare vantage point: someone who has led through transformation at extraordinary scale, and who can now see from the outside what was only felt from within. They talk about the gap between what leaders think is happening and what their teams are actually experiencing, what it means to lead across 30 years and multiple continents, and why the room doesn’t just remember what you said, it remembers how it felt when you were in it.

About Ashish Mahadwar

Ashish Mahadwar is an investor, board member, and adviser with over 30 years of global leadership experience across some of the world’s most significant technology organisations, including Cognizant, Bain Capital, DXC Technology, and Microland, where he served as Chief Operating Officer. He currently sits on the board of FORTYTWO LABS, a post-quantum cybersecurity company, and advises Micro Leaps, which brings life-skills education to underprivileged children. He is a long-time advocate for inclusive leadership and believes that inclusive organisations simply generate better ideas.

What We Cover

–  What the shift from operator to adviser reveals about leadership and what you can only see once you step back

–  Leading across continents and cultures when the same decision, message, or room lands completely differently for everyone in it

–  What Ashish was actually looking for when he brought The Art Brewery in to work with his team in Washington DC post-COVID

–  What an inkblot exercise reveals when you put a room full of engineers in front of it

–  Silence in a global team - how to know when alignment is real and when it isn’t

–  What it actually takes to build genuine inclusion not as a policy, but as a practice

–  The two very different rooms Ashish is building now, FORTYTWO LABS and Micro Leaps and what draws him to both

–  What it feels like to lead when the room is someone else’s to hold

–  What 30 years of leadership has taught him to let go of

–  Whether we can ever truly train ourselves to see beyond our own lens

Standout Lines

“The room doesn’t just remember what you said. It remembers how it felt when you were in it.”

“The most important work a leader can do is to make sure that feeling is one people want to return to.”

“Inclusive organisations are simply better at generating new ideas.”

“Perspective is the most underused resource in any room.”

A Note on This Episode

This is a personal episode for The Same Room. Ashish and Mazarine have real history; he brought The Art Brewery in to work with his North America leadership team at Microland in Washington DC, shortly after COVID. That shared experience gives this conversation a depth and candour that is rare in a leadership podcast. Ashish has experienced the Pareidolia Method firsthand, which makes the Art Brewery moment in this episode uniquely honest.

Links & Resources

–  The Art Brewery: www.theartbrewery.com

–  Mazarine Memon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazarinememontheartbrewery/

–  Ashish Mahadwar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishmahadwar/

–  FORTYTWO LABS: https://www.fortytwolabs.com/

–  Micro Leaps: https://www.linkedin.com/company/micro-leaps/

Share This Episode

Think about a room you’ve been in that you still remember. What made it feel that way? Follow The Same Room and share this with a leader who would appreciate this conversation.

About This Episode

What if the most carefully held child in the world was one no one had thought to invite into any room at all? In this episode, Mazarine speaks with Sahar Wahbeh — an award-winning designer who built global brands from New York to Dubai before dusting off her mother’s old sewing machine on a ping-pong table to make a single doll for her daughter. That one doll became Dumyé, a purpose-driven company whose dolls now live with families in more than thirty countries. They explore what it means to lead when giving sits at the very center of a business, how purpose and profit can pull against each other without one quietly swallowing the other, and what children pour into a small blank pocket she leaves open on purpose. A conversation about seeing the overlooked, holding a room, and why being seen changes everything.

About Sahar Wahbeh

Sahar Wahbeh is the founder of Dumyé, a purpose-driven company creating heirloom dolls that now live with families in more than thirty countries. Before Dumyé, she spent years as an award-winning designer working on global brands — from New York to Dubai — for companies including Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Nivea and Estée Lauder. Becoming a mother changed the questions she asked herself, and a search for a single meaningful doll for her daughter became a company built on a double bottom line: beautiful, ethically made products alongside a Karmic Goodness pinky-promise to respect nature, show compassion to others, and give back to children in need. Through doll-making workshops in orphanages and refugee camps, and by training women in underserved communities in dignified, income-generating work, Sahar has built a business where impact and sustainability are inseparable.

