TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Hi, I'm Isabella Sreyashii Sen

co-CEO of Hazelnut Media in Singapore and you're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing.

So as always, thank you for listening, watching and subscribing, and sharing TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I’m DOING with all your friends and family - I’m truly very grateful. So I’m really excited to introduce and set up this episode, because it’s my first ever conversation with a guest from Singapore, but I can’t start without first giving a shout out to INDIASPORA, as this episode could not have actually happened without this organization that is really near and dear to my heart and accelerating and highlighting the impact of the global Indian diaspora on the daily.. Now recently, I was grateful to attend a very Davos style meeting in Abu Dhabi called the Indiaspora Forum for Good, where I was lucky enough to meet my guest for this episode, Isabella Sreyashii Sen, the co-CEO of Hazelnut Media, as she was one of the keynote speakers there. Isabella is originally from Kolkata and now she’s based in Singapore as a powerful and resonant voice at the intersection of storytelling, social impact, and diasporic identity in Southeast Asia. With a background rooted in social work and gender studies, Isabella’s path into film and media was anything but traditional—beginning with grassroots advocacy and evolving into a mission of social change through the arts, telling human-centered stories that transcend language and geography. She has been extensively involved in social projects, working in disaster zones, focusing on gender, discrimination, women, and violence across territories. Now a longtime resident of Singapore, she has championed the voices of the marginalized, founding an Indian film festival and later pioneering a distribution business with Hazelnut Media ,opening doors for South Asian content in Southeast Asia. And today, Isabella remains at the top of a very short list of women in film distribution in Southeast Asia. I was able to recently catch up with Isabella to chat about her journey of resilience, being a rebel, and building community. And since I was visiting Singapore mostly as a tourist and just discovering this incredibly vibrant and diverse city, I wanted to know when Isabella first knew that Singapore felt like her home…

think from the very moment I stepped foot into this place, because that's what Singapore does. when I first came here, I wasn't planning to stay here for very long. I came here with a job and, of course, a But Singapore lasted longer than a marriage. I hope gratefully for that.

beautifully. But the job that lasted was kind of, it's strung various threads that when I look back, it was meant to be. I had told myself that if I didn't find my heart here the kind of profession that I wanted, I wouldn't stay here more than three months.

That obviously is not what happened. so Singapore felt like home. And I guess one of the reasons is, of course, how Singapore is. Look, you've been here for just a few days and you love it here. And that's what Singapore does. It welcomes. And I've traveled to so many countries. Believe you me, every time I'm away from this place.

the moment I see the Singapore Airlines flight or any other flight I'm taking back home, I could kiss Changi F. when I come here. And it's amazing that you say that because in a way, a place or an environment that you have an instant nostalgia for makes you feel at home. But someone also has to be a certain type of person to be able to say that, like, yeah, I'm ready to be welcomed home also. Right. So

for you at that stage of your life when you first came here and even now, is the feeling still the same? Do you still have that? I mean, are you feeling like, know, gosh, you can't wait to be back here every time you return? Yes. What is also very warm and welcoming about Singapore is I think as a woman who's been on her own because I've been living a life on my own. Yeah. And I don't say I'm alone or

I think a beautiful life of solitude, allows you to do. Be creative for that matter. Yes, it allows you to and it's safe. It's a very safe place for women. But it also allows you to be a professional. But the most important thing, I think about Singapore in a world that we see today, which is in some ways, and I don't want to be negative. I'm someone who always believes in positivity and hope.

And when we talk more about the journey, you know why I say that, it is gender is a precious thing about any land. So when I walk into meetings and I walk into spaces, I am treated as a professional rather than a woman having to prove herself, which it has become in a lot of places. But you have to first prove that, you a woman of what?

And then you have to prove yourself as a professional. Singapore doesn't do that. It treats you as a human being who is worth. And then if you are a woman of worth, they look at you as, well, what is it that your gender also proves, which is great. It's almost like a, I feel like that's such a huge accelerator. It builds agency. You...

don't feel like you're a leg behind. certainly it's sort of like levels that equity playing field. And I imagine that for you, it allows you to be yourself and in some ways to lead. yes. yes. And it's allowed me to do that from the very beginning. Of course, initially it was a struggle when I say because.

I had to find the niche when I came. didn't come as a movie professional. I came as a social work professional. And in those days, 20 plus years back, the social development sector was still in its very natal stage, especially from a global point of view.

