ABOUT

Tell us who you are!

I’m Sheetal, I’m a Development Manager / Design Consultant at a learning consultancy for social change called Koreo. I’m also the co-founder of a community platform called South Asian Sisters Speak (SASS), which I work on in my spare time.

So what do you actually do?

In my day job I work with charity and community sector clients to help design and deliver learning and leadership experiences, to ensure people are best-equipped to create the change they want to see in the world.

What has your career path been?

My career path has been relatively unplanned and quite random, much to the stress of my parents!

I studied History at university, with the original intention to become a lawyer. While I was there, I volunteered for a variety of teaching initiatives, from debate to primary school history, and I loved it. I initially went down the education route - I became a volunteer mentor with the City Year programme, working at an inner-city boys school in London, and then went on to work for various youth social action and schools-focused charities.

A couple of years ago, I began to feel a bit restless - I felt quite well-connected in the education space in London, but it wasn’t challenging me as much anymore. I took a sideways step into a corporate responsibility organisation, working with big corporate companies to help them better engage in local community initiatives through volunteering.

I realised very quickly that it wasn’t what I wanted to do in my long-term career, but I learnt so much from this role and it really grew my confidence - we were training and running sessions with very senior executives all the time. I was also instrumental in setting up our internal inclusion group in this role, an interest and a passion that has really helped shape the kind of work I want to do in the future.

Earlier this year I knew I wanted to move onto something new, and tried to be as intentional about it as possible. I really enjoyed the ‘consulting’ element of my CSR role, as well as working with community organisations on the ground, and tried to write out a ‘dream’ job description based on this.

Luckily Koreo was hiring for that kind of role at exactly the right time, and I’ve been here since July. My whole career journey has felt slightly random, and it hasn’t been particularly structured, but I don’t regret any of it - I’ve followed my gut feeling every time in terms of when to move on and where to go, and I could never have guessed I’d end up where I am.

I feel I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing when I’ve reached the limit of my learning in a role, or when I need to try something different. Trusting in myself and my decisions has gone pretty well for me so far, so I don’t particularly have a plan for the future right now either!

I’m enjoying the current learning curve and we’ll see what happens next.

What is the best part of your job?

There are so many things!

First is the variety - every day is different, every client is different. I am constantly kept on my toes and am always problem-solving or having to get creative, which I find really energising.

Secondly is the people. All of my clients and programme participants are frontline workers trying to make a difference in their communities, sometimes in remote parts of the country. It can be so easy to be in my city bubble and look at social change from that lens, but they are constantly bringing new perspectives and experiences into our conversations that are really eye-opening. We’re all about supporting the learning of others, but I genuinely learn new things from the people I meet every single day. I feel like it’s made me a better-rounded person.

Finally, I love knowing that the work I do is contributing to making someone’s connection with their own work and their communities a bit better. I’m not frontline, but I support those who are, and getting feedback that my sessions helped our participants to solve a problem they had, or gave them a bit more confidence, is amazing.

Our work is about centring the people who are at the heart of social change, and I love being a small part of their journeys.

Why do you do your job?

 I firmly believe that it is people, not processes or planning or profit, that make the world go round.

My whole career to date has been about connecting, developing and working with others, and I have a very human-centred approach to everything I do. Those who work in social change, those who do community work in their local areas because they care and believe in a better world, are often forgotten or taken for granted.

There is an assumption that because they are ‘givers’ that they don’t need or want anything, but in reality they are more likely to lack confidence, have imposter syndrome, and be burnt out.

I do my job because I want to give space, time and energy to people who are working so hard for others, so that they can be better for the world and for themselves. If COVID-19 and lockdown has shown us anything, it’s that people power is vital - so many individuals stepped up to support their local communities, but if we’re not looking after them too, where would we be?!

I do my job to enable others to do theirs and be their best, and to contribute to a sense of hope too!

One piece of advice for someone starting in your role?

