Diversity as a Business Imperative with Dr. Poornima Luthra

Speaker A: You can't be an ally to someone without doing the deep work yourself. I think a lot of us jump onto the thing that you want to support, you want to engage, and it's well intentioned. And at the same time, some of that can also cause harm.

Speaker B: Guided by over 25 years in the data and research industry and assisting innovators with investment banking and advisory services, Sima Vasa brings you Data Gurus, a leading market research podcast that offers actionable insights for business acceleration and value creation. Join her as she speaks with key innovators in the space to bring you up to speed with the current state and the future of data analytics and data ecosystems. This is Data Gurus need support on your market research projects. Paradigm Sample is a full service market research solutions provider. Whether you need help with questionnaire design, survey programming or online data collection, we are ready to assist. Paradigm can do as little or as much as you need, saving you time so that you can focus on insights. Learn more@paradigmsample.com

Speaker C: welcome to another episode of Data Gurus. I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Purnima Luthra. She is a educator, keynote speaker and author. Welcome, Purnima.

Speaker A: Thank you so much, Seema, for having me excited for this conversation.

Speaker C: Yeah, me too. You have such an amazing background that kind of weaves through all your experiences. I would just love if you could give a brief little bit of a background as to how you got to this point in your career.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah, and maybe I start with where I am now and then kind of take the listeners back to where it all began, I suppose. So I'm right now based in London. I recently moved here six months ago with my family to take on a senior leadership role and senior faculty role at Imperial Business School. Um, so that of course gives you an insight into the fact that I'm an academic. Um, have been in academia for about 20 years doing my PhD and then in universities in Singapore for seven and a half years, Copenhagen for 10 years, and now here in London. So, you know, the work has taken me, of course, know to these different parts of the world, which has been wonderful, great experience, of course. But my journey, I suppose I was born in Bangalore in India, left as an infant to the UK, to Manchester, where my dad did his PhD at the University of Manchester and then at the age of four moved to Singapore. So I'm Singaporean Indian heritage and I'd like to think of myself as a more global, global citizen.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I love that. And you've had, um, you've really Focused on key topics as it relates to management, around diversity and inclusion, I would say, weaves through. This is your fourth book that you recently published, and I know you're working through a new one, but tell us a little bit more about where that passion comes from.

Speaker A: Uh, I think. I mean, there are two sides to this. I think there's a professional side, and there's also a very personal side as well. So on a professional front, I think it's pretty straightforward. During my PhD program, I got more and more exposed to the, uh, various theoretical frameworks around broader management leadership, but also around gender rights, uh, LGBTQ rights, et cetera. Looking at theoretical frameworks around this. So that's really where the curiosity began to think about other scholars who were looking at this literature, looking at the research around this. Um, and that's really where the curiosity came from. But then I had an experience at one of my workplaces quite early on in my career, where there was a new course that was up for that. They were launching a new program and a set of courses they were launching. And given my teaching interests, research interests, I knew that for one of those courses, I would have loved to have taught that course. And so I went to the program director and I said, would you consider me to teach this course? I had really good student evaluations, peer evaluations. So I was like, you know, I'd really like to teach this course. It's right up my alley. And it was a master's level course. And until that point in time, I was quite early in my career, I'd only taught undergraduate courses. And he looked at me and he said, not until you've got a lot more white hair.

Speaker C: Oh, gosh.

Speaker A: And that really got me into the space of here I am, um. I know listeners can't see me, but I am a brown woman, right? So there's gender and race at play. And yet it was age that was working against me. And that got me into really putting age on the table. Generational differences. Are generational differences really significant? Is it just a case of stage of life? And lots of research done around this, and that's got me into that space. And that led me into writing my first book during COVID which was around diversifying diversity. Right? The very idea, very idea of looking at diversity more broadly, that in our organizations, we pigeonhole ourselves into looking at, you know, 1, 2, 3. But we look at them in isolation, whether it's gender or ethnicity or race or cognitive aspects as well. But we look at these in isolation rather than thinking about it more holistically, that's really where the professional journey was. But there's a very personal side to this as well. I grew up in, uh, in the UK and then in Singapore, experienced various different forms of discrimination, microaggressions in various levels throughout my kind of childhood and. And youth years. And I think if you ask my parents, I've always had a heightened awareness around inequity and inequality that exists in the world around. And so that is something that I think now, in retrospect, it was always there. You know, it's one of those things that at that time you could never maybe predict what I would end up doing. But now in retrospect, I can look back and say that, yeah, of course those tendencies were always there. And it almost seems like this was the natural line of work that you could get into. I think very few people have the opportunity to really fulfill their ikigai. Right. Their true calling. And in Sanskrit, kind of the swadharma, a real calling. Right. And I think I happen to be one of those that has that where it's what the world needs, what you can be paid for, what you love doing, et cetera. But. And it all comes together so beautifully.

