Show Notes:

Black and Ethnic Minority representation in leadership positions in the UK PR Industry leaves much to be desired and is well below FTSE 100 @11% and FTSE 250 @9% (Parker Review 2025). However, I am an optimist and do believe that direction of travel has been set by advocates and agencies… Collective progress may be slow, but equity & inclusion is mainstream and there are more role models than ever before…

Alicia Solanki, Senior VP EMEA @Team Lewis is one such role model challenging cultural expectations and stereotypes to make space for herself in the UK industry. In this fast-paced conversation on The Elephant in the Room podcast we spoke about the dynamics of leadership and representation in the industry from the perspective of a woman of colour.

Alicia also spoke about the importance of mentorship in fostering resilience and empowerment amongst underrepresented communities.

- Authenticity and cultural sensitivity

- Work life balance decoded

- Codeswitching – life saving hack or demotivating burden?

- Evolving definitions of leadership and empathy in leadership

- DEI alive or dead? Are clients continuing to prioritise DEI initiatives or are they backtracking on their previous commitments?

Each and every time I hear somebody speak about their lived experiences, I am blown away by how unique our experiences are to each one of us. How important it is for us to understand that Black and Ethnic Minorities or the global majority are not homogenous. That understanding context and intersectionality are key to informed equitable interventions for inclusive workplaces and thriving communities.

Her advice to young Black and Ethnic minority professionals entering the industry - ‘make your own magic’.

Episode Transcript

Sudha: Good morning, Alicia. Wonderful to have you on the Elephant in the Room podcast today.

I'm delighted because I've been following you on LinkedIn for some time and it's a great pleasure to have you here today.

Alicia: Thank you, Sudha. It's a pleasure to be here today.

And yes, my friends and family always laugh about how obsessed I am with LinkedIn, so I'm glad you found me on there too.

Sudha: Brilliant. So let's start with a quick introduction.

Alicia: So I'm Alicia Solanki. I'm SVP EMEA at Team Lewis. Team Lewis is a global marketing agency here in London, but we're also global. We're around the world in 25 offices. I've done my whole career agency side. Before that I was in the Omnicom family. So, yeah, I guess I love the buzz of agency.

I love the discipline of PR and how it's really expanded now. I have two children, Ella, who's 11, just started high school. So lots of change came going on in our house at the moment.

And then I have a little boy called Ethan, who's eight. So, yeah, married, busy life, juggling loads of plates. But I kind of like it that way. So that's a bit about me.

Sudha: Yeah. Oh, my God, it sounds really busy and with life changing stuff.

I mean, moving from primary to secondary is like a huge change and of course, agency life. Tell me about it. I love the buzz. I was agency side, moving on. As an ethnic minority woman with an amazing career in PR, I need to ask you this. Did you choose to get into the PR industry? And how did your family respond? Because, I mean, a lot of Asians really don't get it.

Alicia: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And you're going to laugh when I tell you that I bought the ‘Dummy's Guide to PR’ before I started my career because I knew nothing about what this industry was about. But what I did know is that it ticked loads of boxes. So I love politics, I love the media, I love writing and reading and being with people.

And there were very few careers, I guess, that ticked every single one of those boxes. And then I came across PR and started looking into it and realized that it could do that. So that was where it ended up. My family had no clue what this was. My mom still thinks I'm a pa, I think. So I just kind of let anyone believe that which is fine.

And I really remember one time when I think it was a cousin of mine, who I won't name, said to me, what are you supposed to do with a career with a degree, sorry, in English. And I remember thinking, oh God, I've really gone against the grain here. When you know, lots of my cousins and grew up in a really big Indian family. Right. Lots of people around the house and most of them did, you know, either economics or math. So I was definitely an outlier.

And so yeah, it wasn't easy and I definitely sort of went left when everybody went right. From a studies point of view.

Sudha: Good for making your own choices. I can understand. I mean I didn't tell my kids, they didn't know what I did for the longest time and I was okay with that.

So during your career, considering that, you come from a background which is not in PR and where there's little awareness of the industry, did you have access to mentors and allies and role models? How important is it for you to see people like ourselves as role models?

Alicia: Yeah. I'll take the first part of your question first. I started this career in 2005 and there definitely weren't that many role models, particularly Asian female, in really seeing positions.

I think fast forward 20 years where we are now, there are definitely lots of brilliant examples and each one of us hopefully trying to lift each other up and become more visible and use our platforms and our voices. But there wasn't back then.

