DEI Strategist Pooja Shahani

Pooja Shahani, founder of Kintsugi Consulting and co-found of Metamorphosis, is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategist. She has experience working with multinational organizations and non-profit across the globe, including in India, Hong Kong, and the US. Pooja has had a number of careers, including being a journalist, a development practitioner and a corporate leader. She believes in the power of courageous questioning and co-creating more sustainable and equitable ecosystems. 

Prior to launching Kintsugi, she led Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) for Goldman Sachs India and was the Country Manager for Community Business in India, a D&I consulting practice headquartered in Hong Kong. Pooja has co-authored a publication called “D&I: Building the Business Case – Stories from India” and has received the Global Diversity Leadership award by the World HRD Congress for her contribution in the diversity space in 2015 and 2016. Pooja graduated from Middlebury College, USA with a degree in English and has completed the Stanford Graduate Business School Ignite Program on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She is a certified executive coach leveraging a unique approach of brain-based methodologies and expressive arts. 

We talk about her unusual origin story, a generational story of migration that not many in the world know about.  She shares her amazing story and his she makes the world a better place through her DEI work.

00:00 Intro

01:01 Pooja’s Origin Story - Life as a ‘Sindhi’ displaced citizen of Pakistan, going to school in Hong Kong, and internalizing discrimination and racism

03:49 The language of her father - Cantonese through a thick Indian accent

14:06 - Having to work to constantly prove your worth as an immigrant, and how this belief might actually help, and hinder

17:32 - Pooja was unable to tell the stories she wanted to tell, how she wanted tell them, under today’s version of “journalism”

20:42 - Pooja’s move into equity, inclusion and diversity work

23:47 - The Changemakers program, helping the helpers

27:42 -  The big missing piece of the diversity movement is equity

29:23 - Dealing with diversity practitioner burn-out

31:16 - A story about balancing the needs of diversity employees and the resources available to create the infrastructure they need to work

38:41 - A constant series of tiny changes can add up to big differences over time

45:18 - Pooja’s advice to parents from a diversity lens: self-awareness

#EDI #DEI #equity #globalcitizen #poojashahani #kintsugiconsulting #metamorphosis #diversity #inclusion #coaching

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