In this final episode of my special Channel 4 Ventures series, I interviewed Vinay Solanki, the founder of Channel 4 Ventures. He explains their role in supporting diverse businesses through media for equity investments, with a focus on fostering innovation and inclusivity. Vinay shares his personal journey and the challenges of creating opportunities for underrepresented entrepreneurs. We also discussed the importance of providing access and support to boost new products and services, especially those that address real-world challenges. It’s an amazing episode full of content for entrepreneurs, start-up founders, and anyone interested in the intersection of media investment and social impact.
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Transcript
Teresa:
Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I’m your host, Therese Heath Waring, an international best selling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you’re in.
In each episode, I’ll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we’ll be diving into some mindset, tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you’re a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you are in the right place.
Let’s get started. Hello and welcome back to the Your Dream Business Podcast and our fifth and final episode in this special series that I’m doing. with channel four ventures. We have had some [00:01:00] phenomenal conversations during this week and these episodes. We started off the week with Nikki Wicks, who is the CEO and the creative director for body coach, also Joe Wicks, his big brother.
We then spoke to the amazing Sam, who is the founder and CEO of Stellar insurance. We had a conversation with Tom who. knows everything that there is to know about investing and is a super smart man. And then yesterday was the awesome Grace who starting her business in university and talked about how she hustled in those early days and just went for it regardless of what the outcome could have been.
And today we are finishing off with Vinay. Vinay founded and runs Channel 4 Ventures. It launched back in 2015 and is now the number one media for equity investor in the UK. Media for equity is an investment activity that swaps media and for shares in typically [00:02:00] unlisted companies like a venture capitalist investor.
Binet is highly entrepreneurial, thoughtful and a seasoned digital media executive across many transactions, projects and sectors and geographies. Prior to Channel 4, Vinay led Getty Images European digital business development activities. Outside work, Vinay is a single parent to a teenager and enjoys cooking, running and music.
He has a degree in law from UCL and an MBA from Imperial College London. Okay, you know how on Tom’s episode I said I felt really stupid? And I felt a real bit of imposter syndrome talking to someone who is super smart? Well, that exact same thing happened when I interviewed Vinay. He is such a nice guy.
And actually, what was so lovely is right at the beginning of the interview before we started recording, Vinay was like, We had a conversation about being a single parent and, you know, managing children in families that are living apart. And, and it was [00:03:00] really nice because it really kind of, you know, found some common ground, which was awesome.
And then when the conversation started, I was like, Oh man, this guy’s smart. And I guess. He’s in an industry that I’m not in, so he’s obviously going to be super, super smart about that. Binet helped me understand and better explain what the role was that Channel 4 had in not only the research, but what they are going to be trying to be doing going forward to ensure that more diverse businesses are being invested in.
We also talked about how Channel 4 is a perfect, in my eyes, perfect company. to do this, given that the channel itself, the media that it puts out is very diverse and they’re very proactive in that world. So it felt like a perfect fit. This conversation did push me a bit in terms of like, understanding and really [00:04:00] getting to grips of what this was all about.
And I think it’s a really nice one to finish the week on because it kind of sums up what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what the opportunities are. And there are some really exciting opportunities. So if you are listening to this, if you have listened to all of the episodes this week and were like, I need to know more about this, then This episode is really going to help you understand more about what it is that Channel 4 Ventures are actually doing.
It has been my pleasure to have these business owners, these entrepreneurs, and these experts on over the last five days. I really hope you’ve enjoyed this special little series within my normal podcast. I have loved being given the opportunity to work with Channel 4 and being given the opportunity to speak to some of these amazing business owners, and I really hope that you have taken some awesome stuff from this.
Cheers. But without further ado, here is the final interview of the week. Here’s Vinay. Vinay, welcome so much to the podcast. How are you doing?
Vinay:
I’m doing very good [00:05:00] today. I’m excited to be here.
