What It Takes to be a Leader from an Ethnic Minority

The ‘What It Takes’ series is targeted at current students and recent graduates, and features a range of exciting and innovative alumni speakers sharing their experience on an array of topics. The event also focuses on employability, personal and professional development. On 28 October, ‘What It Takes’ featured a speaker that discussed advice on leadership as someone from an ethnic minority.

Alumnus Rishi Chopra, a 2003 Biochemistry BSc graduate at Westminster, manages a culturally diverse team across more than 30 countries around the world at Biogen, a global biotechnology company leading research to defeat neurological diseases. His work includes talent recruitment, retention, and development.

The talk included Rishi presenting his own personal career journey, sharing his view on the importance of personal branding and embracing one’s own contribution to workplace diversity. He also provided an insight on how building strong professional relationships has been beneficial for his career development. 

Rishi also contributes to communities in a range of capacities, including providing mentorship to children in an educational context (specifically STEM) and working with not-for-profit organisations. He is proactive in championing diversity, inclusion and BAME issues, and has served on his company’s global D.I. committee.

Seventy-five students and graduates attended the event, and left some of the following comments: 

“It was amazing seeing Rishi talk through his career journey. I love the deliberate plan to work it out even if it meant taking a demotion at a time. This will pass for a TED talk...Well done!!”

“I found a lot of his life story to be really interesting. A lot of the life advice he gave was really useful and I really enjoyed listening to him about his time at Westminster.”

“The message that was sent across really sat well with me and I really needed to hear their stories as it relates too well with my experiences and so that was nice to hear.”

“My biggest take away message from the talk was proactiveness. I need to be someone who creates opportunities for leadership rather than waiting for them to happen. As a recent graduate, I often convince myself that the perfect job should land onto my laps straight away, but life isn't exactly linear and that's okay. I am a black female, and the talk has definitely made me more optimistic about my future career development and progressions.”

The next What It Takes event will be ‘What it Takes to Turn Virtual Networks into Opportunities’ on 4 November.

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