What We Cover

–  Why an award-winning designer walked away from global brands — and what success looked like to her then

–  What carried over from branding, and the “comfort of theory” she had to leave behind

–  The moment a gift for her daughter became her life’s work

–  How to hold both the mission and the business without one quietly swallowing the other

–  The “double bottom line” — and how she decides when purpose and profit pull in different directions

–  What she wishes more leaders could witness: potential is everywhere, opportunity isn’t

–  What it actually takes to see someone the world has overlooked — and the employee she almost wrote off

–  How a production crisis became a program that changes the women who make the dolls

–  The Purpose Pocket: why she leaves a blank space inside every doll — and what people pour into it

–  What children notice that the adults in the room miss entirely

–  Holding the room: what dance and theatre taught her about storytelling and vulnerability

–  The Pareidolia Method: why two people never see the same thing — and the fabric that proved it

–  What success looks like now — and the honest tension between meaning and money

Standout Lines

“A value isn’t really a value until you’re willing to put your money where your mouth is.”

“Before children, I was focused on what I wanted to achieve. After children, I started thinking about what I wanted to leave behind.”

“Potential is everywhere. Opportunity isn’t.”

“Being seen is transformative. Most people rise or shrink to the expectations they think others have of them.”

“The mission gives us a reason to exist. The business gives us the ability to continue.”

“People don’t remember information nearly as much as they remember how you made them feel.”

“They’re not responding to what we said. They’re responding to what they heard.”

“Leadership is less about getting everyone to see the same thing, and more about helping people feel safe enough to share what they see.”

Links & Resources

–  The Art Brewery: www.theartbrewery.com

–  Mazarine Memon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazarinememontheartbrewery/

–  Sahar Wahbeh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saharwahbeh/

–  Dumyé: https://www.dumye.com

About This Episode

What can a room full of toddlers teach us about leadership? More than most boardrooms ever will. In this episode, Mazarine speaks with Jamie Campbell a former corporate media executive and MBA graduate who walked away from a decade-long career to co-found Two Short Storeys, a childcare centre in Toronto serving children from six months to four years old. They explore what it means to lead in a space where the stakes are entirely human, where trust is never assumed, and where the smallest people in the room are taken the most seriously. A conversation about what it takes to build something that cannot be scaled on a spreadsheet and why the calm in a room full of children puts most corporate offices to shame.

About Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is the co-founder of Two Short Storeys, a full-service licensed childcare centre in Toronto serving children from six months to four years and is also involved with The Mabin School. Before co-founding Two Short Storeys, Jamie spent over a decade in multi-platform media and holds an MBA from the Ted Rogers School of Management. He left corporate life not out of frustration, but out of foresight and what he found on the other side changed how he understands leadership, culture, and what it means to build genuine trust.

What We Cover

–  Why Jamie walked away from a successful media career and the writing on the wall that made staying feel riskier than leaving

–  What people outside the childcare world consistently misunderstand about the work

–  “Your people ARE your business” the hiring lesson that changed everything once culture came first

–  How the same room is never one thing: a child, a parent, and an educator each experience it differently

–  What listening actually looks like here and why what’s on the surface is rarely what’s truly wrong

–  What genuinely builds trust with families and the one thing that quietly breaks it

–  Staying calm and present when emotions are immediate and everything is happening at once

–  The difference between knowledge and wisdom and what the MBA never taught him

–  What Jamie has had to unlearn moving from a “take no prisoners” sales culture to a gentle one

–  The Pareidolia Method: what children’s unfiltered way of seeing can teach experienced leaders

–  Why a room full of small children can feel calmer and more in control than a downtown office tower

–  What success looks like now and why silence is complicity

Standout Lines

“Your people ARE your business. That’s not hyperbole it’s the absolute truth.”

“What’s on the surface isn’t what’s truly wrong.”

“Trust is earned, not demanded.”

“There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom and wisdom is earned over time, through mistakes.”

“To go quickly, you have to slow down.”

“It’s a building in control.”

“Silence is complicity.”

“The room you’ve built is one where the smallest people in it are taken the most seriously.”

Links & Resources

–  The Art Brewery: www.theartbrewery.com

–  Mazarine Memon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazarinememontheartbrewery/

–  Jamie Campbell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiemhcampbell/

–  Two Short Storeys: https://twoshortstoreys.ca/

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About This Episode

What does a leader’s nervous system have to do with their team’s performance? More than most leaders ever realise. In this episode, Mazarine Memon speaks with Suha Patel about one of the most underexamined dynamics in leadership: the idea that a regulated leader creates a regulated room. They explore the invisible work teams do to manage their leader’s emotional state, what it actually costs when silence replaces honesty, and why self-awareness isn’t a personality trait, it's a daily practice. A conversation about the leadership truth that never makes it into the strategy deck.