Teresa:
I am really excited to have you here and to get going with this conversation and topic and this wider discussion that we’re going to have about this part of the world, which I’ve left it, anybody listening to the beginning of this, like, what are they talking about?
What is she talking about? So let’s just start by you explaining who you are and what you do.
Vinay:
So I’m Vinay Selanki and I work at Channel 4. I’ve been there, I’m very close to completing my ninth year. And I’ve had one job here in that time, which is to, I was the first employee into Channel 4 Ventures, which was called the Commercial Growth Fund at the time.
And put very simply, we. We use the benefits of our nationwide broadcast, um, linear and streaming, which reaches 50 million people a month. Uh, we give that to startups in, in exchange, um, for equity instead of cash. Um, and it’s, uh, it’s honestly, it’s a truly fascinating job and I’m very lucky to have it.
Teresa:
[00:06:00] So you’ve been there nine years, so is that when it started, you were the first employee?
Vinay:
Yeah. So prior to me joining the channel for was talking to a German peer around the model, they spent about two years investigating it, and they decided to go ahead with it. And then they hired someone to head up the activity. And that was me.
Teresa:
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So the reason I came into your world or you came into my world was because of something new that Channel 4 Ventures are doing that was kicked off by some research.
So which way do you want to play this? Do you want to talk about the research that you did first, or do you want to talk about the new venture that you’re doing?
Vinay:
I might do neither. I might talk about how, how, like, how the dots connect between the, both the research, a little bit of my lived history and, and, and, and how maybe all, all of it sort of hangs together.
So I grew up in Leicester as a, as a kid and I [00:07:00] grew up in a, a very. you know, very basic underprivileged set up where, you know, and those shaped my formative career experiences when I went into investment banking in my twenties. And I could see challenges at that time. So I had a lucky break at some point, which I got to university and, And I’ve lived, sat and lived with experiences where I felt, well, firstly, I couldn’t even talk about what I’m talking about for a decade or two, right?
So the, so, and those experiences shaped very clearly people who, my perceptions of people who are in the club or outside the club, when you think about venture, and those are very big topics and we don’t need to go into them now. When I’ve had the, if you then think about Jonathan Ventures and its core role, we’ve been, we are a minnow and like to remain a minnow in the investment world.
And, and through the asset class that we have, and, you know, we syndicate our investments with all of the investors. And it gives me an extraordinary insight into, um, how it works, how the deals put [00:08:00] together, who’s in the deals, the cultures, the sub times, types of deals coming through. And it’s very evident to me that if, if you step back a bit into the, the challenges around, say the UK economy or the challenges around the innovation economy, or specifically the challenges in the consumer economy.
And I’m going to deep dive here, um, slightly the consumer economy has seen a lot of investment come into it. Much of that investment is predicated on the efficiency of marketing costs, of course, and if you look at my investment model, which doesn’t put in cash, it’s about getting access to 50 million, up to 50 million people, marketing costs.
So, so, and I believe, and I hope to have some more research on this topic. Consumer companies are not flavor of the month right now. And one of the drivers. For investors is marketing costs. And I think, you know, the lean startup, I think was written in 2011. Right. So, but it’s still a guide that guides the kind of, how can I say the [00:09:00] incumbent thinking in the company, you know, book says don’t spend anything money on marketing in 2011, it probably would have been correct.
I need to check on this, but like, it’s, it would have been correct at the time. And it’s, you know, that time I don’t think, you know, TikTok wasn’t a thing, it didn’t exist. Right. So the, the. I believe what you’re seeing right now with the proliferation of digital platforms and the number of, is that the costs don’t translate to scaling up, which is turning consumer investors away from consumer.
And then if you come back to my broader argument and some of the observations I’m making in my lived experience, it’s very clear to me that if, if you, if you use the following analogy and the data that we did in, so Channel 4 Ventures, is providing marketing to a range of businesses. It has a different capital structure.
