The universe can enter into a “runaway reaction” of self-improvement cycles, with each new generation of artificial intelligence appearing faster and faster, generating a kind of “intellectual explosion” and ultimately creating a super intelligence that surpasses the intelligence of all mankind.

It is difficult to anticipate a global “intellectual explosion” in a synergistically complex system of universes of niche and eco-systemic changes.

However, the “intelligence explosion” at the micro level is no longer a futuristic concept.

Intellectual explosion as a concept of eureka that unites into a single information field of dreams, skills, talent, future strategy and vision of achieving planned paths.

And this information field is created and driven by information, education as a stimulator of eternal search, questions, movement of the mind, which definitely affects the youth and energy of consciousness.

Education in Business and Business for Education

Education as a formal process in principle does not require detail. It is interesting to educate as a process of balancing and information space, when it is necessary to withstand the flows of information toxicity, to isolate relevant information, to form a vision for its adaptation in accordance with trends and prospects for development.

Education in business is a daily extraordinary path of entrepreneurship, full of hope, hard work, inspiration, disappointment, victories, and so on.

Business education is about interaction.

And in this respect, all actors can have different guises from top managers to potential customers.

Interaction in business forms a canvas of knowledge from existing, which is experience to demand.

And business for education forms a landscape of perspective skills puts requirements to the competitive expert.

And it is extremely important that business education and business for education work together for the benefit of professional growth, business scaling, brand formation of educational institutions.

Diffusion of changes

On the one hand, education affects business by training future professionals who are potential entrepreneurs, employees. Business influences education by formulating requirements for future professionals, involvement directly in the educational process.

The impact of education on business and business on education is cooperation and it should be circular and responsible. Responsible education forms a competitive specialist, but only if the business has responsibly defined the criteria and its needs. Responsible business is involved in the formation of educational content, but only when responsible education is able and willing to change (updating educational information, the use of real cases, and new technologies for the formation of critical, innovative thinking).

Business for me is a story about inspiration, team, interaction, responsibility, stress, manufacturability, long-term goals and so on.

And there are still a lot of feelings, emotions, states, conditions in business, the most important thing here is not to betray your dream and not to stop.

Knowledge theory today is going through difficult times, because the rapid pace of their updating sometimes does not allow information to be transformed into knowledge.

Modern business education should cover the areas of emotional intelligence, information skills, the ability to form their own individual strategies for professional and personal development, and usually form key performance indicators of a particular unit of time and this is a story of high efficiency, optimization, digitalization, priority and responsibility in general.

Educational inspiration

 All energy is spiritual in nature. Education as a concentration of modern, important, practical, inspiring content is important and necessary for business in conditions of overload, crisis time management. And here it is important that education has prepared a package of certain skills (micro-degrees, micro-credits) for the needs of business. From business intelligence to organizing online events.

Business education exists because business needs it.

Business education is in demand because business ecosystems are rapidly evolving and shrinking.

Often business sets the bias, and education adapts it to different categories: from beginners to professionals.

Education is not a guarantee of success, but a field of opportunities. Sometimes quite biased. From acquaintance with classmates and the beginning of the path of startups to catching ideological inspiration during brainstorming.

It is like the insiders of a certain person: for some they are meaningless, for some they are theoretically or practically useful, and for others they are an ideological catharsis that arose on the basis of a certain word, an emotional impulse of another person.

You never know where the inspiration will pick you up), but education creates ideal conditions for concentrating a little like you on the desire for knowledge!

Globally, technological advances such as digitalization, IoT, Big Data, and AI continue to influence how companies create value for their customers. Any graduate who clearly understands these technological trends and their architecture will be in high demand.

The impact is likely to be more pronounced in developed economies.

But at the same time, companies are spending a lot of money ordering soft skills training such as leadership, communication skills, creativity and innovative thinking.

MBA graduates do not have to be computer engineers, electrical engineers or data scientists. But they need to understand that much of the value creation in companies revolves around connectivity and platforms (IoT and sensor networks) and interpreting the vast amounts of data generated around the clock by anything / anywhere / anytime connected customers and products.

Entrepreneurs who do not have a clear understanding of how technology solutions can create value for consumers will be hopelessly stuck in a competitive quagmire, because everything is somehow related to the intelligence of customers.

Self-education as a macro-habit

 Self-education of each of us takes place every day, because we live in the flow of information space. The self-education of business people has one important characteristic. In conditions of constant lack of time, they need concentrated educational resources. And they can get them both on their own and by attending business schools.

But education should never meet the demands of others. Education is your path to your dreams. Knowledge of ecosystems with which you will work with human resources and communication, online management of remote teams, strategy building skills and identification of key performance indicators is required.

Choosing whether online courses or formal education is a responsible choice, because you are investing in one of the most valuable categories – your time. Be responsible, be proactive and always call for help, because we are stronger together.

I was not in a position where I could quit this job, so I had to find a way to better deal with the situation. My approach was two-fold. First, I had to take care of myself and that involved seeing a therapist who coached me through dealing with my difficult boss and regaining my confidence. The second step was building a network so that I could more easily get a job when I needed one. There is a saying that “it’s not what you know but who you know” and it is partially right. Who you know can get you in the door so that you can show them what you know.

After reviewing the networking opportunities in the South Florida area, I settled on a newly started chapter of the Society for Information Management (SIM), a non-profit organization dedicated with providing IT executives networking, education and give back opportunities. I chose SIM membership because it focused on leadership, had a special interest group for women, and it was a national organization.  I felt that this combination would cover all the groups that I needed to be networking with to move my career forward.

Very quickly after joining SIM South Florida, I was offered a position on the board. I am grateful to the existing board members who encouraged me to pursue roles that I was passionate about, building partnerships and running the SIM Women group. The SIM South Florida chapter was very small, and I took on whatever needed to be done. This was at times very challenging but the experience I gained has been invaluable.

I am proud of the SIM Women program that I developed which directly contributed to increasing the percentage of women members in SIM South Florida and on the board to 50%. As the Partnerships Chair, I built relationships with the leaders of the other technology organizations in the area and collaborated on joint events. This has positioned SIM South Florida as a leader in the IT community. I further built SIM South Florida’s brand as the Marketing Chair. I developed a weekly newsletter that was emailed out and posted to social media.