Yeah. So I had to find a niche. had to. I didn't speak one of the more common languages, which is Tamil. So even to work with the community was a little bit and I say a little bit of a struggle because within three to four months, I found a gorgeous position for myself with the Singapore International Foundation and the development sector.

And what really worked, and that's where I say Singapore welcomes, was the languages I did speak, which were Hindi and Bengali, because I started work with the migrants. And they saw that as a huge advantage. And that helped. But what also helped, Abhay, was I grew up in a family where my mother grew up in Myanmar.

So I had a very strong Southeast Asian exposure from a very long time as a child. My grandfather had traveled to Hong Kong and Singapore from the 1940s, 50s. So we had been very close and very familiar with Singapore and this part of the world as far as even food and you

little gifts that came back from this part of the makes a difference, right? Because like for you, this is not some place that is completely, know, like, you know, wow, I feel like a foreigner.

You know, so these little things make things seamless, right? That like you feel more comfortable. They're familiar. Yeah. And it doesn't seem like there's a lot of friction then for you to then do all the things that you want to. And I'm curious, you mentioned that you have this amazing social worker background. Yeah. Your whole in a way, mission really with what you're doing is to kind of find that social change through the arts and through storytelling and being in city where

you have been able to familiarize yourself a little bit more deeply. It has a global lens. It has that equity Does being here contribute to kind of a different layer of empathy, especially when it comes to media and storytelling, meaning you, given the fact that it's been a seamless welcome, that you have this background, and the mission is really to create social change. Has Singapore made it easier to be an empathic

media professional, a more empathic storyteller, simply because of who you are and where you are? I guess that's very interesting. What really worked is the way the media environment has changed and how I could perhaps enmesh the two. One is, of course, my social work

And walking into the media environment was in a way whimsical. I wasn't planning to. I mean, was it like an accident? It was a wish for a very long time. So I grew up in a family that was very close to the media world. My father's side came from the media world in many ways. My father was also

one of the very strong members of the Calcutta Film Society, executive council member of the very first group. We grew up in a family that was very close to the arts. His extended family was very part of Bollywood, though I don't like the term, the Hindi film industry those days. His uncle was a very, very big name in the industry.

and my cousins and some of the extended family still continue to be. But I was told specifically not to be part of it. So I went on to study English literature and social work. I've always been a rebel. And when I see myself now.

still do with the things I do in the the media world. My co CEO Olivier, as you know, he sees that as well. And he sees, sometimes he says, Are you really sure you want to do this? And I said, Yes. And then he looks at me and says, I think you're right. Just who you are. Right? Yes. And well, the reason I say this, so when I was doing my masters in English in Calcutta,

But I went on to do my specialization in gender studies. And I decided as one of my special papers to study the bad woman in literature.

in my masters. And those were days of when you didn't have Uber, you didn't have the phone, the mobile phone. And I chose to study the bad woman in literature, not in the library. So that's the rebelling me. And I said, I'm going to go into the red light districts in Calcutta and talk to the women and the children there. So I went to Shonagachi, I went to Kali Khat and I started interviewing them. My mentor then

in college in Jharnati who was wonderful said, I'm happy for you to do it as long as your parents are okay for you. My parents were one of the most progressive parents I can think of and they said, as long as you can take care of your safety, we are happy. I used to have yellow taxi drivers who would wait for me to bring me back home.

And I used to spend my days, sometimes late nights there talking to the women there. And I published a paper. Part of my research was published in the Statesman. And that got me very intrigued in storytelling as Cut to the chase. went to

TISS to do my master's in social work, to work families in crisis. The people and my classmates there, my mentors, my teachers there, all pushed me to, again, the world of storytelling. I've had beautiful experiences in Tata Memorial Hospital in

by in the special cell for women and children working with domestic violence. So all this kind of edged me on to work with, you know, with people in crisis, disaster, and then moving to Singapore with the Singapore International Foundation and the tsunami. The reason I say all this is each and every person kind of gave me that impetus to say there's a story in every person you meet.

And that story needs to be told. the kind of stories I saw on the ground when I was in Sri Lanka during the tsunami, all kept kind of whispering to me, these need to be told on screen.

But my father's voice kept saying, no, no, no, you're not going into the movie business. But I did for a very brief moment. was an advisor to some of the film festivals here. And I did sit on the Publications and Consultative Panel for the Media Development Authority here for seven years. That opened up my horizon to the media sector here. And I kept toying with the idea that

Well, there's beautiful independent films that are being made in India with the big films that are also being made. the media sector here is developing. There's a very intelligent audience here. I watching films. Why not bring the independent films here? Yeah.