And when I think about, so, and you know, we could just look at that from a straight financial lens, or you think about what is our role in the ecosystem? So that’s point [00:10:00] number one. But if you think about a deeper point, if the data shows both the VCs and the founders are coming from the two streets of London or two streets of the UK, there’s 98 other streets to go for.
Could that spark innovation? And I think the things that we, the things which I hopefully will have some research on soon is that I think I kind of anecdotally observed very consistently that Many of the consumer businesses coming through target people who are affluent target people who are, you know, the products that are sexy, that, you know, in wellness, fitness supplements, et cetera, et cetera.
I’m glad to see there are some bigger, you know, I’m definitely seeing more female founders. I’m definitely seeing like different solutions coming out, but what if, what would happen if you create more access? Uh, to the 98 other streets in particular, and there’s two arguments to that as a media investor, you could say, we, we are solving for the marketing [00:11:00] challenge that the specific cost of digital marketing, but we will write very large checks potentially to create most brand companies, but I’m interested in the things that may not be that sexy.
Like, but, but go to the heart of some of our clear challenges in our education, access to education, actually access to skills, age, living well as you age, staying at home, home modifications.
So living well, living, living, you know, that targeting people clearly, like, you know, the, the, the, the sectors that are like still underdeveloped, like women, there’s a support to service of women, but also, yeah, the list goes on.
There’s not still not enough. And I think we can, and that might mean we back different kinds of businesses from that are not necessarily getting the attention from the incumbent venture capital industry, Um, but, but, you know, with obviously [00:12:00] aligned to creating shareholder value here, what’s really interesting about all this is as a government owned entity, all the profits go into a clear purpose, which is different again, to the lens we can look.
And I, I wonder if there’s more room for modern fight that.
Teresa:
You’ve just said some things there that actually hadn’t struck me up until this conversation that I had been looking at this and obviously at the point we’re interviewing this, I’ve already interviewed some of the interviews to come. It’s weird, like I constantly work in a, you know, am I in the future or in the past?
What struck me was. I had been focusing on or I’d been thinking about the opportunities that the business owners have not been given because they might be, you know, a female or someone of color or someone who didn’t have the educational upbringing that, you know, or whatever some of the reasons are. But one thing I didn’t think about until you just said it was [00:13:00] the products that are coming forward.
So not only, you know, Is it, and obviously I’m saying this in my own words, but not only is it better for the world to be able to give opportunities to people that possibly haven’t had them or haven’t had them as much as they should have to date, but also the products and services that are bought to markets are the people who are are trying to access them who are trying to get some of those things or need those things in their life aren’t getting them because and like you said it’s kind of understandable that it almost becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy of someone lives a certain style of life when they’re you know looking to invest in something to make money they’re investing in things that they know or things they know will sell so That for me is fascinating because like I said, I hadn’t actually stopped to think about the consumer products that are being sold.
I just thought about the people who are being invested in.
Vinay:
Yes. I think I’d like to do more research on this topic. Um, but like, I think [00:14:00] we will have inherent biases. Um, and, and, um, that’s the nature. We shouldn’t judge it, you know, it’s just aware of it.
Teresa:
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think that’s the thing.
And I think what I want to kind of conveys from what I’ve seen from channel four ventures so far is. there is no judgment. There is a, we’ve seen something and we would like to take an active role. You know, you’re controlling what you can control because this is a much bigger beast than anybody. But you as Channel 4 Ventures are controlling what you can control and you’re trying to do something different.
So let’s just touch on the, on the research and just some of the stuff that you found from the research and then how that confirmed what you had already experienced.
Vinay:
Yeah, the short answer is that the research findings did not surprise me in the slightest. It’s been the least surprising, you know, and you can look back to, you know, my personal lived experiences, the, I [00:15:00] believe he took a straw poll of people, you know, either at the event or, or, you know, people who read the survey, you know, I’d be surprised.