I began 2020 as the newly appointed President of the SIM South Florida chapter. We had high hopes for a record year in terms of revenue and membership gain. COVID changed our plans as it did for everyone. We pivoted to virtual events and took advantage of the access we gained to national speaker and the accessibility of the virtual platforms. We were quickly doing more events and had higher attendance. When George Floyd was murdered, we knew that our ongoing focus had to be about helping the technology community become more diverse, inclusive, and equitable. That spawned an ongoing collaboration with three other organizations in South Florida to deliver events focused on providing technology leaders and workers actionable advice for achieving that goal.

As I achieved success as a board member of SIM South Florida, my work life improved as well. The difficult boss left the company, and the new CIO was a former SIM member who agreed to send me to a leadership program that SIM offered called the Regional Leadership Forum (RLF). Over 9 months, I read 17 books, took 6 assessments, and traveled to St. Petersburg, Florida 6 times to spend two days with my class learning how to become a better leader. It was intense and one of the best experiences of my life. I came away from RLF comfortable with who I was as a leader, committed to continue developing my leadership skills and passionate about helping others become leaders, not bosses who feel the need to put everyone else down.

Within a couple of years, I had outgrown my role at work, and I was looking for a job again. This time I was in a much better position for a job search. After countless interviews and a couple of disappointing job offers, I came to the attention of an executive recruiter who was looking to fill a Vice President of Information Technology role. This happened at a SIM Women lunch I was hosting where I mentioned that I was looking for a new job. It did not take long for me to get the interview and then the job! At Digital Colony, a leading digital infrastructure investment firm with over US$30 billion in assets under management.

Now, as Vice President of Information Technology at Digital Colony, I have been responsible for day-to-day IT operations. After the acquisition by Colony Capital, I had a significant role in changing systems over to the new name of Digital Colony and doing the necessary system integrations to help Digital Colony and Colony Capital function as one company. When COVID happened, Digital Colony was able to quickly pivot to a remote working situation because we had already moved all our systems to the cloud. My work at Digital Colony is interesting, challenging and demanding and the culture is supportive. A perfect combination for continued career growth.

In December 2020, I was honored to be named as one of four SIM National Leaders of the Year. I was nominated for the award by my fellow board members, a group without whom I could not have achieved as much as I have. Success is never achieved on one’s own. Surround yourself with great people who see your vision and support your efforts and be that person for others. Success is also better when it is shared.

There is already worrying data that a negative legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic could be that some of the progress made in terms of gender parity in the workplace could be rolled back and undone. A report carried out by the Women and Equalities Committee found that when it came to dealing with employment issues and furlough, gender disparities were ignored by the UK Government. Caroline Nokes MP, Chair of the Committee, stated that “government policies have repeatedly skewed towards men – and it keeps happening”. This has been amplified as many of the sectors that have been hardest hit by the pandemic are ones with a disproportionally high number of female employees.

In terms of senior women there are already worries about stress levels and mental health due to home ‘presenteeism’ where women are having to do the lion’s share of home schooling, cooking, housework, family support and caring / organising support for elderly family members, as well as their professional responsibilities to clients, colleagues and junior members of their team.  Many are struggling with sleep, being left out of Zoom meetings, not being asked to pitch for new business and high levels of virtual man-splaying.  This is leading to women I speak to seriously considering giving up their jobs or resorting to working part-time.

This is not just what my wonderfully talented female friends are telling me.  According to the annual study by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org, a quarter of women were considering leaving the workforce or scaling back on their career aspirations due to the demands and pressure as a direct result of the pandemic, having to balance multiple household responsibilities.

The Women in the Workplace report surveyed 40,000 employees at 317 companies and discovered that working mothers are three times as likely as working fathers to be burdened with the majority of the housework. The study also found that senior-level women are more likely than male peers to feel burned out, in part, due to the macho culture, micro-aggressions and lack of other female colleagues at their level – especially those that prioritised careers over children and are now older parents.  Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg highlights just how troubling this situation is: “if we had a panic button, we’d be hitting it…leaders must act fast or risk losing millions of women from the workforce and setting gender diversity back years”.

However, even before the pandemic women putting themselves forward for promotion or increased pay and/or bonuses receive more pushback.  We also know that women’s contributions are too often claimed by and rewarded to male colleagues, with women also receiving less feedback and constructive appraisals when they ask for it.

In the UK Financial Services industry I work in, misogyny is still an issue.  There is still an ‘old boy network’ with many of the women held out as shining examples of the diversity dial shifting being from similar education, university and socio-economic backgrounds.

Financial News recently revealed that out of 650 top dealmakers in London, only three were black. In a separate investigation by the paper, not a single top investment bank disclosed details of ethnic diversity in their ranks, and only a few top fund managers were able to make such disclosures. So, whilst many financial institutions have embarked on initiatives to increase racial diversity among their employees, there is a long way to go.

More needs to be done on unconscious recruitment bias, including making the business case for investment in meaningful diversity and how to overcome issues that currently prevent the creation of opportunities for ethnically diverse talents today and in the future.   The recent Black Lives Matter movement has heightened awareness of the stark lack of racial diversity in not just the City but across Corporate UK. Some of the key issues are lack a of role models, stories and cultural understanding.  Still having businesses dominated by men from certain backgrounds and with certain cultural biases who think a certain way, means that they might be supportive of diversity but still want people they recruit to behave like them and ‘fit into’ their way of doing things.  For example, a boss from a big fund management firm said to me not so long ago, ‘Gina we are recruiting women and people from ethnic backgrounds but how do I get them to “join in” and come down the pub after work?’  Women and people from diverse backgrounds must be allowed and feel comfortable that they can fully bring who they are work and not feel pressure to ‘fit in.’