So on a whim, very to the disgruntlement of my family, I said, let me start an Indian film festival that brings these independent films into Singapore, but start with Bengali cinema. So I started an Indian film festival here. And when you talk about the empathy, the reason I kind of walked you through this is...

These stories that were being told through independent cinema were about the Asian common man. the story of everybody that you meet around the corner that need to be told. And what I saw was Southeast Asia had an appetite to listen to these stories, much before the globe had a focus on Asia. And this I'm talking about 2007-8.

when I started thinking of it, you didn't have these stories releasing in Singapore theaters. You didn't have these stories releasing in Southeast Asian theaters. Let alone the rest of the world, right? Yes. You didn't even have producers in this part of the world making those stories. You now have an interest in Indian stories and Indian smaller stories from this part of the world. I'm trying to connect the dots here from all of those.

And what speaks to me for sure about all of these is that like, even whether it's telling the stories here in Singapore, connecting it to the tsunami tragedy, and even your dissertation and the papers you were writing in Kolkata, all that speaks to relationship development. And all of it speaks to being able to share the stories from the perspective of the marginalized

it sounds like that's sort of a proxy for who you are, right? I you're a rebel, but at the same time, you're trying to, in fact, have that same sort of rebellious spirit to be able to accelerate these stories in a way, right? Is that kind of a decent way to put that? I think you've kind of hit the nail on the head. We need these stories from the ground, and that's what the world needs to and wants to hear.

And you're right that people have an appetite for that, that's for sure. Yes, people want to listen to these stories. And what we try to do at Hazelnut is tell these human stories. When Olivier and I look at scripts and when, so I started a distribution business from the film festival, which ran for four years at the Cathay Cinemas.

And we thought that at a time when COVID allowed us to think and the cinemas closed down, it allowed me to think again. And that's when you talk about the empathy, think people who are audiences are becoming very much more intelligent and they're becoming

And they too are becoming language agnostic. Where they're very okay to watch content irrespective of the language it's told in. They don't need a common language to watch stories. They want authenticity of storytelling. And that COVID has done for us.

and of the streaming platforms, of course. What's amazing about that is that it still goes back to the premise that the story is king, right? Like that the content is important and we can all be language agnostic, culturally agnostic. There's a human side of each one of these things that speaks to everyone. When you had this idea, these visions of developing this more and more,

Obviously these journeys don't come without their challenges, right? I there's so many steps that go into this. As an entrepreneur, as someone who has been going through this, especially as a woman, being thankfully in a place that seems to be gender agnostic for all these things, what were perhaps some of the accelerators and the ladders of capital and mentorship that maybe helped during those first few days when the idea was sparking?

when you were saying, look, we need to develop this and take that idea of going from a film festival into something that's a little bit bigger, that can scale. What were some of those, I guess, springboards that helped? Especially, you know, because at the end of the day, someone might ask, well, why now? Why Singapore? And why this? And so there must be some fuel for this. And was there particularly fuel or mentors that made this possible, both from a capital and a mentorship standpoint?

Being an what always is a struggle is capital. And we're still struggling. Because telling independent stories as an independent producer is not easy. need people to believe. We are working towards that and we're working on various levels. So we're working on features, we're working on series, we're working on documentaries.

One of the reasons Singapore was a place chosen, I could have chosen India. I did look at India as a home for a while during COVID, more because my mom is based in India, so I chose to be in India to be with her during COVID. I come back to gender agnostic.

sentiments. It isn't easy for a rebel like me to survive in India. And that's a very candid sentiment that needs fixing. Yes, and I'm someone who from a very, very early stage, way before the Me Too came about, have faced very awkward moments across lunch, dinner,

tables on SMSes on very, very interesting conversations. You're being very diplomatic, and that's okay. No, I'm very happy to share as well on being asked what is the level of compromise I am ready a

project commissioned to have a project be backed by Capital or when I was a distributor because I was for a very long time and still am I think the only woman in theatrical distribution in South and Southeast Asia because it's still a very boys club and I've had very strong men

that come forward to make sure that some of my films are not distributed. That some of the films that I have worked crazily night and day for have big amounts put on the table and I have to back out. Or if she can do it in Singapore, we can do it too. So it's been that and it's been Asian men, sad to say. Men from the diaspora who have done that.