I mean, I did, I did recall some people were really quite depressed and, and I understand that too. It’s shocking on the one hand, but the.
Teresa:
Not on the other.
Vinay:
No. Yeah. So look, I felt sad when you met, um, for the people who found it shocking But the, from my lived experience, it’s not shocking at all. Yeah, based on the, I think it I want to go away from the judgment lens on, on that.
I think the, it’s also very understandable why this happens. And again, you need to create space for why it happens.
And look at that quite compassionately, I think. And if you do that, then you can then spin quickly to, this is an opportunity.
Teresa:
Yes.
Vinay:
Really big opportunity.
Teresa:
Yeah.
Vinay:
So, and so then that gets into much deeper commercial arguments around those, all right, like new products and services.
[00:16:00] And we think the UK is a net exporter, net creator of products. It’s lingua franca, it’s, it’s been a top of design forever, right? And, and right across the UK, and of course, London is a world class center for, for that too, of course, but it’s, it’s spreading, spreading out. We have extraordinary cross functional capabilities where we bring, we can combine both, you know, branding, design, science.
Building. Yeah. We have capital markets. Those are conditions that should continue for us to create new visionary consumer companies right across the board. We, we, we do it with companies like Dyson, but there’s no reason why future entrepreneurs shouldn’t be inspired by, by the, the, the heritage we’ve got here.
It’s also our history, links to our history. The fact that we, we, we’ve, we, I think genuinely, like we, we, we have certain traits, which are the end of the world, frankly. Mm-hmm . [00:17:00] And it links to our history. I am part of the fact that we have a verbal village here. . Uh, that, that leak, that allows us to continue that, but like, and you know, I, so with the lens I’m putting on is you can, we can really dial this up if people give more access and hopefully we can find the new James Dyson’s.
And I really believe that because we’ve got it all here. Right. So,
Teresa:
yeah. And one of the things that came through on having the conversations were that those people were tenacious. Okay. They were like, I don’t think it crossed their mind that they couldn’t not succeed in this, in their own industry or their own product or their own thing.
But there are probably, and maybe that’s inbuilt in you, maybe that is something that you either have or you don’t have or, you know, maybe that’s what it takes. But there is a part of me that thinks surely there’s got to be people in this world who have been brought up in a world where they weren’t given the same opportunities or they [00:18:00] weren’t had or they didn’t have the same access to things who, no matter how hard they fight, they’re never going to quite have the self belief that they can get there because there aren’t people ahead of them forging the way.
So it’s almost like I see those people, you know, who we had on the panel at the event, but also who I’ve interviewed, who kind of that they’re the, the, they’re not the norm. They’re the people who managed to break through and wow, look what they’ve done. So I feel like there are. And it makes me excited to think of how many people that we could actually get access to who do have something phenomenal and amazing and wonderful, but they just haven’t quite got to the point of being able to smash through and go, look, everybody, I’ve got this thing.
And I think looking at that from a, like you said, not from a judgment point of view, from a, you know, well, this makes sense as to why this has been the case for such a long time. And how exciting is this opportunity going to be?
Vinay:
Completely right. Yes. But it’s also like taking away some of the negative self talk, which, you know, is [00:19:00] incumbent, you know, things are falling apart.
Post Brexit briefing, you know, even, even the narrative. could be more balanced. You know, we are considerably, we’re a very resilient economy. We, we haven’t tipped into a massive recession. Yes, our growth rates are anemic and that needs to improve, but then it comes back to my argument. If you’re not creating more access, you’re not creating the chances. of driving that growth. How do we increase the probability of those that? And can we look, with compassion, Yeah. the outcome, at why the system sits the way it does?
Teresa:
Yeah. And then what can we do to help change that? Because that’s the thing, and I think that’s where actually a lot of the judgement probably comes from.