We also need to not just stick together but stick up for each other.  I understand that sometimes women don’t advocate for other women in their organisation, that it is about survival when there is only one woman being considered for a promotion in a male dominated selection process.  It’s not about being a prima donna, but instead a product of what scholars call “value threat.” I believe that the ‘queen bee’ myth has been perpetuated by men as women I have known over my career do not behave like this, rather it is a reaction to being constantly marginalised.  But as the number of women increases, we must encourage our female colleagues and friends to be ambitious. To start a business, go for that promotion, speak up on things they are passionate about or speak up when things are wrong will help us all in the long run. As former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright said: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

I co-founded SCM Direct in 2009, as a reaction to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and a desire to democratise investment management as well as show that a corporate culture founded on responsible capitalism was not just possible but would thrive.  I am responsible for the business, its culture, marketing and client relationships.  Everything about our business is based on putting our customers first – our values, ethics, transparency, how we manage money, the ETF investment products.  Our mantra is very simple – we are aligned.  We invest alongside our clients on exactly the same fee and terms and have taken no salary for 12 years – just the returns on our investments.

We also have a strong focus on female investing as the pension gender gap is three times the size of the gender pay gap.  I am pleased that our client base is almost 50/50 men and women and we engage in a number of events encouraging women to look after their finances as real freedom requires financial security and independence.

Our values are based on fairness, transparency and honesty which I believe is needed in an industry criticised for lacking a moral compass and suffers from consumer trust.  We are a vitally important sector in terms of looking people’s financial health but we need to do more to utilise our social capital through purposefully sharing our expertise, knowledge and capital to help society through being a force for economic and social good.

From the point of view of women and wider diversity, there is still much to do to reflect the society we service, and to truly engage and maximise our contribution to the economy, society and the planet.

Gina Miller – Co-Founder, SCM Direct & True and Fair Campaign

www.scmdirect.com

www.trueandfaircampaign.com

One such human consistently endeavoring to end gender inequality and secure equal rights for women is Joanne Archambault. A woman who is keeping no stone unturned in establishing a progressive approach to end violence against women. A woman who believes in doing what is right rather than striving to achieve what is popular.

Joanne’s professional journey includes serving the San Diego Police Department for more than two decades. Out of which her last 10 years were dedicated to supervising a Sex Crime Unit of 13 detectives. Dealing with crime victims and investigations related to sexual assaults, she recognized a dire need for sexual assault investigation training.

As such, in 2003 with an aim to improve the investigation and prosecution of sexual assault, Joanne founded End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI). Since then, she stands tall as a Founder who makes every effort to make sure that all sexual assault reports are investigated fairly and all victims attain the needed support and assistance they need every time.

Exemplifying Exclusivity at Every Step

Headquartered in Colville, WA (Stevens County), EVAWI is successfully offering training and technical assistance to veteran professionals and those just beginning to work in the field. By receiving $9.5 million of public and private funding from donors, federal grants, and an annual international conference, in 2019 alone, the organization provided 159,972 hours of training and support for law enforcement, health care, victim services, and other professionals.

Driven by Joanne’s stringent efforts, this non-profit organization impacted more survivors of gender-based violence than ever before in 2019. Its ‘OnLine Training Institute (OLTI)’ catered to more than 5,000 new users and completed almost 11,000 modules with utmost excellence.

My strategies are simple. I believe in doing my best to always do what is right, not necessarily what is popular. I always try to operate from an ethical position and stay true to our mission and values. 

Working as a Child Abuse Detective, Joanne acknowledged that people are often unable to give an effective response to a disclosure of sexual assault victimization. With EVAWI at the helm, she curated a ‘Start By Believing’ campaign to create a positive community response, informing the public, uniting allies and supporters, and improving individual reactions.

Living by ‘We hear you, and we are here to help,’ the campaign is transforming societal responses to sexual violence and improving outcomes for victims, one response at a time. 8 states have now proclaimed to be Start By Believing States and 577 communities the US and in 23 other countries have launched campaigns successfully.

Joanne’s Take on Accepting Change

Starting a not-for-profit entity was not an easy task for Joanne. However, her passion to work closely with the US Department of Justice to shape national policies gave the needed spark. She started out at the San Diego Police Department working patrol in the highest crime area in the city with an all-male squad. The experience was challenging, but very rewarding. Her placement as the first female officer in the early ‘80s at the San Diego Police Department Gang Unit was filled with bad-to-worst kinds of experiences. Many of her male colleagues, including her assigned partner, weren’t happy with a woman being assigned to the Gang Unit.

When the entire gang unit, except her, was called out by the sergeant, on a search warrant on one of her own investigations, she transferred to the Child Abuse Unit. Law enforcement had few women at the time and working child abuse with more female officers was an entirely new and welcoming universe.

Be it, pediatricians, nurses, or social workers, working Child Abuse provided an opportunity to work with amazing female professionals with similar interests creating an environment of collaborations. Today, after dealing with gender discrimination in law enforcement and working to change that with her non-profit, she says, “We have many male allies, but the field is still dominated by women with a lot of diversity which is very rewarding. Unlike law enforcement, men are typically the minority in our field of gender-based violence.”

A Multifaceted Pathway of Experience

From 1974-75, Joanne was an exchange student in Brazil where she became fluent in Portuguese and later, Spanish. Coming from a low-income family, she taught English in Brazil to earn money. Her love for working in the Hispanic community led her to be a paid bilingual officer at the San Diego Police Department which lacked enough Spanish speakers for the population.

Working in law enforcement, Joanne had the privilege of honing her ability to efficiently triage problems, and was instrumental in developing her personality as a whole. She believes that being born and brought up amongst six brothers helped to prepare her to work in a male-dominated field. She also appreciates the typing skills developed in high school because she still types about 120 wpm which allows her to respond to the huge volume of emails she receives and responds to every day.

Apart from all this, Joanne feels grateful that she has traveled the world and explored different cultures and diversity showcasing an even mix of distinctiveness and excitement.

A Note to Remember

Joanne believes in community and problem-oriented policing. Her appreciation and understanding about people of color and other marginalized communities will surely play a key role in bridging the gap between communities and empowering women in the long run.

It was 2000, right after her graduation when she entered the corporate world. Hiro has also completed her MA in Communication followed by her professional pathway which made a trail across various cities including Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, and Singapore. In

Acknowledging that fragrance eases lives, Hiro launched Project Felicia in 2013 intending to explore the true potential of scents. Later, in 2016-17 she was also in charge of proposing fragrance concepts for product development at Givaudan Singapore. Today, being a seasoned entrepreneur keeping a stronghold in American, Japanese, Singapore, and Malaysia niche perfume promotion, she is now focusing on incense creation for business expansion.