But that's again, the rebellion me has not backed At the same time, I've had wonderful men who have supported me without expecting a compromise to say, respect you for what you're doing. What is the help you need? then builds allyship across the board. We need allies and men, which I've said so many times that it's not just the women who need to come together. It's men who need.

to come together with women. And these are the alliances we need to build. But I think one of the reasons I chose Singapore, Singapore has become the heart of the media center for Asia. If you see some of the studios,

If you see some of the kind of content that wants to come out of Singapore, it's a safe place to do business. The government wants companies in Singapore to go global with their stories. We have a tiny little red dot, but we are a very powerful red dot. Yeah, you've mentioned that a few times. I love the red dot idea. And yet it seems like a tiny red dot, a powerful red dot, but more importantly, a welcoming red dot and one that's ready to really

poised itself to be on the world stage, already is on the world stage for that matter, but gave you agency and licensure to say, look, yes, here are the stories, here's what I need and here's how I'm gonna do it. You mentioned, and we talked a little bit about this already, but that you've been teaching. I'm curious in thinking about this entire backdrop of what you do, who you are, where you are, and the stories you're trying to get across.

when you teach your students and you talk to them a little bit about the work you do, what do you think they're most surprised by when they listen to you and they hear you speak and they hear you teach? What do think they're coming away When I walk into my first class and I do tell them...

Well, I'm a movie producer and distributor. There's awe because the movie industry I think the first thing that fills people up with is or and you know, it's the showbiz sure without a lot of people realizing the hard work that goes behind You know from the time a script comes in place to that popcorn in the seat Right. There's there's a couple of steps along the way, right? but

what I think the greatest takeaway for them I think two. One is a woman entrepreneur in a global scenario. Two is multicultural. Working across borders, the kind of cultural scenarios, what one needs to know when you work with different kinds of cultures.

the respect, the cultural takeaways, which sometimes in our little globules and bubbles we forget and we become very ethnocentric and we need to break away from that. One of the things that strikes me from while you're talking is thinking about someone who is just starting out or as a student or a learner hearing you, it brings so many intersections.

to play, whether that's through language or culture or storytelling, the entrepreneurship, the bringing about of so many different voices into one spot. And I've read how you've shared in the past that we need much, much more integration. We need more integration of different people to break barriers. And of course, sometimes, especially in advocating for more South Asian voices in spaces, especially where they're lacking,

there also is a need for specificity. like story of integration is just as important as telling the story of something as specific as a Bengali voice or a Marathi voice or for that matter, a South Asian voice. So how do you marry these two things together with integrating as much as possible and developing sort of this giant soup of different ideas and voices, yet at the same time,

finding generalization through that specificity of individual stories and individual voices. Is there a secret sauce to There two things. One, of course, is when we look at a script, we've been very lucky that we haven't had to go looking for scripts. because we're very new to producing, but not new in the media business. Right. So...

jointly the founders of the company come with five zero years in the industry. But what we look at when we look at stories and I look at as well is, is there a human voice to the story? If it echoes, when we look at a script, if it echoes with maybe a banker sitting in UK, a student sitting in Singapore.

a homemaker sitting in India or engineer sitting in the US or someone, just another person sitting in Africa. Is there a human voice if it's a father-son story or a story of a woman trying to make her

pathway in life, but would that echo with its humanness across borders? That story can be from anywhere. The threat of humanity is the commonplace. Yes. The other thing that we look for is how unique is that story? There could be a commonality, but has the story been told before? Sure. And is there, it doesn't always have to be human in its emotional quotient. It can be dramatic. It can be something that

just startles you and say, wow, so it could be crime, it could be horror. And I'll give you an example of horror because a lot of people say, horror is all blood and gore. I can't watch horror in a lot of ways. But I've started watching. If you take a film like The Others, it talks about, again, that human emotional quotient, but it's dramatic. It talks about a kinship And horror is now becoming...

social impact as well. So that brings me to something that Hazelnut is doing very, very differently is no Asian company is doing this yet is socially impactful stories, which is impact each story becomes a project in itself. Where beyond your theatrical, beyond your streaming, there has to be a project

continues beyond its usual revenue stream. Does that make, in a way, does that ensure that each of these things becomes enduring? Yes. Yeah. And if that then with it, it means that each project doesn't really have an end. No. Right. And is that something you crave in a way, because you want that to sort of like have a life of its own then and be sustainable.