About Suha Patel

Suha Patel is a senior biotech executive and leadership practitioner whose career spans continents and high-stakes environments. She is known for her work on psychological safety, emotional regulation in leadership, and building high-trust teams. Suha believes that self-awareness is not a soft skill, it is the most critical leadership skill a person can develop, and that true leadership begins from a place of safety within oneself.

What We Cover

–  What a regulated leader actually looks like in practice and what changes in a room when one is present

–  The invisible cost of a team that spends its energy managing their leader’s nervous system

–  Two teams, same organisation, completely different realities what made the difference

–  What an unregulated room feels like from the inside and the quieter, more dangerous version where only some voices are ever heard

–  Why nervous systems communicate faster than words

–  How to regulate yourself before you walk into the room the practice, not the personality

–  When a brilliant strategy fails not because it was wrong but because the room wasn’t taken on the journey

–  The 80/20 rule and the quiet damage of perfectionism and micromanagement

–  What trust actually feels like in a team that has it

–  The choice every leader faces: comfort or courage

–  What Suha has had to unlearn and what she’s still sitting with

–  Where to start if you’re leading a team that doesn’t yet feel safe

Standout Lines

“A regulated leader does not just manage outcomes  they manage the emotional climate in which those outcomes are created.”

“People do not spend their energy managing the leader’s nervous system; they can spend it being present and themselves.”

“The quieter ones are not quiet because they have nothing to say, they just learned that it’s safer to be quiet.”

“Trust in a team feels like an exhale.”

“Self-awareness brings freedom and safety.”

“It’s not the destination that is important, it's the journey and the people along the way.”

“Calm, safe, and very seen. That they matter.”

Links & Resources

–  The Art Brewery: www.theartbrewery.com

–  Mazarine Memon on LinkedIn: Link

–  Suha Patel on LinkedIn: Link

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Hosted by Mazarine Memon, Founder, The Art Brewery™

About This Episode

Before the guests. Before the conversations. Before the questions that no one usually asks out loud. This is where The Same Room begins. In this short opening episode, host Mazarine Memon artist and founder of The Art Brewery™ shares why she built this show, what the Pareidolia Method is and where it came from, and what she hopes every listener takes away from the series. It is not a manifesto. It is not a pitch. It is a note honest and quiet from someone who has spent years watching what happens in rooms where people think they understand each other and mostly don’t.

About Mazarine Memon

Mazarine Memon is an artist and the founder of The Art Brewery™, a human-centred leadership development company operating across North America, the UK, and Central America. Her work sits at the intersection of art, perception, and leadership using her proprietary Pareidolia Method to help organisations surface blind spots, build psychological safety, and shift the way leaders see their teams, their assumptions, and each other. The Same Room is her first podcast series.

What Mazarine Covers

–  The provocation at the heart of the show that two people can be in the exact same meeting and walk away with a completely different truth

–  Who she is and what The Art Brewery™ is built on

–  The Pareidolia Method what it is, where it came from, and why it became a leadership tool

–  The moment that lives in every boardroom, every team meeting, every conversation that didn’t land someone went quiet, and you called it agreement

–  Why she’s making this series and what it is not

–  What each conversation in the series is designed to give the listener

–  The question that the entire show is built around: what are you seeing that I’m not?

Key Moments

0:00 — The opening provocation the meeting everyone was in, the truth nobody shared

0:31 — Who Mazarine is and what The Art Brewery™ is built on

0:57 — The Pareidolia Method what it is and why it matters

1:48 — Why this series exists and what it is not

2:21 — The close the question the show is built around

Standout Lines

“We never were in the same room. We just thought we were.”

“The way we see determines how we lead.”

“Someone went quiet. You called it agreement. It wasn’t.”

“Not to control the room. Not to perform in it. But to genuinely hold it.”

“Every conversation will show you something you didn’t know you were missing.”

“Leadership doesn’t begin when everyone agrees. It begins when someone is willing to ask: what are you seeing that I’m not?”

A Note on This Episode

This episode is intentionally short under five minutes. It is designed to be the first thing a new listener hears, and the episode they return to when they want to remember what the show is for. It should feel like the opening page of a book rather than a trailer. 

Links & Resources

–  The Art Brewery: www.theartbrewery.com

–  Mazarine Memon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mazarinememontheartbrewery/

–  Follow The Same Room on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/20GJfNf2NkwqqlxLtf8ud9

Share This Episode

If this is your first time here welcome. Follow The Same Room wherever you listen and share this with a leader who needs to hear it.