Speaker C: Yeah. I want to ask you, when you were a child, were you verbal about what was happening to you? Were you conscious of it? Or was it in retrospect you looked back and said, oh, I was treated unfairly.

Speaker A: I was. I'm an introvert. I lean towards. I'm an ambivert. I lean towards being an introvert. And so I think a lot of these conversations were happening in my head, not necessarily having the support system or environment around me to articulate that in a way that would feel safe as well. I think those are. Those are things that I have to, again, in retrospect, think about why I wasn't maybe as vocal about this. I asked a lot of questions, but not necessarily always got the answers that I was seeking. And therefore also that made me go inward more and reflect on it. And you know, coming from a South Asian family, a lot of it was, put your head down, work hard, and that will take care of itself. You don't need to ask too many questions, don't make a lot of noise, you're from an underrepresented group. You should be grateful that you are even here and have this opportunity, rather than questioning the systems and culture and structures around you. And so that's the kind of environment, I think a lot of us at that, of that generation of young people in the global Indian diaspora, uh, grew up in. Um, and I might be generalizing here, but I think it will resonate, I think, with some folks out there around that environment. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think especially, you know, being a young woman and, uh, that also plays a big part too, in terms of, you know, don't be assertive, don't be, um, you know, don't challenge the system. I think we're trained in many ways to be that. At least culturally, I can speak for that. Um, yeah.

Speaker A: And then, you know, I started observing things at university. My, you know, when I was 17, 18, you know, when I was making choices about what to study in college. Right. And, um, I always wanted to study human behavior or psychology or behavior. They were always the topics I wanted to study. But there were only three choices available if you're South Asian, doctor, uh, lawyer, engineer.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And I didn't want to be a doctor. Um, the thought of, you know, getting into surgery and things, that was just like, at that point in time in my life, I was just like, absolutely not. Didn't want to be a lawyer. I was influenced too much, I think, by Ally McBeal and the like. Off. And I just didn't see myself in those kind of situations. Um, and I was good at, stereotypically, very good at math and science. Right. And so engineering it was. And then when I, when you. When you're a handful of female students studying engineering in a class of 300 and often the only one in a tutorial group, you start questioning things around you. You don't have any instructors who look like you. You, the companies at that time. It's different today. You look at that time, no one was an Indian woman leading those big tech companies. And so you think, well, uh, what am I doing here? Right. Wrong choice. Right. And of course, I always knew it was the wrong choice, but it was also about kind of having the guts to say, you know what? I'm going to find my squiggly way to where I want to be and the kind of career I want.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, you still have the doctorate, so you check that off. You maybe not.

Speaker A: Yeah, but, you know, it's the fake kind of doctor. Right. Uh, according to me, many Indian parents. So it's like, uh, yeah, but you're not going to be able to save someone on a flight, will you? So, yeah, okay.

Speaker C: Well, uh, I am, um, you know, in this day and age, we are really dealing with a backlash around, uh, diversity, equity and inclusion. And I think in your latest book, you talk about that. Can you share a little bit more about, you know, first of all, why is there a backlash? What is going on? It seems like the world is turning upside down in many ways, like getting rid of programs and saying not important. Love to hear your perspective.