That's perhaps my social work background that comes into play. Yeah, sure. So I've not left it. In some ways, when I look at stories, two things always come in. One is my social work background. Is there a human social impact to the story? Two is, of course, my distributor background. Is the story going to bring back the investment? Sure. So I can't kind of let go either. I don't know whether that's good or bad.

But that's the balance. So maybe that's why we don't look at many projects. We are very selective in the kind of projects we look at, we want to select, we work with in any space. Is there a... Because you have to run a company as well. It's not a charity. have to keep the lights on and there is, I'm sure, a calculus that needs to be have. Can this be something that, again, becomes sustained? Which is, by the way, a very different model.

right? For people to work on, especially in media where there is no actual finite landing point. No, and that's why we take time. are a company that takes a much longer lifespan on a project than just churning out things for numbers and you know, we're very boutique. Did you have to become, did that take practice? Did you have to become okay with that? I think it was very organic. Yeah.

And I smile at it. Sometimes it's very frustrating because you see many go in leaps and bounds and you know there are these announcements and we've done this, we've done that. We haven't. Because we say well it's going to take its time but it's a very different path we've chosen. You almost have to be content but not without ambition. Yes and that's why hazelnut, the magical part of the hazel. it's true. I'm curious, so you've

You talk about this process of having a vision in mind, having social impact, having longevity and endurance to the idea so that the project doesn't simply exist only in its produced format, but it actually has some legs to it and has that impact, as you mentioned. What do media systems particularly need to unlearn in order for women

and other marginalized groups to not just be sort of successful, but in turn with that longevity, hold therefore more levers of power and control and be able to in a way pave their own destiny for things like this. I think patience, definitely.

Which is not something that our world really thrives on these days, And you would wish that they learned after COVID that patience is patience is something we have to learn and breathe because there's only that finite space. It's not infinite. And also the propensity of the audience at how much they can consume.

and quality content. It's very sad that mediocrity has become a norm in many spaces. And you see, and that's one of the reasons if you look at how we kind of flip from one space to another is because we're searching. We're constantly searching for something that says she hates us. So one is patience. The other thing I think in the media space that is a very big call to the hour is the gender lens and a woman's lens.

as well, more women in the scope of filmmaking, which we always look for, not just women directors, but more women in the team. A lot of times when women tell the story, it changes from what the story can be. And the third...

which we feel and which we're working towards is more communities telling their own stories. Cameras in their hands in the community. We're working on a project for that. There's a lot of power in that. Yes, empowering the community to tell the story. They have that power, they just need the training. They just need a little more hand holding. They don't sometimes even need to go to formal film schools. I didn't go to a film school. A lot of my...

a cameraman didn't go to a film school. bringing them out from the community, imagine if someone from the tsunami area I met was telling his story and writing his own script. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, those are the daily conversations that are happening organically already. And it's, you know, they're, I guess, licensure and the delivery that you're offering can really accelerate that quite a bit.

you know, I'm thinking about those things that you just mentioned is, you know, patience particularly finding the voices of women and other marginalized groups and then empowering them with cameras or for that matter, just any vehicle for that storytelling. Do you think that all three of those ingredients are, again, the formula that's needed, but particularly then to drive power and capital?

in this ecosystem because otherwise traditionally the power and the capital lives in big giant production houses or studios or delivery systems that are not always having their priorities focused on the three things that you just mentioned. Again, mediocrity is still present in content. So how do you combat that? I think there is a slow change coming in. Does that make sense by the way? No, it does.

There is a slow change coming in. There are some big powerhouses that are looking at supporting indies and the whole concept of independent production is changing. Earlier it was indies was, it's art house. That has changed. Independent production is anything that's not studio backed. And some studios are looking towards supporting independent productions and some big producers.

who may be having their own studios in, so to say, houses are saying, let's understand the independent path and come in and support these stories because there's a difference between art house and stories that are independent that have a commercial value. they're understanding that. Do those people who have, they can see that scale being tipped gradually, does it require a

philosophical change? Does it require an emotional change to reduce the barriers to actually say, yes, I'm going to take a chance? yes, definitely. It's a frustration. It's a conversation. There's a lot of sighs that come that. Yeah, it's a conversation Olivier and I have. Yeah. Very often, because he also

has been in the industry for a very long time. We understand the realities as well because there's money involved. There is also big money involved. But there's also a lot of unlearning involved because you have to see where the audience is, what the reality of the audience is, what the differences in audiences are. Some audiences would still want to be very happy with mediocrity and it's just, know, swiping. Transaction. Yes.