It’s All in the Fragrance

Headquartered in New York, Project Felicia is leveraging fragrances to offer exclusive marketing, educational events, and product development. Recognizing the importance of incense after her mother’s passing in Japan at the Buddhism ritual, she is now strongly focusing on incense.

I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by women who showed me this new path that I can achieve anything as long as I am competent, confident, authentic, and passionate about what I do, regardless of gender and age.

She has offered Creative Japanese Incense workshops in Singapore, Tokyo, NY, and LA, and also spoke about the art of incense recently at the Pitti Fragranze 2020 expo. While the current pandemic situation has significantly increased the demand for fragrance the New York Times featured incense as an alternative to aroma diffusers and candles.

Seeing such exponential opportunity for scent, Hiro is all set to transform the face of the fragrance industry with Project Felicia. She is trying to establish a niche optimized enough to withstand the complexities of the market.

What does True Success Mean?

The fragrance industry has been broken into different categories like perfume, essential oils, scent marketing, incense, ingredients, etc. But now it has started to integrate its imperatives. Hiro understood the confidentiality of this industry at her nascent career stage. She also recognized the incense category’s super confidentiality during her expansion in the same. The expansion was nothing less than a challenge but her belief in success comes to those who strive was unshakable.

She was of the opinion that the industry should go beyond the conventional practices and resonate with novel approaches to promote next-gen fragrance products and services. Talking about the same she says, “In order to go beyond conventional thoughts, we are expected to be more cautious than any other categories I’ve been involved with – respect, humility, patience.”

Hiro is well known about women-specific challenges and has been a part of a generation driven by many female leaders and mentors who faced stigma and discrimination. However, she created a lasting impact in this masculine world with her determination and commitment to make a difference. Expressing her side, she states, “As building my career, I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by women who showed me this new path that I can achieve anything as long as I am competent, confident, authentic, and passionate about what I do, regardless of gender and age.”

Hiro deeply observed that women have been struggling for survival in the corporate world and the challenges they face stop them from being successful in whatever they do. Moreover, women are timid to flaunt their achievements and forget to self-promote in order to outshine the professional setting. For her, success was all about realizing own capabilities and contributions as accomplishments. She believed that offering and establishing a support system is the ultimate solution to empower women.

Talking about her success mantra Hiro says, “Believe in yourself and the rest follows. And I believe that mentorship is the first step to the support system that is crucial for any success.”

What will the Future Behold? 

Under Hiro’s leadership, Project Felicia is planning to launch an all-inclusive collection of incense inspired by Japanese history in SS2021 targeting consumers outside Japan. This collection will have the potential to disrupt the incense industry in Japan like never before. Hiro is creating a robust framework to challenge upcoming fragrance projects intending to push the industry towards better value for money outcomes.

With a mission to ‘Bridge and Blend – A Scent World that Creates A Better Society’, she wants to contribute to forming a strong society based on the foundation of fragrance and pleasant scents. For many achieving this formation would seem to be impossible. But with Project Felicia at the forefront, Hiro plans to offer KOIKU (scent education) via state-of-the-art marketing, educational events, and product development.

With dedication at heart and expertise in mind, she is all set to build an ecosystem backed by the aroma. She will surely integrate aroma into people’s lives across the globe by actively using ‘olfactory’ and display a marvel of fragrance to its best.

I founded Veza Global in 2017 as a way to ensure I was doing all that can to ensure there is economic equality for all marginalized and racialized groups. Veza is a human resources tech and consulting company focused on embedding equity, diversity and inclusion into the way businesses operate. We do our best to live our values of inclusive, integrity and feminine leadership principles.

Expertise

My equity, diversity, and inclusion journey started with cross-cultural understanding moved to gender equality and now focuses on inclusive culture. I started creating cross-cultural collaborations of dance which lead me to have a deeper understanding of how the more we understand our neighbors, the more likely we are to connect. I started to apply this concept in the workplace. I found that the more people can be themselves in the workplace, the more likely they were to stay longer and be more engaged with the organization. They also were more productive and satisfied.

During my arts volunteerism, I had the benefit of having access to many rooms that most people who looked like me didn’t have access to. It was then I decided that I needed to change. I started with focusing on coaching women with culturally diverse backgrounds and co-founded a south-Asian women network. That led to consulting and advising on various projects and sitting on committees where I had the opportunity to advocate for change for women with culturally diverse backgrounds.

In my time, working on international and immigrant-focused projects, I came to the conclusion that my mission is bigger than just me. Hence, I created Veza. It combined my 15+ years in human resources, 15+ years in equity, diversity, and inclusion, and over 10+ years of experience in technology.

In my time, I have worked with organizations like UN agencies, governments, not-for-profits, technology, higher education, and various other industries. I have created gender diversity strategies, human resources strategies and led the growth of organizations from the human resources lens. I have worked on and led international teams. One of my favorite projects is a trade mission of women entrepreneurs to Croatia.

Mantra of Success

My mantra for success has been “The Power is in the Mind” – Henry Ford.

It has always been a reminder that we are able to create change within ourselves and our communities through focusing on the change you want to create.

At the age of 13, I decided I wanted to end racism, sexism, war, and the consumption of eggs! (I still eat eggs so I am not sure why I decided that at that time This passion was a driving force to do what I can in my power to create the world I want to see.

I surround myself with people who are high vibration, think about impact, and looking at how they as individuals can create change.

Views on Current Industry Scenario

My organization Veza Global has been pivotal in helping organizations rebrand, restructure and recalibrate to create more inclusive cultures as a result of COVID, which affected staff disproportionately due to race, socio-eco, gender, etc. AND as a result of the global racial reckoning.

Through the work of equity, diversity, and inclusion consulting and our proprietary assessment tool, we have been able to impact over 500,000 people through various industry-level projects such as creating a diversity and inclusion hub for the tech industry, career development program for skilled immigrants, and working with over 25 small to medium-sized businesses on embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion in the way they operate.

Views on Women Empowerment

During the pandemic, 8 of the healthcare leaders across Canada were women. Many of the countries that handled the COVID-19 the best were led with feminine leadership principles. The feminine leadership principles of empathy, collaboration, community-forward, people-focused and calm approach were what prevailed. It was shown that this lens of bringing the whole human forward into all conversations was the true foundation for inclusive communities and women are leading in bringing this lens forward.

