START AN EXPEDITION

Episode Description

The Women in Business Expedition is underway in Pakistan and we couldn’t be more delighted! This week Julia speaks to Simi, a much requested guest from our expedition members in Pakistan, about the 4 Es, which ones resonate with her the most. Simi discusses how her understanding of ‘motherness’ has been deeply shaped by her grandfather and how she uses this essence to guide intergenerational team. She encourages women to embrace their woman-ness, to find strength in their femininity and be truly authentic. She speaks of a unique framing of equality as not an equality of sameness but an equality of difference. While she advocates for women to use tools from their cultural contexts in the form of the sacred, she equally emphasises the need to jettison the patriarchal trapping we may fall prey to, for example, the pressures woman face from their in-laws and extended family in the South Asian Context. With her years of experience across two continent, Simi brings to life the wisdom of lived experience and the fire to you people seek to bring change in the World.

About the Guests

Simi Kamal

Simi Kamal is Chairperson of the Hisaar Foundation, Pakistan. Educated at the University of Cambridge, she has 37 years of experience in the water sector, environment, climate change, food security, women’s empowerment, gender equality, inclusive development and poverty alleviation.

About the Host

Julia Middleton

Julia Middleton is the host of the Women Emerging podcast and a best-selling author of “If that’s leading, I’m in” as well as two previous books: “Leading beyond Authority” and “Cultural Intelligence”. She is deeply committed to helping people from all backgrounds to find their own approach to leading.

In 2020, Julia launched Women Emerging and in 2022 she lead an expedition of 24 women to find ‘an approach to leading that resonates with women’. She now leads expeditions with women all over the world based on 4Es methodology, discovered in the first expedition.

Prior to that, Julia was founder and, for over thirty years, Chief Executive of Common Purpose, which grew to become one of the biggest leadership development organisations in the world.
Julia is also an Ambassador for the Aurora Prize based in Armenia, on the boards of Alfanar Venture Philanthropy in the Arab World and Equality Now, which operates globally, and on the Advisory Councils of Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil and Synapse in Pakistan.

Born in London and brought up in New York, Julia was educated at French Lycées and graduated from the London School of Economics. She is married, with five children and lots of grandchildren.