95: A conversation with Farzana Baduel, Co-Founder, Curzon PR on PR, Purpose and Leadership

The Elephant in the Room

Shownotes

Not all Asians have the same stories and experiences. My guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast this week Farzana Baduel, a successful entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Curzon PR was inspired by her mother and her aunts who ran their own successful businesses in Pakistan. She also considers her identity as a British Asian to be her strength, something that has helped her straddle two worlds.

In the episode we spoke about her entrepreneurial journey, setting up multiple businesses,

👉🏾 The impact of a world in flux on the PR/Comms Industry

👉🏾 Comms on Board, has the time come?

👉🏾 Diversity washing

👉🏾 Purpose vs/and Profit

👉🏾 Her definition of leadership and leadership style

We also spoke about her role models, beliefs, immigrant work ethics she inherited from her parents, work like balance, kindness, believing in the potential for what we can achieve……

Memorable Passages from the podcast:

👉🏾 Thank you so much for having me.

👉🏾 I guess I am a mom and a wife. And I also run a PR firm called Curzon and British Asian, married to an Italian, love diversity, live diversity. And I love being a communications bridge between different cultures.

👉🏾 I think my identity it shapes what I do. So sort of being brought up in two cultures, the South Asian culture and the British culture, it just innately made it quite intuitive to work not only within the British and the South Asian culture but to work with lots of other cultures.

👉🏾 Because I think when you sort of straddle two cultures growing up, you have the ability to have that sort of level of empathy of being an outsider and that really helps to build bridges, build trust. And I find my sort of identity as a British Asian has massively helped me not just straddling these two worlds, but straddling multiple worlds and most importantly connecting worlds.

👉🏾 I think I was quite lucky because my maternal grandfather was a huge sort of feminist and he used to always say to his daughters, my mother and my aunt, education is really important and career, so do not stop at just the education. So in Pakistan, he had five daughters and he was a huge sort of proponent of women working, women in the workplace back then in Pakistan.

👉🏾 So I think that sort of really percolated throughout our family. So, growing up my mother was well educated, my aunts had businesses in Pakistan, my mother had businesses. And so I grew up there were women in leadership positions, be it a small business, a large business, freelance, it was the norm for me.

👉🏾 So for me, I kind of almost aped the women who are in my family and but what I really admire is actually those women out there who set up businesses who didn't have those role models in their family. I think those women should be celebrated, cuz women like me, actually, I had role models growing up.

👉🏾 So it was something that growing up, it just nurtured me into believing that is also a path that I can easily take. Sure. Well I left university after my second year, so at the age of 20, I set up my first business, which was a tax business, and I ran it for around 10 years. And then the PR business, I've been running for about 13 years.

👉🏾 And I would say that actually the tax business was fairly straightforward and easy. I think also because it just came naturally to me. I was good at mathematics, I was good at processes. And so the tax business was relatively easy for me to run and do well in. I'd say the PR firm was a massive struggle, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

👉🏾 I think it took me about 10 years to really understand and feel confident about being a PR person because I set up the firm, foolishly without ever working in PR before. And I thought I was just being brave, I think in hindsight I was just a bit foolhardy.

👉🏾 So it was incredibly difficult. It was like the blind leading the blind. I think if I could turn back the clock, I would've worked in other agencies, but I was always scared about would I be able to get a job at an agency back then, because I had an accounting background. So And also I had a one-year-old daughter.

👉🏾 I sort of thought to myself, well, actually, let me just, set up a business in this world and learn it as I go. Because I didn't feel I had opportunities to get into agencies back then. So that was sort of the rationale behind it, but incredibly hard massive sort of imposter syndrome. I'd almost talk myself outta contracts sometimes. And that's not really helpful in sort of revenue growth.

👉🏾 And I think that it took me about a solid 10 years. of which I'd spend weekends, holidays, reading up about PR. I'd read lots of PR books and blogs and podcasts and I would just consume everything. I think I stopped feeling like an imposter when Oxford asked me to be their resident PR expert at the university. And I thought, okay, maybe. I do know something about the craft. I think when you have imposter syndrome the pursuit of external validation is really important. But I think I'm now at that stage where I don't need that external validation anymore. There's an innate confidence that I have, but it's taken me so long to get there.

👉🏾 I think the good has been that there has been a lot more agencies that have cropped up. People have felt a lot more confident to start up PR firms because the barriers of entry is much lower. Because before you'd have to have money to buy an office space. And now because there's a remote model that's become acceptable culturally in the world of business. There's been a lot more people who are able to set up, their own business in the PR industry.