But what there were, I would say is that loads of allies in other places that either saw a talent that you had, that maybe you didn't realize that you had advocated for you and gave you opportunities. And I started my career at Ketchum and there were some amazing leaders, colleagues there that, you know, played an instrumental part in my career.

And they know who they are. So I won't name them all because I don't want to miss anyone. But yeah, the ability to see something, I guess that you didn't see in yourself. So allies are important everywhere in your life. Sometimes they're obvious allies, sometimes they look like you have the same background as you, but that's not always the case.

And I think being open minded and looking around and networking like crazy and finding those people that can lift you up and can occasionally like throw you the microphone or give you the spotlight. I think for me those are the people that have been real jewels in the story. As I look back over 20 years. So yeah, they weren't there back then. I'm so pleased to say that there are definitely way more now.

Sudha: Agree. I totally agree with you. And you know, we just spoke about agency life and the buzz of agency life. So is there a thing such as work life balance and what are the strategies for staying grounded and avoiding burnout considering you have a life beyond work?

Alicia: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's one of the hardest things I think about being in this career. It is always on. There is a nature, a degree to which you have to be present with your team, with your clients and that's challenging.

Yeah, I mean I have a really long commute to get to work. It can take up to two hours each way, children to sort out in the morning, to feed in the afternoons.

But the way that I like to look at it I guess is that there isn't such a thing as work life balance because you just have one life and you just have to work out how do you turn the volume up and down every single day? So sometimes the volume at work is a bit louder, other days it'll be louder at home.

I like to keep it broadly in equilibrium because I find that that makes me happiest, it makes my family happiest, my colleagues happiest. It's not always easy, but I think you have to be quite disciplined about the way you look at work life balance.

You know, you can't always have your cake and eat it. There is sacrifice everywhere you look and often personal sacrifice is - definitely things that I'm not able to do in the week.

Do a yoga class or there just isn't the time. But I'd hope that in time when the children are older and things settle that you'll get to do some of those things.

But yeah, I think it's just being open minded about that, respecting your boundaries, having that self-respect as well and not being afraid to say no every now and then that I'm not going to stay late or you know, go for that extra drink or. Because actually getting home early today is really important to me. So yeah, that's how I try and look at it.

Sudha: Yeah, I think identifying what is important for you both personally and professionally. Like you said, no two days are same and you need to prioritize and probably plan things down to the last minute.

Alicia: Definitely. And people love.. I have a holiday spreadsheet for the summer holidays and to the point where I just send it to my friends and say just self-serve yourself a date when you want to do a play day or you want to see me? Because unless I do that, I feel totally like eight weeks. I feel totally out of control.

So things like that, although they're practical, very Virgo, I'm very organized. Like things like that really help me.

And other people will have other techniques and crutches that they use, but I think without them it can feel like a free fall and there's nothing feeling like you don't have a plan. So wherever possible I try and put some like scaffolding around me, my family, to protect us and also to enable us to do the jobs that we do.

Sudha: Absolutely. And I think we are, we perform better at work if we are personally also in a good place. So I think makes sense to look out for both.

Alicia: Yeah.

Sudha: So moving on. I think this is something that a lot of black and ethnic minority employees feel. The pressure to code switch or assimilate in the workplace. And if yes, how has that experience influenced your leadership style today?

And are there facets to your identity that you wished people were aware about because it would make navigating the workplace easier?

Alicia: Yeah, that's a brilliant question. And yeah, I code switch all the time. I think you have to because you wear lots of different hats.

You know, when I'm at work and I'm in a boardroom or running the daily stand up meetings with my team. You know, they're looking for you to, to stand up, to tell them what's happening, to reassure them, give them confidence, laugh together, do all of these things. you know, But equally, you know, say if I'm out of the office with a different group or even at home, my own family and my in laws side, you know, you code switch all the time. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I think it's being aware that you're doing it and also the energy expense that it sometimes can take to code switch. Because if you do it beautifully, nobody will ever know that you're doing it. Only you will know the extent to which you're having to either mask or to amplify a kind of characteristic. But yeah, it happens. And I wrote a blog recently about - I'm quite petite. So, you know, it's easy to be the shortest person in the room or around the table. Things I do every time I'm in a room, for example, I immediately pump my chair up around a meeting room table. I take up physical space with my laptop or my books. I talk naturally very loud, which I find gives me authority.