Speaker A: Yeah, so this was, ah, something I've been studying for a while, I would say about, you know, the peak of it is about, you know, two years of research into trying to understand this resistance. Right. So I see it as a, as a spectrum, right. It's resistance and it exists in very different ways. On one extreme, it's just that hesitation that even those of us who are in this space, myself included, feel that hesitation. Have I got the right words? Am I tiptoeing around this issue? Maybe that's a topic I want to stay clear from. You know, it's that little bit of hesitation. And then the other extreme is this overt backlash that we've seen play out. Now, as I write in my book as well, the resistance has always been there. You can go back to the women's rights movements, you can go back to the Stonewall Inn riots, and you'll. And you know, civil rights movements. And there's always been resistance in different ways, forms, extents, but it's always been there, some degree of resistance. And so there's always a curiosity. And I think through the books that I wrote, um, there was a tension and a desire to study this resistance to understand where it came from. And I wasn't fully satisfied with the research out there around why this existed. So prior research shows us that we see diversity, equity and inclusion as a threat, a threat to what we believe is meritocratic systems, what we believe is our status to our culture, values that we hold as important to us. So there's a good body of research that shows us that we see it as a threat, but it doesn't go further than that. And for me, that was the curiosity to try to understand this. Now, of course, whenever we as human beings come face to face with a threat, it evokes in our certain response systems the, uh, fight, flight, freeze, fawn response system. Right. And that means that there are emotions at play. So that got me curious. So I started doing, of course, interviews, primary data, uh, looking at discourse analysis, seeing what was being played out in media over a period of time. Interestingly, if you started coding the words and coding the data that I collected, I started noticing certain emotions. So everything from feeling anxious, worried, ah, dread, insecurity, inadequacy, and if you look at the prior body of literature around Emotions. It comes down to the core human emotion of fear. And then, of course, then the curiosity as a researcher was, well, what are we actually fearful of? And is it only people who are on the other side that are fearful who are causing this extreme overt backlash? Or can I be curious and be honest and sit with the fact that even those of us who are in this space who are trying to do this work also have certain types of fear? And that got me into. And of course, eventually writing the book that I did. Can I say that? And it really unpacks the five fears. The fear of change, fear of getting it wrong, fear of discomfort, fear of taking action and the consequences, and fear for lack of positive impact. But of course, the book isn't about. It's not a doom or gloom book about, oh, you know, fear. It's about, well, how do we let go? We have to acknowledge that it exists and come to terms with the fact that we are fearful. Because one of the things that came out of my research was we as human beings are fearful of fear itself. We don't like talking about it and on all sides. Right. So for those of us in this space where like, no, no, no, I'm advocating for this. You know, this is work that I fundamentally believe is important to the world, to. To workplaces. And so we're hesitant to acknowledge that we are also fearful. Fearful of the personal cost it takes on us. The fear that we're not making enough progress as well. I mean, uh, that's a real fear I have personally as well.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, you take two steps forward and you feel like you're making progress, and then 10 steps back, at least, especially in the last year, year and a bit.

Speaker C: And.

Speaker A: But then there's also the fear of change. And the minute you start framing it that way, I think there's a lot more empathy that comes with this work that, you know. And while they're harsh and difficult conversations to be had, I think it's also builds that kind of awareness that where are people actually coming from? So when they come to the table with these viewpoints about what is changing in their world and how they need to do things differently and the opportunities feel like it's less for them as opposed to somebody else, it's coming from a place of fear. It's coming from a place of discomfort, of not wanting to acknowledge the biases and privilege that exists for some and not others. And those are difficult fears to sit with. And I think that's where the book really, uh, is centered around. Well, what can we do to let it go?

Speaker C: Right? I mean, I think about leadership and I think about, you know, for, for we all say the words that we say, that diversity really enriches a team because each person comes in with a nuanced point of view based on their experiences, their knowledge, you know, so on and so forth. But in the world of business, speed is critical, right? Especially now. And when you're creating a diverse team, you need time. You need time to really understand and gain perspectives. And so how does that play out, uh, in kind of this speed of light business environment that we're in, especially the last five years, where constant adjustment.