As a woman of colour who has built many successful and sustainable businesses, I have experienced, first hand, the systemic barriers marginalized communities face. This is why I have dedicated myself to the work that I do, by building programs, nurturing opportunities, coaching professionals, and running projects that lead to more inclusive cultures. By lifting/relieving these interpersonal, systemic, and organizational barriers, I have determined to help professionals, teams, and organizations raise their profits, creativity, and productivity and affect change.

Manpreet Dhillon – CEO/ Founder | Veza Global

After her studies, she moved and worked in Italy and France where she amassed a decade of experience in the corporate industry working for renowned Fashion brands. After a successful career, she subsequently moved to India permanently in 2001.

Caroline is on a mission to inspire collective action and innovation for positive change. She believes in the importance of powerful leadership and empowerment to create a beautiful world for all of us. Her motto is inspired by the great Mahatma Gandhi: Together, we can be the Change we want to see in the world.”

She has over 30 years of experience in the Corporate world and Social sector ranging from grassroots direct programme development, intervention and implementation, partnerships, fundraising and Budget and grants management, social justice advocacy and NGO organisation and development.

HOPE FOR THE CHILDREN FOUNDATION

In 2007, Caroline founded Hope for the Children Foundation – A non-profit organization in Pune, India and has been associated with the foundation ever since as its Founder & CEO. For the past 14 years, Caroline and her team of 35 dedicated social workers & teachers have touched and changed the lives of 100,000 children and women under various developmental programs. Through its core projects, along with various programs and activities throughout the year.

HFCF is continuously working towards improving the lives of underprivileged and marginalized communities, especially for children, women and youth where she envision a world of sustainable transformation that brings social change, equal rights and opportunities for all.

HFCF mainly focuses on education, health, personality development and nutrition and empowering women and youth through different Vocational & Livelihood training programs and Life Skills education.

She has designed and conceptualized innovative programs that understand and respond to the urgent needs of children in vulnerable communities by contributing to their individual growth as well as the development of the community as a whole.

Our Outreach till today

• Provided over 6.02 million meals to hungry children.
• Distributed school bags and stationeries to 20,053 orphan & underprivileged children from different communities.
• 25,160 children benefited Medical Assistance and Humanitarian support
• Given remedial education, quality education and personality development on a daily basis through our Shiksha Ki Asha Learning centers to 1,049 children.
• Trained – 10,000 women with income generation programs, vocational & livelihood training.
• Starts-up 100 small businesses for our Women Empowerment program.
• Trained – 1000 youth in Utthan Life Skills Education Program for children conflict with the law in collaboration with the Juvenile Justice, Yerwada.
• Trained – 8,343 children, youth and women with our Life Skills Education
• Awarded Education Sponsorship to 2,134 students over the years.

As the founder CEO of Hope for the Children Foundation, she blends her wide experiences which bring life to her vision of a sustainable world, of goodwill & empowerment through a holistic approach to improve the quality of life of underprivileged children, their mothers and in turn, their communities.

COVID19 RELIEF WORK

With a population of 7.1 million of citizens only in Pune, it was a high priority to provide life-saving support such as food security, medical support, counselling services to those affected and possibly displaced due to natural disasters and emergency crises such as Covid19 pandemic. We also know that after each catastrophe or calamity an intervention for rehabilitation is needed.

During the lockdown, we provided a total of 3,02,126 meals to needy families and till date 2,266 food grain kits have been distributed to poor and needy people in the areas like Wadgaonsheri, Kharadi, Sainathnagar, Bhosari, Talegaon, Lohegaon, Yerwada, Chakan.

Caroline conceptualised the ‘Daal Chawal project’ started in collaboration with the Social Policing Initiative, Pune. Through this relief program, everyday 1000 homeless on the streets of Pune were served with cooked meals. 40,000 cooked meals were distributed through this initiative and 28,504 water bottles were donated to Pune Police to be distributed to migrant workers and needy daily wagers living Pune by trains.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/pune-police-tie-up-with-ngo-s-to-set-up-central-kitchen-to-feed-needy/story-pdjfYk86gLheEV4WQs4UgO.html?fbclid=IwAR0rmldPKXGXaBRujpXcYXsTWU-Z3D30SBfy7_fhG1vpTWrLkVNC2Q7UDX8

Safety gear such as masks, gloves, face shield, sanitizer needed to fight against COVID-19 was distributed to the Pune Police and needy community people. A total of 12,100 masks, 5000 gloves, 100 face shields and 1000 sanitizers were distributed. The reusable masks were an initiative for women empowerment for which a bread and butter for them during this lockdown.

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT & LEADERSHIP

Caroline fervently believes in Woman empowerment & Leadership. As a certified Posh, she is on the ICC board of various companies in Pune and provides workshops that promote inclusion and equality. For the past 8 years, she has been empowering and supporting women from the community through the Social Entrepreneurship Funds program.

In 2012, she conceptualised the Atmanirbharata program for Women empowerment. Caroline and her team have trained over 10,000 women with income generation programs, vocational & livelihood training and helped support 100 ladies to start their small businesses and have now conceptualised the formation of self help group federation called Mauka for women empowerment at the state level of Maharashtra.

Believe in yourself and Go for your dream! The world is surely full of challenges but if you are determined to succeed, nothing can stop you. Like Robin Sharma says. Nothing can stop you until you choose to be stopped!

CHILD FRIENDLY PUNE INITIATIVE

Over the past 10 years, Caroline has developed advocacy campaigns on child rights, child labour and child abuse by promoting the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2015, Protection of Children from sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. We also design community programs for their protection and care with different events such as awareness campaign in public space, rally & walkathon, media advocacy, signature campaign and child labour mapping and rescuing. Founder of the Campaign of “I Say NO to Child Labour”, where she advocates against child Labour & fights for the rights of children and woman. She uses the medium to address issues on child abuse and promote the Right to Education. She is active member of the Action for Right of Children (ARC) network and the Campaign against Child Labour (CACL) network.

In 2019, Caroline and her team conceptualized the ‘Child Friendly Pune Initiative” with a comprehensive approach that is preventive, curative and promotes child friendly mechanisms among Child Care Institutes, Juvenile Justice Board and Police Department working closely with WCD and District Child Protection Unit by providing capacity building programs.