People are very good at And when I say people, I mean, that’s very sweeping, and it might be UK based, it might not, I’m not sure, but people are very good at pointing the [00:20:00] finger and going, you’re doing it wrong, you’re not being fair, you’re this, you’re that, and doing nothing about it. And it’s like, it’s really easy to be standing away from the thing and having a judgment of it.
There’s a great Brene, it’s not even a Brene Brown quote. It’s someone else said it first and I can’t remember when she talks about it. And it’s something like, you know, if you are not in the ring getting your backside kicked, then I’m not interested in your opinion. And it’s that, like, you know, we can’t sit and judge people from afar and go, you know, well, I’m doing nothing, but I can judge you for doing the bit you’re doing.
So, That’s what I think is super powerful about what Channel 4 have done. They didn’t come in and go, or Channel 4 Ventures have come in and say, you know, look how dreadful this is, look how awful it is and how these opportunities aren’t being given. You’ve done some research, so you’ve looked at it and gone, okay, so we have learned some things for facts or based on research.
So again, we’re not just making assumptions and pointing fingers and now let’s see what we can [00:21:00] do within our world to change it. And, and interestingly, from a brand point of view, Channel 4 seems like the perfect brand to do that. You know, Channel 4 is a, as a, you know, something that I see in my home seems like a perfect place to do that because of how they are very inclusive and their own kind of, I guess, their values and ethos around their brand anyway.
So this seems to fit really well.
Vinay:
Yeah, I’m lucky to have the, the brand equity that Channel 4’s got. Ultimately, Channel 4 is a social enterprise on another lens. The, we’ve been doing this for 40 years, you know, we, we spend, you know, seven of a million or so. A very large chunk of that goes to SMEs to create production SMEs to create diverse voices.
So we’ve been powering up the SMEs for decades.
Teresa:
Yeah.
Vinay:
Extending that to what we, what we can, as I said, we’re a minnow in the world of investment. Um, you know, which I think will get considerably bigger because of the marketing [00:22:00] challenges and the lack of innovation in consumer
Teresa:
and the voice that you’ve got, like the voice that child four has, like, you know, there are probably lots of angel investors and private investors and that we wouldn’t know belong, like lived in the world because they might be ginormous, but actually they’re very like, they’re not a, you know, TV outlet.
They’re not. you know, a channel. So, so yeah, even though in that world, you may be giving a small amount, actually, your voice is much bigger, I would imagine.
Vinay:
I look, I mean, I think, yes, I think, I think the voice is very authentic. I think the around the issue where we’re talking about here and, and the quality of that authenticity hopefully develops connections that maybe other investors may not have.
Teresa:
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about then, you did the research, you [00:23:00] had to come up with, well you didn’t have to come up with a plan, but you decided to come up with a plan of actually how, what responsibility can we take? What can we, how can we make a change? So let’s talk about that. what it is that Channel 4 Ventures are starting the journey on doing because prior to this conversation and in the other conversations, it does very much feel like we’re at the beginning of a journey and there is a plan and a map and a kind of, you know, this would be great, but at any point it might need to be tweaked or changed or direction or whatever.
So, so where are we today? What are we thinking and what are we trying to achieve?
Vinay:
He’s thinking about the outset and the project I was connecting Channel 4’s superpower, which he just touched on ability to reach audiences with a, from a place of authenticity to. a source of proprietary deal flow with a view to finding very innovative ideas because of that.
And I think the most immediate thing that we [00:24:00] found is we’ve been overwhelmed by the positive support we’ve received for the project. And this is now a major initiative, which will continue, which was, uh, we were, we were unsure at the time, but I knew on the 20th, the day after the event, this is, this is huge.
Teresa:
Yeah.
Vinay:
And so I think it’s incumbent on us that we think carefully about the next steps over the coming years, frankly, on how we engage with the, the problem we’re looking to solve. I think you will see a considerable development of the thought leadership around the innovation challenge. We were sort of throwing out there.