Speaker A: That's a really great question. And look, it's something that I think I have very rich conversations with leaders about. And I think it's. There are some fundamental questions we need to ask ourselves because I think the way our organizations are set up in a capitalist model that is about shareholder maximization. We are so obsessed with quarterly results. I mean, some of the leaders I speak to, they say, poornima, you're saying quarterly results, it's more like monthly results. And that I need to show that I am driving change and driving these numbers the way they're supposed to be going every single month. How do I have time for anything else? So I think there's some fundamental rethinking and rewiring that's needed around more long term, um, sustained growth. And I think that you see this in family owned businesses compared to kind of your corporate, uh, private sector, publicly traded companies and things like that, you see very different because in family owned businesses, even large scale ones, they are in it for the long haul and they stop looking at the kind of, the monthly or quarterly results. They might still of course track them, but they're, they're less obsessed about those small ups and downs, which is very different in, in many corporate settings. And I think that that is something which are fundamentally change. Now one of my clients that I worked with, I think it's a really great case study to think about, you know, um, pharma giant. It was the kind of that team that was looking into AI adoption. And this was about five years ago where they were really thinking about, all right, it's coming, it's something we need to gear up for. We don't have the skill set in this function to be able to meet and prepare ourselves for what's coming into the future. So foresight of leaders. But the challenge in the pharma industry is you usually hire people who have either worked in Pharma before and who have very often PhDs. Right. There's such a cookie cutter way of hiring within a lot of pharma companies. Right. And it's a history that comes from deep research and all of that. But in certain fields like this, on the tech side or data science tech side, you don't really need someone with a PhD. You need someone who has deep knowledge around, at least at that time, what was coming and uh, how the company could prep on a tech side for. And so what that meant was for this team and the leader, it meant thinking more broadly about where they were hiring from, but the fact that they needed to be comfortable with the fact that they may not have get someone who had pharma background. And that means that the onboarding period would take longer in an industry that is so heavily regulated. And so that then means that you need buy in from above you to say onboarding is not going to, the person is not going to hit the ground running in one month. That speed, uh, is not going to be the way we're used to. It's going to take longer. I want six months of an onboarding period before this person is able to deliver results for us. And it was a pilot that was done, that was remarkably successful. But it required that reach and change in the mindsets of those sitting at the top to stop obsessing about the numbers and the metrics that we constantly obsess about to give space. And so coming, I understand the need for speed and there's certain situations where that has to be done. But there's another side to it to think about the quality of the decisions we're making and thinking about creativity and innovation in a world that's constant changing now, those two things cannot happen in homogeneity.

Speaker C: That's true. That's actually a really good point. Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. So it requires a complete reframe. And look, some of the leaders I speak to, they'll say, oh, you're too idealistic or you're too far into the future. I'm like, well, that's the role that I play. Right. I'm not here to pat your back and say, well done on what you're doing right now. I'm here to challenge you to think about what it could look like that will benefit you. And that's the whole idea of academic research and thought leadership is thinking about the future.

Speaker C: Yeah. So let me ask you this. When we think about, um, the backlash that we've been seeing, uh, as it relates to dei, is it that Groups or subgroups have made too much progress, that it's creating a threatening situation to the current power structure.

Speaker A: So I think, and I'm trying to choose my words carefully here, I believe very much in this work and at the same time I'm also willing to hold up a mirror to also acknowledge where this work hasn't been done the way I believe it should be done. That is evidence based, grounded, all about systemic and cultural change, thinking about the long term. Um, I think we live in a world where, especially in the corporate sector, where what gets measured is what gets done. And it comes back to what we were talking about earlier, that obsession with metrics. And so we have created situations for ourselves where we have painted DEI as a zero sum game, that it's some groups at the expense of others. And we have obsessed about numbers and metrics and quotas and targets, et cetera, which give the impression that there are some groups that are actually benefiting from a system in an unfair way where there's questions about merit and competency. Now in most cases, there are isolated cases, where I will have to admit there are situations where there's a lack of merit or lack of competency and people have got through a system and the system's worked for them. But in the vast majority of situations, it is people who are just as competent or even more competent than others, who previously have not had an opportunity to get through the door, who now, because of DI efforts, have now made it through. Right? And who have been considered at least for a job. Now when I get this pushback from people saying, yeah, but now all the jobs go to women or all the jobs go to this particular group, I'm like, show me the data. Because when armed with data, you will still see that Even today in 2026, the vast majority of jobs go to majority dominant, historically majority dominant groups. When you look overall, you can see pockets of change. But overall, I mean, we're in 2026. Look at who are the top 12, 10 richest people, right? Who leads the biggest companies, right. It's not that difficult to see that very little has changed. We're still hovering at certain percentages of even female. Forget about looking at intersectionality, even just looking at just women. Um, it's, it's, it's, we've not made that much progress. So to come to say that some groups have benefited from it is a result of the, the zero sum, quick fix performative work that has gone on. And post 2020, post George Floyd, the murder, uh, of George Floyd, companies were Very quick to get on the bandwagon and say, all right, we need to fix this, right? We need to do something now. You know, we need to show that we are X, Y and Z, that we're. And so in that enthusiasm, uh, it's lovely to see that enthusiasm. The quick fix options were the ones that companies went for. The performative actions were what they prioritized without realizing that this actually needs deep work. You need to get into unpacking your systems, your structures, your policies, your practices, your culture and rebuilding it. And that's not work that companies have done. And also, I think there's also today, at least with everything that's happened in 2025, there's a misunderstanding on what diversity, equity, inclusion stand for. I think it's so easy for people to throw around the word I'm anti dei, but what are they actually anti to? Is the next question. I write this in the book, right? I say, you know, diversity, as you rightfully said earlier, uh, Seema is the, you know, about valuing uniqueness and differences and the value that adds to teams and functions and organizations. The, uh, E piece, equity is really about fairness. Now we can all have a discussion about what fairness looks like. Fair for whom, how we define fairness. But the very ethos of fairness, right and I, is about belonging. And you know, I draw on a documentary by Dia Khan where she goes undercover into some right wing groups in the US and everywhere, the desire for belonging, no matter who you are, is so deeply wired as human beings. We're relational beings. So deeply wired. Now if you put this together, can you find someone who says, I don't want to be valued for my uniqueness, I don't want fairness, and I don't believe that I want to belong. So if we frame it as uniqueness, fairness and belonging, it's really, really hard to say that that's. I don't want that.

