Sanam Arora is the Chair of the National Indian Students and Alumni Union UK (NISAU UK) and chief architect of the India UK Achievers Honours. Professionally, she is a senior strategist in the Investment Management industry, providing transformation advice to investment managers. For her work towards the welfare of young Indians abroad and promoting the India-UK relationship, Sanam has won numerous awards, including the prestigious PIEoneer award for Outstanding Contribution to the Industry and holds the Honorary Studentship of the London School of Economics SU. She has been appointed as a Commissioner for the UK's International Higher Education Commission.
We asked the young woman we all see running around, campaigning and routing for the diaspora and students about what keeps her going amid all the work she does to make people's lives better. Sanam said, “My dad is my go-to person for everything. He is literally the mentor and guide. My mother is obviously the backbone and the pillar of the family. So it's really my parents collectively. That honestly made everything possible for me and has sort of given me the wings to fly.”
The reward of volunteering
Sanam works in corporate finance while doing momentous volunteer work for NISAU UK. Her job is definitely not easy at all. She chooses her clients and for that, she has to be a part of many meetings, corporate lunches and dinners and networking. She further said, “I think you know for me as someone who has always felt your value that when people go abroad to study, no matter what their background is, they have a privilege and that privilege is a privilege of being able to study abroad and live in an amazing country like the UK. So I feel like we have a duty to give back to our communities. I'm a Sikh girl, maybe there is a religious spiritual element to it. We've been brought up in the way of philanthropy being part of daily life so you know, not to bring religion into it, but I do find that giving back gives me a sense of fulfilment and I just see it as something everybody should be doing. Because increasingly I also find that people who come from urban elite backgrounds in India, my peers from Delhi, Bombay, and Bangalore - are actually very insulated in our own little bubbles. We really don't know what's going on around us we live in our own La La Lands of pristine privilege. Essentially, we've become quite immune to the sufferings of those around us. To the degree that even when you're an Indian student in the UK, if you're at an elite university, you probably won't even realise 10 years ago, the sheer troubles that were being faced by your peers in the majority of the universe colleges in the UK. So it's that sort of dichotomy that I think everyone should really learn to help each other out. For me that the sense of being able to help someone do something for someone, I think it's purely selfish.”
Championing India-UK relations
Sanam affirmed that there is also an element of being able to champion India and the UK because there is a serious lack of understanding of contemporary India. She said, “The more countries work closer together, like how we are headed towards a Free Trade Agreement. Right, I feel that actually, if I put my let's say, British hat on, I feel like we're really ill-preparing or not preparing young Brits, to be able to understand what their counterpart in the world is going to be. India is going to be one of the largest economies in the world. We're going to have to deal with India, right? I think we see it as our role increasingly to champion the UK to really talk about contemporary India and increase people's understanding of contemporary India. For example, India's FinTech revolution is things we'll proudly talk about and spread knowledge about. I think there's the element of giving back to society but also feeling a strength of a sense of really giving back to India by ensuring that India's contemporary voice is heard loudly and clearly.”
Importance of neurodiversity
Commenting on how she navigates her work as a woman, sometimes when she’s perhaps surrounded by men in a boardroom where she needs to make her voice heard, Sanam explained that there is a certain sense of empowerment that you can derive from being the only one in your position. “So if I'm the only woman if I'm the only brown person, if I'm the only young person and if I'm the only person who's speaking, not in a British accent, those four things can actually drag me down, or it could be something that I use to my advantage. I have found that it is very easy to choose one or the other. I've always felt that my USP is to just be as authentic as possible. Ultimately, people respect authenticity, you're going to fake an accent, you're going to fake any form of behaviour to chime along with your clients or whoever you're trying to build a relationship with, I think people see through what they look at you and ultimately as the ones you and I think the one thing I have found that has certainly worked in my favour is knowledge. I think no one can take away your knowledge from you then it doesn't matter whether you are a woman. But I have sometimes felt like, not necessarily so much because of the females, it could be that I have just not paid too much attention to it, but more as a younger person. I have felt as though the other person may think oh, this person doesn't really know anything about what they're talking about. But actually, you do because you've done your homework and I think if you if you look at all like a Venn diagram, those four things I mentioned, that can get quite challenging. But I also think that Britain is a society, which is increasingly welcoming of, differences because I think they realise the importance of neurodiversity. So you know that your diversity you can put forth as your strands, which is what I have tried to do by just completely myself.”