That’s really important to me. We will engage with found. We’ve already got deals at the pipeline, which we’re pushing right through from the event. So I think I did a review of that yesterday and we’ve got pipeline. Yeah. Like if we just stop the clock, we’ve got pipeline all the way through for 12 to 15 [00:25:00] months, that sort of level of pipeline, like, which I think is executable.
So we. Some, some people will need to wait until we get around and we will figure out the COBS plan, et cetera, and how we manage that. The, but I feel that there’s more to do. Uh, of course, um, the third thing is we want to, to be honest, built on the thought leadership ideas I have part one, as well as the deal flow, which will hopefully come through.
We’re going to find ways in which to engage with. Founders, allies, partners, thought leaders around the much bigger topic of innovation. Some of that could be just our pro bono time.
Teresa:
Yeah.
Vinay:
Hours with founders on a very grassroots, a private sort of level. Others could be talking with. other people looking at various issues, you know, whether it’s under representation, social mobility, intersectionality.
These are, these are things that we might [00:26:00] understand more and it will need a bit of space is my sense to figure out how we do that. But also there’s straight kind of getting out into the regions, figure out where the pockets of Specialism are, I’m just, you know, promoting, frankly. Yeah. If I, if I’ve got a deal in the pipeline and I can’t execute it for 12 months ’cause I’m the team’s too busy, we might just say, we love this founder, we’re gonna promote the founder.
Say, Hey, you know, have you checked this out? You know, we will, you know, we’ve, and, and just use, use the channel full brand. And it’s like, you know, the, the, the kind of trade routes you have to say to to, to support these people into the ecosystem because again, that’s creating lot on-ramps into Yeah.
Ecosystem. And hopefully this, this, all, all those three things kind of work together then hopefully to create a, a thing which is, you know, I don’t, I, I, I, my mindset is there’s an opportunity to avoid tokenism in this. Yeah. And really step it up another level.
Teresa:
And I think that is the risk, isn’t it? I think with anything it’s, look, we ticked the [00:27:00] box and we did the thing and aren’t we brilliant.
And I’m not saying you guys are doing that in one, at all. I’m just saying that is something that can sometimes happen. So it’s great to hear that actually, and it’s, it’s kind of interesting for me to listen to you talk about it in terms of actually, in some ways it feels like when you realize that it got kind of traction, it’s like, okay, now we need to think again and what are we doing and how are we doing it?
One of the things that I see, and definitely with people who will listen to this podcast is the, the gap between the small business owners and even knowing that it’s a possibility, you know, even thinking, you know, I have some product based businesses that are phenomenal, but they don’t know it. This, they, they have never even entered into their head how or why or, Could that even be a possibility that I could take my business to the next level?
You know, when they talk about next level, they’re talking about bringing on small team, getting a bigger place to produce stuff, but they’re, they don’t know that world at [00:28:00] all. And I think the more we can kind of bring that education generally, which is one of the reasons I was so keen to, to do these interviews because this is a little bit out of the ordinary of what I would bring to my audience, but I want to make sure that they know as small business owners, you know, this is available now.
It might not be right for them at this time, but their thing, it might not be something they ever want to do or ever look into. However, we should be bringing the conversation to business owners as a whole. and, and educating them that it is a thing and it is around for them to potentially take hold of and get used to and thing and not such a boys club thing and it’s a really easy saying to have but it’s almost like if you know you know.
And if you don’t, then literally you haven’t got a clue.
Vinay:
Yes. Uh, look, I mean, I think the, um, I overheard some research from a person called Rand Shetty. if you come across this research and I haven’t read it, but I, someone said to me, someone did a study of people from lower [00:29:00] socioeconomic backgrounds and then split them between the six people they knew who were the, how rich they were versus the people, the six, you know, for everyone else.
And the people who, who, you know, Who had the most success in that group? If you picked it out, there’s an AB in there, right? So they’re all low associated economic A, where people who had rich friends B had no rich friends. Mm-hmm the people in group A did bad were more successful.