Speaker C: Exactly. I like how you frame that. Uh, that's really.

Speaker A: And so it is a lack of understanding of what diversity, equity, inclusion are, uh, that really has got us into this. And it's not helped by performative actions. It's also not helped by, look, I mean, this is a body of work that has a, uh, rich history and legacy of scholarly, evidenced work. And yet most of the people who jumped into this space in 2020 were there out of goodwill, wanting to do good, which is great, but not lacking that systemic, structural, cultural rich background to

Speaker C: leverage, which makes it hard to sustain,

Speaker A: which makes it hard to sustain. And then it's so easy to knock it down by those who are, who believe that this is not necessary, that it's not benefiting them. And that's also. That zero sum game paints that picture. But in the real world, or in the ideal world, I should say, it benefits everybody. You know, and I'm often, you know, one of the examples that I give is, I think it was post World War I. I think I, uh, could. I think it's Post World War I, when they. In the US when they started building, you know, those ramps at pavements, at the sidewalk and the ramps. Right. Because they built it because war veterans were coming back with disabilities and they needed, you know, wheelchair access. And what they found was that people with strollers, with prams would use it, bicycles would use it. And so it's something that didn't just benefit one group, it benefited a larger part of the population. Now, if we extrapolate that into this space, a lot of the things we put into place around inclusion and fairness practices, when deeply embedded into systems, you're thinking about recruitment processes, you're thinking about promotion processes, and really making sure that we're actually casting the far and wide, that we're really reflecting on what we're putting down as competencies, that we are making sure that the panel is diverse, who's asking the questions from different functions and cognitive backgrounds in an organization that we're looking at pay gaps. These are what we're talking about. And it's quite hard to find people who would say, actually, no, I don't want that, because their role, if they're promoted, they want to know that it's because they were absolutely deserving of that role as well.

Speaker C: Correct. Nobody wants a fake promotion just because they're a checkbox. Uh, that's the. That's a terrible feeling. And I think that that might have been a byproduct. I think that fear of people wanting change and fear that they were selected because they were a checkbox is terrible. You know, I've heard it from many

Speaker A: people, and it's, uh, I've experienced it myself. I'm sure we all have personal stories, you know, or you're a woman and you're brown. You tick two boxes. When did my first, uh, my TED Talk? It was in 2019. And my younger one was quite little, my younger son. And so I rushed into school, I was running late from work, rushed into school to pick him up from the classroom. And his mom at school came up to me and she said, oh, I saw on Facebook that you're doing a TED Talk. And she, of course, that your TED Talk has been released. And she didn't bother to read what was written underneath. She said, what did you talk? What did you speak about? And of course I was in such a rush. I said, well, about diversity and inclusion. It was about generational diversity, but I just said about diversity and inclusion. And she gestured at me up and down and said, ah, uh, of course they would choose you.

Speaker C: That's crazy, right?