So there's things like that that I've learned to do very naturally now because I know that by doing that, I'm gonna perform at my best.

And, yeah, and some of that just happens autonomously, I find, as you grow through your career and get comfortable with your own kind of personality and your own delivery.

And then on your second question. In terms of facets of identity, I think, you know, being from, you know, the Indian subcontinent, I definitely grew up in a big Indian household with, with loads of, you know, family, uncles, aunties, cousins. And, you know, you were one of a big number. You did have to find your way in that.

I do think of our generation, you know, those born in the kind of 80s who were in between the parents generation where, you know, they were really serving in laws often and trying to find their identity. We had a little bit more of that, but we don't have as much, I would. I would say, as the kind of Gen Z, which is great. You know, there's definitely some freedoms that have been found. So, you know, I've read a lot with, you know, Jaspreet Kaur.

She wrote that book, Brown Girl Like Me, and she talks a lot about that intergenerational trauma that sometimes people, certainly women like me of my age, you know, early 40s are. I have grappled with. And I do think that can play out that sort of quiet Indian girl stereotype or she's gonna be subservient. She's not gonna cause fuss. She's gonna do what she's told. Right. All of these things do exist. And I think, you know, you have to kind of counter some of that every day. And people might turn their head and go, oh, she's not at all like. I thought so. Yeah. I think there's things like that that play into our sense of who we are.

Sudha: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so interesting to hear because, you know, it's like.

I mean, it's about processing essentially your various experiences, and people have various experiences and sometimes, you know, they can be very negative.

This thing about get your whole self to work thing it never worked for me. I was never going to get my whole self to work ever. Right. So I. I don't believe in that. Yeah.

But I want to get my professional best self to work and be empathetic person. So it's about knowing where and what you want to be doing and who you want to be known as.

Alicia: Definitely. Yeah, definitely. And I think we can get really hung up on. On fighting things.

And you put all your attention on disproving or, you know, that's not like me. And. And then you kind of lose the plot line because then you're not doing or advocating for the positive things that you can do. It's sort of. You become quite defensive about all of the challenges in your way. So I can try and approach it with a more positive attitude to say, well, actually, I'd love to surprise this person in the room.

Or when you tell them that you're head of the UK market, they sort of go, oh, you know, And I still get that. I find it just tremendous when you introduce yourself. And I don't know what they expect me to say when I put my hand out to shake their hand, but when I say that I definitely have had more than my fair share of oh.

Which I love now, I use it like dynamite because I kind of go, great, I've either proven you wrong or a stereotype that you've had that just hasn't lined up for you. And I use that to kind of charge myself up. So again, it could be a negative thing that you go, why are people looking at me in this way?

I. I'm not doing something right. It's all about me doing it wrong. But flip it around and go, actually, none of this is on me. And kind of prove them wrong. So you've got to be careful.

Because I think actually for women in our position, that can be quite a heavy load and a burden to carry if you don't find a way to make it more of a dynamite and less of a kryptonite kind of analogy.

Sudha: Yeah, I love the dynamite kryptonite analogy. Love it.

But discomfort is a good place for people to be. They don't know. So that's great. So the definition of leadership has, you know, evolved dramatically in the last few years. What does it mean to you?

How have your experiences shaped it, if at all. And what is your leadership style?

Did you think when you were like, you know, 10 years ago, you were thinking, my God, I mean, it would be helpful not to have this kind of behaviour from a leader?

Alicia: Yeah, definitely. It's a question I get asked a lot, and it's an important question. I think it. It does change.

It changes depending on where you are, what the kind of macroeconomics are, what's needed of you as a leader.

And I think for me, you know, the yardstick of a good leader isn't like, and I've learned this through the hard way, isn't how much you are liked, but how much you are respected. And that's something I had to learn because I am a real people pleaser at heart.

I love being with my team in the trenches all the time doing work I probably shouldn't be doing because I just love being in the weeds. But as you grow up the ranks, I think you have to learn quickly that you have to show, yes, empathy, of course.

That kind of servant leadership model, I think is really important.

And these days, actually kind of leading by example, but also giving the teams a level of clarity, inspiration, the space to, like, do some introspection as well. And they kind of look to you for that. So. But yeah, I think you need to know how to code switch again as you.

As you are a leader and know that you have to sometimes wear masks that are not your natural...