👉🏾 And I think that's been really positive. Cause it's just lowering the barriers of entry which I think is a good thing. I think the second is again, because remote work is increasingly acceptable, what's happened is that there's a lot more people with caring responsibilities. So looking after the elderly or children, or sick relatives, they are able to sort of manage their caring responsibilities as well as work. And before it used to be very binary. It was like, you're either gonna be a carer or you are going to have a career. And now actually you can have that third path, where you can still have a career.

👉🏾 And also I think PR can be very London-centric. So what's wonderful again about remote work is the PR industry doesn't have to be so London-centric. PR firms can hire people from other parts of the UK, and that levelling up agenda that was part of the sort of government's narrative can really take place through remote work.

👉🏾 So I think that's the good side. I think the bad side is that there's been a lot of uncertainty. It's led to a lot of anxiety, I've seen a lot of spike in mental health issues, and how to sort of, balance this new way of working with ensuring that people are also feeling supported, but at the same time, the productivity is also there.

👉🏾 So trying to find a balance between ensuring that the culture is supportive in the workplace as well as the productivity, cuz it's often, sometimes a balance between one or the other

👉🏾 Very much so. I think also because as we're sort of moved from the emphasis of the state of being the customer to sort of stakeholder capitalism. The stakeholders are not just the customer in terms of priority, but also the internal stakeholder, the employee as well as government, journalists, communities, suppliers and because of stakeholder capital. It's sort of really brought PR professionals to the fore because before it was often if you saw somebody on the board they have a marketing background, because of course customers king, but now actually multiple stakeholders are king and queens. And consequently, the PR people are the ones who navigate stakeholders.

👉🏾 And so they are the ones that actually increasingly are needed at board level in order to spearhead the strategy as well as identify these sort of strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats, which PR people are naturally horizon scanners. We're always looking at context and increasingly because of risk and geopolitical strife.

👉🏾 And us moving towards a multipolar world, horizon scanning is increasingly important. And I think CEOs and chairs of boards, they beginning to realise that actually PR people hold the skillset of horizon scanning, identifying risks, managing risks, crisis communications, building reputation and resilience around the organisation.

👉🏾 And the fact that reputation is an asset on the balance sheet that needs to be protected. And that's where I think PR people are becoming increasingly sort of more in demand. And we are moving away from the old way of thinking on boards where they used to just have a marketing person on. But understanding that other stakeholders also, communications with them need to be managed.

👉🏾 I think that's why it's important to have people of colour in the decision-making room because when they come up with the ideas for the diversity inclusion campaigns. It’s more likely that somebody, an ethnic minority can say, hold on, you can't just basically do diversity washing. What is actually the experience of an ethnic minority within your organisation as an employee?

👉🏾 And really try and remind them that there shouldn't be that wide gap between perception and reality. Whatever you communicate about your organisation on the outside really has to authentically connect with what it's really like on the inside. And I think there's obviously been a lot of greenwashing, a lot of diversity washing.

👉🏾 I think the fact is that millennials and Gen Z, they care passionately about these subjects, but also they are not stupid. They are incredibly savvy and I think what they hate more than anything is actually hypocrisy. And there are a lot of organisations that lack self-awareness, that don't understand how to approach diversity and inclusion that feel that just by putting a disproportionate amount of ethnic minorities in their advertising campaign, that means that they are sufficiently woke in order to be able to, speak to their target audience. And they don't understand that this generation, they will go on the website, they will look at the leadership team, they will have a look and see, what diversity do you have in the senior leadership team. They will take into consideration the sort of lived experience of the ethnic minorities working within that organisation. And I think they've got to be extremely careful, they've gotta make sure that they are aligned internally and it's almost better to sort of, really underpromise and over deliver when it comes to diversity.

👉🏾 So really, I think also to be vulnerable and say, what, we recognise that we need to do better. We're not there yet, this is the path that we are gonna follow, this is how we're gonna measure ourselves and we're gonna be transparent in our reporting. And if we fall short, we will let you know and we will have a contingency plan on how to bring us back in line with where we want to get.

👉🏾 And I think sharing that journey, cause nobody expects organisations to change overnight. But really having that sort of transparency, that sense of humility. And that sort of, underpromising and over-delivering, I think would really builds that trust in organisation.

👉🏾 I think what's happened now is, I think down to stakeholders. Before it used to be very much focused on the shareholder, and now actually it isn't, that's the harsh reality. And the reality is that actually employees is as important, if not more than the shareholder. Because ultimately a business cannot really survive without employees.

👉🏾 And so, what's happened is I think that the public feel more empowered because they are able to communicate, through social media, they're able to really create sort of coalitions and campaigns together, on Twitter, for instance. So I think people are more empowered, which means people are sort of forcing organisations. I think because they perhaps feel let down by governments that they're thinking, well, actually the governments really haven't delivered. We don't really trust them to deliver. And the only mechanism as a public to make ….