She successfully set up the first Child Friendly Police Stations and Child Friendly Juvenile Home model in Maharashtra.

On 30 November 2020, the inauguration of the first Child Police station took place at the Lashkar Police station with the honourable Pune Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta, Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Shisve, Deputy Commissioner of Police Bachchan Singh and the Chief Guest, Prof. Karandikar, Director of IIT Kanpur.

https://www.punekarnews.in/pune-maharashtras-first-child-friendly-police-station-established-at-lashkar-police-station/?fbclid=IwAR0A-iRs3gtntLQaNe7OATw4Z5Sa2UV_y8k8p0XG1T6kwd4gOaMVA0S5j2M

Caroline developed and conceptualised various trainings at the Yerwada Juvenile Home for which the Computer Vocational room was inaugurated on 15th December. The event was inaugurated by Principal magistrate Juvenile justice board Pune, hon.A.A. Pathan, District Woman  and Child Development Officer, Pune —Ms. Ashwini Kamble, Superintendent boys observation special home – Mr. G. N. Padghan, Senior Police Inspector lashkar police station Mr. Ashok Kadam and team member Resource Cell for Juvenile Justice (R.C.J.J) by TISS.

She also set up a kitchen garden just before the lockdown that provided the daily requirement of vegetables at the observation home during this tough time.

https://www.deccanherald.com/national/west/coronavirus-lockdown-observation-home-inmates-reap-benefits-of-vegetable-garden-830863.html.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

The development and empowerment of young lives is of prime importance to Caroline and her team. She has developed for the past 5 years with a team of experts the content on 99 Life Skills sessions based on the recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations and trained over 8,000 youth.

She also develop 3 programs:

●Utthan for rehabilitation of children conflict with the law in collaboration with the Juvenile Justice, Yerwada has empowered over 1000 youth to design their new life and accordingly help them finish their formal education or undertake vocational training.

●The Professional Guidance Center has been conceptualised to help students and youth from the age of 16 years and above with the skills necessary to take up Vocational trainings and / or continue their education, prepare the learners with tools of personality development and professional ethics by imparting Soft skills and life skills to promote confidence, team management skills & professionalism. We also promote livelihood and self-employment with support programs such as Basic English course, Digital & Financial literacy and helping the students to get enrolled for Government based schemes for youth and women.

●Shiksha Plus was established to support deserving girls to continue their higher education.

SPEAKER, MENTOR AND MODERATOR

●Caroline regularly delivers speeches, webinars and Keynote facilitator in corporate houses and schools on Social Entrepreneurship, Women Leadership, Education, Parenting, Life Skills education, Meditation & Personality development, Sustainable giving and Corporate Social Responsibility.

●She was a Mentor & Jury member for the Nokia (Microsoft)  “Good Hackathon”

●She partnered and collaborated on the ‘Impact Funding Online Summit 2020’ in partnership with Meraklis and moderated sessions on Rural entrepreneurship and Sustainable Fashion and was part of a panel discussion on New Strategies for Non-Profit in a post COVID19 world.

AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS

●October, 2019, She was nominated “Global Goodwill Ambassador” (GGA) www.globalgoodwillambassadors.org

●On 25 November 2019, Caroline received the prestigious ” Karmaveer Gold Chakra Award 2019” instituted with the United Nation and the REX Karmaveer Global Fellowship.

●September 21, 2020, On the International Day of Peace she was recognised as a “World Peace Ambassador” representing India and Canada.

THE FUTURE

Motto: When we educate a girl, we empower a woman and transform an entire community.

●To Scale our beautiful projects and make the child-friendly initiative a nation-wide success: We are constantly looking up for amazing partners that will not only help us to scale our programs in Pune and Maharashtra but also across India. We have developed amazing unique programs that have been tested over the years and brought amazing changes and impact in the communities we work. The beauty of our programs is that they are replicable.

●Post pandemic to continue to empower the youth in the communities – We have been working with youth for many years by helping them in their career choices, arranging for certified vocational training, mentoring and providing Life Skills that will help them forge their future. We are now piloting a new program called “Child Friendly Community for Protection & Empowerment of Children. It’s an ambitious program that will support our Child Friendly Initiative and bring a ray of Hope to vulnerable communities.

●Skilling women – For the past 8 years, we have been working with mothers and young women to make them independent and aware of their possibilities and talents . We now know that If they are given access to education they will definitely make the right decisions for their family and everyone will thrive.

Advice for young women

Believe in yourself and Go for your dream! The world is surely full of challenges but if you are determined to succeed, nothing can stop you. Like Robin Sharma says. Nothing can stop you until you choose to be stopped!

Below are the highlights of an interview between Licia Heath and The Tycoon Magazine

Team TM Kindly brief us about your current role and your journey since the beginning of your career.

Licia: I’ve had wonderful diversity across my career. From studying a Bachelor of Science (Hydrologic engineering major) at University; travelling overseas and discovering the financial services sector, which over a 20 year career saw me start as a runner on a trading floor to being part of a team that established and grew an asset management firm into a multi-billion dollar organization; to now being the CEO of a not-for-profit. That variety in roles and breadth of experience has exposed me to many sectors and helped form my views on what’s important in a career.

Team TM – How do you describe yourself in one-word or one-sentence?

Licia: Determined, with a good mix of humor and tenacity.

Team TM –  What is your source of motivation?

Licia: The knowledge that engagement in politics, particularly by those less represented in our governments, improves the health of our democracies.

Team TM – Kindly tell us about the challenges you faced to withstand the complexities of the industry?

Licia: I’ve been working in the not-for-profit space now for two years. Somewhat naively, I thought a lot of my corporate experience would translate perfectly into my new sector. Whilst some skills have been helpful, I’ve had to learn more on the job than I’d anticipated. At times this has challenged my patience and self-belief but it’s also strengthened my resilience and resolve.

Team TM – What are the frequent challenges faced by women in the corporate world and what are the ways to tackle them?