Speaker A: And I, in that moment, lucky. I'm very bad at this. Seema. I'm like five minutes later, I'm thinking about all the hundred things I wish I had said. But that one day, for whatever reason, at least I had a sharp comeback. I said, you know, um, I think there's a bit more to me than just this. And I just walked off. And I don't know if I know it felt good for me. I'm not sure if if she realized what was happening right. Or we just did. But I felt I was like, I told my husband, I was just like, whoa, you know, that was great. The first time. I think I've actually like kind of, oh, okay, giving it back. When not five minutes later, thinking about all the things I wish I'd said.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I want to. I know. I just want to ask you a question, like something practical that people can take away here. Um, not that the other stuff is not practical, but allyship. If somebody wants to be an active ally to somebody, what should they be thinking about?

Speaker A: So my second book is the Art of Active Allyship. And it really looks at seven behaviors that we can put into play. I won't go through all of them, but I'll give you kind of the gist of it. Now, the way I see allyship is that it starts with introspection. You can't be an ally to someone without doing the deep work yourself. I think a lot of us jump onto the thing that you want to support, you want to engage. And it's well intentioned. And at the same time, some of that can also cause harm. So you need to do the self work first. And the self work is all about that curiosity to want to find out how someone different from me experiences the world around us. It is about honest introspection around my own biases and privilege and where they come from and what I hold and that it isn't just about gender, it isn't just about skin color. It's privilege comes in so many forms, right? It's the passport you hold, the accent with which you speak in the Doctor in front of my name. All of that gives us privilege. And it's the things that I don't need to think about that someone else needs to consider. So every time I'm jumping into things saying, but I don't experience that pause saying, well, hang on, why am I not experiencing that? What privilege do I hold that that person's experience isn't my shared experience? So that deep work needs to be done first. When we've done the work, then we're ready to engage from a place of empathy. Remembering that when we're addressing bias around us, that today it's someone else's bias, tomorrow it could very well be our own. Right? So having that kind of the empathetic approach to engaging on this. Of course, I write in my book that there are certain situations where you need to get HR involved. There's, uh, M employee, you know, code of conduct, et cetera that you need to leverage. But I'm talking about kind of the bias in decision making, the very, the things that are microaggressions, the casual things that we say to each other, that you want to address it in that moment or afterwards and do it from a place of empathy. Right? And the person may not have realized, but help them to understand or point them in the direction where they need to do homework. It's not always our responsibility to educate someone. It might be that you nudge them in the direction saying, please go do the work around this because this was xyz, right? Or it caused this. And do it from a place of empathy, not from passive aggressive way, but from a place of empathy. And then it's about thinking about what can you put in place that allows you to deeply reflect around your own biases in teams as individuals. So biased buddies are a very practical thing. I have a group of them. Everything I write, ah, even a LinkedIn post, I run it where I'm not sure vocabulary am I framing this? Could it be cause harm? I run it by 12 of my bias buddies and I have a group of them, um, sparring partners. Right. To help you see, all right, I'm making this decision. What am I missing out on? Right? Whose perspective have I not considered? Right? Whose voice have I not heard? Right? And that's a great thing at a team level to think about. All right, you know, who are the voices around me who I haven't heard from? How can I intentionally reach out to someone who hasn't had adequate airtime? I know they're an expert in this space, but. And then wondering why haven't they? Is it because I haven't necessarily created an environment of psychological safety here? And what can I then do to be able to nurture that environment? Right? So there's a lot there around the interpersonal side, and then there's the last behavior for me in the book, which is really about looking at it from a systemic lens to say that there, you know, that we need to have courageous responsibilities, to step up and to challenge the things that have always been done a particular way. And that is super important to drive change, especially when we're. And sometimes people tell me, yeah, but who am I? I'm just one person or I'm not senior enough in an organization. And look, all of us have a sphere of influence, every one of us. It might be small, it might be big, but we all have the ability to influence upwards influence, sideways influence downwards, and influence ourselves. But we have the sphere of influence and we have to make an effort, otherwise we just build apathy. Right? And the reason we're where we are is because there's so many who just don't care enough or it doesn't impact them directly. And so there's an apathy. Can't be bothered to please start within your own spheres of influence. And there's a ripple effect. I am a firm believer in the ripple effect. You drop that pebble in that pond, there will be ripples. And what is the ripples that we can create?

Speaker C: I love that. That's a great, that's a great analogy. Just in terms of. I hear that a lot. In terms of people saying, who am I? Like, I can't really change anything. But you communicate with other people, you send emails, you text. Right? There's every little touch point makes a difference. Purnima, I feel like I could talk to you for hours, but I want to thank you for joining me on the podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.

Speaker A: Me too, Seema. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker C: Thank you.

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