Teresa:
And again, it makes sense. Like it doesn’t surprise me that that, how do we just open up the. conversation of the world to see. Yeah.
Vinay:
And some of that might have just not been their friends actually giving money. It’s just the advice and raising ambition. Hey, you’ve got something bigger here.
Teresa:
A hundred percent, you know.
Vinay:
Raise the game.
Teresa:
If you, and you said yourself, you know, that obviously the world you got into from your upbringing, you know, you actually said something about luck and I think it takes more than, than luck. But for me, it’s like, if you are not surrounded by it, [00:30:00] how do you even know, you know, it exists? There’s this another great saying that I use all the time, again, I’ve no idea where it came from, but it’s something like, if I had not seen such riches, I could cope with being poor.
And it is again, such another brilliant quote, because it’s like, It works on the other side of, well, if you haven’t seen them, you don’t know they exist. So how could you even start to try and go for a world like that, if you don’t know a world like that exists or that world seems so far away from you?
Whereas, and one of the things that I intentionally do in my business is surround myself with thought leaders and leaders and business owners and personal brands that are so hugely successful in what they’re doing because by osmosis, hopefully that will rub off on me. And like I said, they’re not investing in me, they’re not paying me, they’re not giving me anything, but in being in their world and their environment, I’m seeing what’s possible and therefore my own imagination and my own kind of [00:31:00] stretchability is increased by that.
So I think everything. I think the way we need to look at this, the way I want to look at this is, this is such an exciting start point. And you know what was funny as we’re interviewing this, it was quite some weeks ago that we had the session in London. And I thought to myself, well, I feel like I’m running out of time.
Like I want to get this finished. I want to get this out. But the truth is we are barely over the start line. And, and that’s the really cool thing that, Yeah, we’ve got a long way to go. And yes, there is a lot of different things that for you, you know, Vinay, like this is obviously way more work what you’re doing in your world than what I do.
But, you know, I’m sorry, that’s all you, but like,
Vinay:
I’m okay with that in a way. Cause I think like if you look at like various kind of, uh, and I talk in various forms of various people, I was sitting on another one earlier this week and I, and I said to the group was 14 people in the room. And I was like, You’ve got to get your mindset to like saying it’s like a struggle and so, and so, and if [00:32:00] you do that, then you can hopefully get away from tokenism.
There’s a risk of it being tokenism and tick boxing. And like you’re saying, we’ve done it, done something here. If you could shift your mindset to. struggle. And then you can really start to maybe do more, but, but there will be successes and learnings. Well, there’ll be learnings as well as successes and course correct needed.
And of course we need data. We need evidence. We need to keep on like you’re gathering that.
Teresa:
But the point is you’re doing something and you’re not sat on your sofa. sharing at the TV, telling the world they’re wrong and sticking in that lovely negative space that sometimes people like to find themselves in.
So Vinay, it’s been so lovely to have a conversation with you. I do ask all my guests where you hang out and where people can come and follow you and see more of what you do. Where would you like to hang out?
Vinay:
I’m either at work or at home. I’m quite hard to reach as you know. Right.
Teresa:
Okay. Don’t don’t go look for Vinay. He’s very quiet. He’s hiding [00:33:00] away. Otherwise it’d be stalking and we don’t want to do that.
Vinay:
No, look, I think one of the things. I’d like to do in the coming months ahead is to provide spaces to continue on the thought leadership journey we’re on. And what that looks like, I don’t know.
You will, there will be like roadshows are outside of London on that. And there’ll be small things. And there’s a range of people who, uh, You know, allies sitting in the background who, so, you know, you might see me cropping up. So you should see me cropping up. We also, I’m very able team to help, but we will, you’ll hear more about how we propose to engage in the coming weeks and months. So
Teresa:
awesome. Awesome. Awesome. We will look out for that. And obviously I will be sharing anything that comes my way that I can share with my lovely community. Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you.
Vinay:
All right, super. Thank you.