Licia: In Australia, there are a number of challenges faced by women, not just in the corporate world but across the full working spectrum – and nearly all of those challenges have policy solutions. Australia has one of the most expensive childcare schemes in the OECD costing parents on average 25% of net income (vs 11% OECD average) and the least generous, most gendered parental leave (18 weeks vs 55 weeks). This has resulted in Australia having one of the highest part-time workforce participation rates; women retiring with, on average, 40% less superannuation, and women over 55 comprising the fastest growing segment of our homelessness population. It’s also led to Australia falling from 15th to 45th on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index.

Something that’s often forgotten, is that our gendered policies (upholding and perpetuating a male breadwinner/female carer culture) aren’t serving men either. In Australia, the highest cause of death amongst men 18-45 is suicide, over 80% of which is linked to financial issues, or recent or pending unemployment.

These challenges all have policy solutions. Appropriate policies are only implemented if those at the decision-making table have lived-experience in these situations; otherwise they’re blind to the problems in the first place.

Team TM – Kindly describe in detail about your company and its unique services/products.

Licia: Women for Election Australia is a non-partisan, not-for-profit which aims to strengthen our democracy by increasing the number, influence and diversity of women in politics in Australia and engaging more women in the political process. It does this by providing the very best training and support for women to enable them to enter political life, run for office, support electoral campaigns and move up the ladder to higher elective and appointed office.

Team TM – Brief us about the current industry scenario from your perspective.

Licia: In Australia, 37% of our state/territory MPs, 37% of our Federal MPs and 35% of our local Councilors are women. Without equal representation of women and diverse voices in our Parliamentary chambers, perspectives of the majority of our population are not reflected in policy and legislation. With a balance of women and men in Parliament, sharing their lived experience and perspectives, we could move swiftly to solve some of these entrenched policy barriers that are preventing progress for many in our communities.

Team TM – What are your past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

Licia: In 2018 I ran for election myself. It was in the federal seat of Wentworth after our local member, who was also the Prime Minister, resigned after an extraordinary political upheaval. Running in that election was one of the most positive experiences of my life (exactly the opposite of what most people told me it would be). It was during that campaign that I had scores of women approach me and urge me to keep going and also ask me if they could buy me a coffee in the future to ask how they could run one day. It was at that point that I realized what an opportunity we had at Women for Election Australia to expand our offering and empower women across the country.

Team TM – What are your strategies to contribute effectively in hyper competitive market?

Licia: Forge strong relationships with your clients. Build rapport and trust. Demonstrate through your actions that not only is your ‘product’ worthy of their consideration, the service they’ll receive from you along the sales process is second-to-none.

Team TM –How do you see yourself in the near future? Tell us about your future goals.

Licia: Our focus at WFEA currently is to help 2000 women to run for public office by 2022. It’s an ambitious goal but all our energy is being put into building the capacity of women, from all backgrounds and lived-experience, to consider running whilst also giving them the tangible skills to succeed in their campaign.

Team TM – What would you advise young women to succeed in the workplace or as an entrepreneur? How do you perceive the role of mentorship to aspiring women entrepreneurs?

Licia: Understand your market and what drives your competitors and your clients. Then set up your objectives based on those needs and your ability to differentiate yourself. Then work like hell! Success isn’t about throwing out lofty goals and hoping you get there; it’s about incremental improvement every day, following your strategy and executing. Whilst mentoring is important (be it formal or informal) also listen to your instinct. I spent too many years ignoring my internal voice about what I could be capable of if I just gave it a try.

My main advice to young women would be: listen to that voice.

Over the past decade, CS Recruiting has grown and evolved by hiring the right people along the way and setting our team members up for success with the right training and tools. We currently have a 25-person team and manage a multimillion-dollar organization that is known and respected within the Logistics and Supply Chain industry. I have learned so much about business, leadership, and the power of relationships over the years and I truly believe this is the path I was meant to be on from the very beginning of my career.

My parents raised me to be a worker and I always gravitated towards service-oriented roles where I could hustle my way to success. Over time, I learned the ins and outs of client service through waitressing, babysitting and a handful of roles in the retail world. I believe that much of my success and desire to help others came from the time I spent in the service industry and the valuable lesson I was taught over and over that the “customer is always right.” In addition to this, I’ve always been a “connector” and get a thrill out of bringing people together and making relevant introductions.

When I first started recruiting, I loved the creative freedom I had to use various tools and really be resourceful to secure both business and to find candidates open to new job opportunities. I quickly discovered there is a “science and art” to recruiting and worked long hours to grow my network through connections and conversations. I learned early on that treating people with respect goes a long way and there is nothing more valuable than introductions and referrals. I truly believed there was a career match out there for everyone and would work tirelessly to help my clients find the right candidates and to help our candidates find the next home in their careers.

For the first eight or nine years of CS Recruiting, I prided myself on being a hard worker and was one of those people who went to sleep each night with an empty inbox. I was a “hands-on” leader that truly led by example and was never afraid to work alongside our team and get my hands dirty in the business.  As we continue to scale and grow our business, I have learned to embrace my leadership role and have shifted my focus over the last two years to work “on” the business instead of “in” the business. While I still spend a good portion of my week working on our business development efforts, I have re-prioritized my focus and am concentrating on managing our leadership team and motivating our greater team to add value wherever they can.

We are in the business of brokering people and while I’m no psychologist, I am fascinated by human nature and love learning about people and discovering things about other walks of life, and learning about myself along the way. I am a big fan of personality/assessment testing and use the results internally to put our team members in the right positions. I believe our society is so focused on strengthening weaknesses and highlighting insufficiencies vs embracing our strengths and working to improve in areas where we already thrive. My goal for this year is to work with our individual team members to help them realize their unique potential so they can leverage their strengths and passions to develop a career path that excites them.

I am extremely proud of our WOSB (Women-Owned Small Business) status and our female leadership team. The Logistics and Supply Chain industry is male-dominated so there have been many moments throughout my career where I’ve felt like an Imposter or believed I had to work harder to prove myself and our team’s expertise in the industry. I have realized over the years that anyone can “fake it till they make it,” but I have also taken this idea a step further by pushing myself to learn. As a self-proclaimed “nerd,” I use every opportunity I can to learn by reading books and articles, listening to podcasts, or participating in networking groups or workshops where I can take away something new and bring valuable lessons back to our team.