But there has to be a change where you have to break the cliques. There are various cliques out there where you just keep producing with the same group of people, the same names, the same groups, the same kind of content that keeps coming out and the newer ones can't break Then there are the usual Excel sheets, which...

Yeah. Which is, does it make sense? And are you checking these boxes? But there are others who are willing to experiment and say, well, let's do it. So there is that the game is changing in certain places, which you also see in the bigger festivals who are welcoming a lot of different kinds of content. And I imagine that a lot of this is also driven by the consumer who, in general,

again, appreciates the mediocrity because it's content, and yet at the same time can be incredibly fickle and focus now on new things that excite them. And those can be surprises. And hopefully that, in a way, sort of changes the philosophy and tips, scales more. When you and Olivier are having these conversations with those who are in larger production houses, what's your typical?

story that you have to tell? Sometimes we don't. You see some of the production houses have very intelligent... Like they're already there. They're already there. And they're willing to listen. Of course, it helps because we come from a distribution background. They know that when we bring something to them, we've already thought through the numbers.

and we won't bring something to them that doesn't make sense. Sometimes we also tell them, well, it doesn't make sense on the numbers for this one. Why don't we sit across the table and discuss what would, without compromising the quality of the project. Almost say, there's a quality quotient and there's a risk minimization to it. And sometimes we don't take projects to certain production houses because we know it's a waste of time.

So we would, and it helps because both of us have been in the industry for a while, we would only knock on doors where we know we're going to be on the same wavelength. We also choose partners in projects similarly, where we know we're talking on projects again, where we're using the time very preciously. But having said that, it's not.

all rainbows. have our moments. imagine every conversation is very different. We tear our hair and say, really? That did go that way? But I think that's there in any industry. I've had very interesting conversations with one part of the team and then another part has come back and told me, you're too strong and rebellious to work with.

then we don't work together, it's fine. And you just take it in your stride and then you say, that really happen? It's all a growth opportunity, right? Yes. So you learn, you live and learn. Let me get you out of here on this one because all of this brings such, I think, great energy and hope. And for that matter, not just hope, but real content that's being put out there and for that matter, real leadership.

in a space where particularly that leadership is very needed. So when it comes to the Indian diaspora, when it comes to what you're doing for the South Asian story that needs to be told in Southeast Asia and globally for that matter, and particularly related again to Singapore, kind of bringing it all back, what makes you optimistic about the future of this kind of ecosystem?

and storytelling. And are there particular things that you're doing now that that optimism? The diaspora, I think, is one of the most powerful forces. I've always believed in that. And while I work very closely with the Singaporean cohort, very proud to be Singaporean,

I feel the power of the diaspora is humongous because we are all migrants telling our own stories.

And we're all carrying a little piece of sometimes very big piece of the roots to the countries we travel to. Sure. And we also carry a huge part of loyalty of the countries we are in. So when we marry those two, the power of that is very, very strong, at times in a very in a very positive way volatile. If you saw what happened in Abu Dhabi.

the way we came together, 700 of us, and the kind of camaraderie that happened. Look at us, meeting on another land. This link up in right there. feel that there are a lot of diaspora stories of success that can be told, which we want to tell at Hazel Nut Media. A lot connections that can happen through

because there is also an empathy where we want to help each other. And the Indian diaspora is very powerful. Where when we travel across and out of India as well, while we want to tell stories from India, we also want to tell our stories of migration. And I think what is happening in the world today, we need to tell more stories of migration and our shared experiences and stories of women and men.

and what we've gone through. So I feel we need to entrench that and work on that very strongly. And the kind of, and different spheres, we've all done well in the different spheres we've been in, be it the medical sphere, be it technology, AI, look at what we're doing in AI, and the kind of positions that the diaspora hold across the world.

look at some of the biggest corporations. The Indian diaspora is helping all of that.

Well, whether it's harnessing storytelling, harnessing empathy, and of course, more than anything else, think harnessing your leadership. Really such a welcome, I think, presence to this space and really fostering so much.

for the entire diaspora. Isabella, thank you so much for such a lovely conversation. I hope we can visit with you again down the road. Absolutely. It would be a pleasure.