👉🏾 But we need to just direct them into the areas that we care about, which is not profits but obviously they understand that businesses need to be sustainable, but they care about planet and people. And that's where I think, we're getting much better frameworks like the ESG framework in order to ensure that we hold companies to account.

👉🏾 So I think we're very different than the sort of greed is good mantra of the eighties. And that's perhaps a philosophy I think that makes a lot of hardcore capitalists feel quite nervous. But I think at the same time, we are dealing with some existential threats around climate change, the sense of inequality between the haves and the have nots are widening. I’m a capitalist, but I think fundamentally it's a good thing to look at profits as well as people, as well as planets because a lot of costs and the P&L accounts of businesses are environmental costs that haven't been captured.

👉🏾 And the harm that they're doing to the planet as well as the communities are not there in the P&L account. So I think the reporting around companies, it's good that the ESG element is brought in because a company polluting rivers you don't see that harm and expense it does to the environment on the P&L. I think we're moving towards, a sort of purposeful business, which is what we need, at this stage of our humanity, our journey. It's an evolution, I'd say.

👉🏾 I would say that I define leadership as the ability to articulate a mission. And to help others along in their journey towards that mission. I would say that my sort of leadership style has massively changed. I think that in the early years of my businesses, I think, I was quite blinkered, a bit of a hamster and a hamster wheel just kept on working, very much immigrant work ethic that I inherited from my mom and dad. Working seven days a week, extremely long hours, I would work throughout my holidays, and I thought I was doing the right thing. And I thought the more hours I put in, the more successful that I would be and the better the business would be.

👉🏾 I've been running businesses for about 25 years now, so I think only I had an epiphany five years ago. So 20 years of sort of running my business I think was wrong because I just worked to death and as a result I was grumpy. Yeah, I wasn't nice to work with, I was short-fused, I was highly critical, I wasn't empathetic, and it was to do with my well-being, because my well-being was low priority. I was always grumpy. And looking back, I thought I just wouldn't wanna work with myself. And just about five years ago I thought, you know what?

👉🏾 I want to actually stop working weekends, I wanna stop working holidays. I want to be present for my family. I want to do walks in the park every morning with my dog. And I want to take holidays and weekends. And since I've done that, I've ironically started working normal hours and consequently, I'm much nicer to work with, I like myself more, my the staff retention has increased. I often get sort of, you know, positive compliments from my colleagues who are like, I really enjoy working with you, never had that before. So I think actually, the game changer for leadership for me has been if you take care of your own mental health and well-being and you don't work yourself to the ground, then you have much more capacity and energy for kindness.

👉🏾 And I think kindness is that magic ingredient in teams that really build the foundations for high-performance teams. And it took me 20 years to get the kindness memo and not just kindness to others, but kindness to self.

👉🏾 Gosh. I mean, I think I have different role models for different things, so, Obama, I think he is such a wonderful role model in terms of his elegance, his ability to orate and his ability to really give people a sense of optimism just through his oratory skills. I think he is absolutely incredible. I really admired Margaret Thatcher for being the first woman for her political longevity, for her ability to really care about the country. Of course, she didn't get everything right and she got a lot of things wrong. She's human, she isn't a saint.

👉🏾 But just to withstand that level of criticism and constant undermining as the woman, as a mother of twins I just thought what a woman. And so I admire these, women politicians with a thirst, because I think that the amount of criticism that was levelled at them would've been a lot higher because of their gender and they just, ploughed through. On the same vein, Angela Merkel, as well these women in politics who have really been able to maintain their position I think is extraordinary.

👉🏾 And I would also say actually the people who are, you know, sort of role models are, people who are in public service. So people who just devote their life to public service. I recently had a lunch with an old school friend of mine from secondary school and she's a social worker and she looks after kids between the age of sort of 16 to 18 who issues with crime and the law and drugs and vulnerability. And she's literally just devoted her entire life. And that's all she does is look after them. And she takes the work home with her in the sense that mentally she cares, she worries about them.

👉🏾 When I had lunch with her, I thought, God, what an amazing, amazing woman. And there are millions of them in public service or in caring responsibilities, be it nurses, be it people work in care homes who have very hard jobs physically and emotionally. And they get on with it. And what motivates them is not recognition or intellectual stimulation or money but is actually, walking the talk of genuinely caring for people. I find they're really inspiring and I'm not that person. I know that, but I admire them for it.

👉🏾 I believe in the potential for humanity. And that's in the positive sense, we've got huge amounts of challenges ahead of us. But I believe that we have it in ourselves to create the utopia that we are trying to create...