I think one of the reasons I’ve been successful in my career is because I am motivated to help others. I worked in the corporate recruiting world before I started CS Recruiting and it admittedly took me a while to believe that companies would actually pay me for introductions to other people. I have since learned the power of outsourcing and truly believe our team offers a consultative and unique service offering that cannot be matched and I am proud of the work we do that generates revenue. As a visionary, I am constantly bringing new “big” ideas to the table and while sometimes my thoughts are a bit too out of the box, many of them have led us down the right path towards success. I am grateful for my team and their ability to ground me when needed.

Over the years, I have learned that sometimes “showing up” is the most important step in the process and that confidence is gained through practice and access to information.

I can never take credit for our achievements or success on my own and put a huge emphasis on team recognition and a positive culture. I have adopted a servant leadership mentality and am reminded every day that I could not achieve this level of success without my amazing team and their support.

Charlie Saffro – President at CS Recruiting

The waste management industry is the one line of work that will eventually own everything on the planet; the way the world works right now, everything we produce, buy, or make is going to end up as waste. 

While viable and growing, the sector’s main value proposition is largely driving solutions that keep waste out of sight and out of mind. Landfilled, incinerated, and otherwise disposed of, the faster and cheaper we can get rid of it, the better. With this, waste is not the sexiest of topics. 

A New Idea

Very-visible environmental issues of ocean pollution, land-based litter, ecosystem disruption, and dwindling natural resources aside, what’s actually so interesting about waste is that it’s not as much a fact as it is an idea. A concept. A construct that can be undone, and unlocked for endless potential in innovation and profit.

The long and short of it is waste didn’t really exist until about 70 years ago, when mass production, complex yet inexpensive materials (aka plastics), and consumerism came on the scene. Before this, humans did produce and consume, but resources were treated as precious, finite. Everything had value and could be repurposed, as natural systems do intuitively.

Durable return systems like “the milkman,” repairing and reusing high-value items like clothing, shoes, and furniture fell to the wayside of buying new and throwing away. Production and marketing outpaced our ability (or, desire) to create recovery systems for products and packaging we didn’t want anymore.

Getting Back on Track

Today, humanity makes and purchases 70 times more stuff today than we did in the 1950s and a full garbage truck worth of plastic enters the ocean every minute of every day. If nothing changes, we’re projected to see that jump to two garbage trucks per minute by 2030 and four per minute by 2050.

While those numbers are not exactly positive, the good news is that it is possible to design our way back if we act now. What separates garbage from gold, trash from treasure, is a matter of perspective. In order to solve our issues with waste, we must show the world the significance of investing in systems that prioritize collecting, processing, and otherwise capturing the value of products, packaging, energy, water, and other resources to what we are doing now. 

I got the idea to start a company in 2001 and TerraCycle® was founded on the original idea of bottling worm poop that was made  by wrigglers eating Princeton University’s cafeteria food waste. Seriously. One thing led to another, as we were trash picking used beverage bottles for the packaging: an entire product made from garbage.

We had filled a gap in the market by looking at materials most people would consider trash, less than trash (some of our first employees didn’t have the stomach for it…), and packaging it so its value could be marketed to everyday people. Realizing early on that business is the most powerful force for change, we looked to other ways we could turn waste into profits.

Eliminating the Idea of Waste® 

TerraCycle is today the globally award-winning company known for creating recycling solutions for nearly everything the world would consider trash: empty writing utensils, marine plastic litter collected off beaches, even dirty diapers, cigarette butts, and used contact lenses. 

Where the global recycling system is incomplete, confusing, and varies region to region, we work with the CPG juggernauts PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, and Unilever, to bring free national recycling programs to consumers. The nation’s leading retailers, such as Kroger, ShopRite, and Meijer, help us create access.

Our mission is literally Eliminating the Idea of Waste®. For everything we don’t have a sponsored recycling program for, our Zero Waste Box system allows businesses, facilities, and households to take matters into their own hands at one set cost for collection, logistics, and recycling. 

By creating access, driving participation, maintaining high separation of materials, and creating an end-market for the items collected through our programs (our materials are “storied” and carry a strong narrative—”recycled beach plastic” or “recycled cosmetics” give producers an opportunity to stand out), we supplement all ingredients of a successful recycling system.

TerraCycle has turned waste—a human-made problem that does not exist in nature—into a profitable $50 million enterprise. The environmental ROI is a planet left to live on, but using key performance indicators (KPIs), businesses working with us measure returns in other areas, such as sustainability marketing ROI and by pioneering solutions in the product and service space. 

Looking Forward

As TerraCycle grows, so does our ability to tackle the issues of waste. In 2017, the creation of our Regulated Waste division via the acquisition of Air Cycle Corporation marked our foray into universal and hazardous waste, the disposal of which is regulated by the EPA. We’ve been able to help facilities across America improve results, save money, and protect the environment while providing EPA, OSHA and ACGIH compliance.

TerraCycle’s new circular shopping platform Loop works with companies (many of which also have a recycling program with us) to create durable versions of their own goods previously housed in single-use packaging, solving for waste at the root cause: disposability. The products are offered in a combination of glass, stainless steel, aluminum and engineered plastics designed to be reused; when they do wear out, TerraCycle is able to recycle them.

Waste is the ultimate have-not, and my mission with TerraCycle and Loop is to go where no other business has gone before to create something out of less than nothing. Part of the magic of it is that we’re able to share our tools and perspectives with industries around the world and help them use it to create value that scales.

Where the public sector (aka governments and their programs) may fail to address the inefficiencies of current systems by sanctioning businesses to behave otherwise, consumers look to private entities like us and our partners to step up and create the tools they can use to reduce waste.

Tom Szaky is founder and CEO of TerraCycle, a global leader in the collection and repurposing of complex waste streams. TerraCycle operates in 21 countries, working with some of the world’s largest brands, retailers and manufacturers to create national platforms to recycle products and packaging that otherwise go to landfill or incineration. It also created a new circular shopping platform called Loop that enables consumers to purchase products in durable, reusable packaging.

Tom and TerraCycle have received hundreds of awards and recognition from organizations including the United Nations, World Economic Forum, Fortune Magazine and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Tom is the author of four books, Revolution in a Bottle, Outsmart Waste, Make Garbage Great and The Future of Packaging.