Be prepared to have your thinking constantly challenged.

I’ve worked in various social change roles over my career, but this job has been one of the biggest and steepest learning curves I’ve ever had. We’re designing learning spaces for people who work in fast-paced, and sometimes quite emotional settings.

We might think bringing in a certain topic or resource might be helpful, but we can never quite guess where it will land! I’ve also had my eyes opened to the many inherent biases that I have - again, I like to think I’m relatively well educated and experienced when it comes to this, but I’ve realised it is very much an ongoing journey.

I’m grateful that as part of a learning and design role that I’m constantly learning and reassessing myself, and I think that open-mindedness is really important for any design or consultancy-style role.

Any parting words?

I think it’s really important to have different career paths shared and represented more widely, especially for people of colour - when I started in the charity sector I got a lot of judgement from my family because it doesn’t pay particularly well, and I was told I was wasting my life!

But I’m really proud of everything I have achieved, and I want more young people in particular to feel like the social impact sector is a viable career option for them.

Check out Sheetal’s socials below!

DAY IN THE LIFE

I am not an early riser at all, so in some ways working from home has been a blessing in disguise because I can wake up later! I usually make a coffee and then start the day by browsing emails or checking my work plan - we use a project management software in my new role which I’m still getting used to, but it helps me keep track of everything I need to do.

There aren’t really any ‘typical’ days in a design role, but there are certain types of work that we would do across a week or few days. For example, client meetings are a regular fixture in the diary - where we meet to discuss a new or ongoing project and ensure it’s moving in the right direction.

All our clients are charities or community organisations so these meetings generally aren’t that formal, but it’s important for us to check-in and iron out any potential issues. Part of our role is to also challenge the client if we’ve identified new ways of working, which I always love doing - it’s so interesting seeing how people react to ideas they hadn’t considered before!

Delivery is also a huge part of my role, which is about carrying out the projects for the clients - for us this is generally about facilitating or leading workshops or training. I typically work on 2-3 client projects at the time, and sometimes in one day I’ll have to jump from running a session on connection and community with one client, to one on leadership skills and styles with another.

On days like those I need to make sure I have caffeine handy - facilitating can be super draining, especially when running sessions online, but the participants can’t know that, because they rely on you to bring the energy.

Another core element of my typical work day/week is the designing itself, which is my favourite part. This is where my colleagues and I will sit with a client brief and think about how to make it come to life. What kind of tools or resources would be appropriate? What might the audience connect best with? What style or approach is most relevant? And what unique elements can we bring to the table?

I always find these conversations so motivating - our role is to imagine and then curate the spaces that the client needs, and the possibilities are endless. Here we get to research and learn and adapt and create, so a lot of reading and experimenting happens in these design conversations.

There’s also usually a good amount of teamwork involved in the design stage which I really enjoy - I love bouncing ideas off other people and feeling inspired.

Finally, another big part of my role is project management, which is essentially the admin around a client project. This could be doing some project planning for the future, risk management, evaluation, or participant engagement.

It’s not my favourite thing but it’s super important to the role and really rounds out the experience of working with clients - you understand the project from the inside out, and therefore are better placed to improve it or advise the client going forward.

In general, my work day is incredibly varied and also really flexible - I have a lot of autonomy with regards to how I plan my day, which means I can work it around my wellbeing and other priorities. I try to go for a walk on my lunch break everyday, and also make time to eat a proper lunch away from my desk (not always possible but it’s a good aspiration!). I usually finish around 6/6.30pm, which is when I then switch to doing my admin for SASS!

SASS is a project I work on on the side, creating events and spaces for South Asian women to connect and share with each other. In many ways it's similar to my day job, so it's interesting how the learnings can cross over.

I try to make time to do some work on it in the evenings, but during busy event periods I end up squeezing it in over lunch breaks or any other spare time I have! I love it, but it's been a really good lesson for me in terms of how to manage my time and wellbeing too, because I've had to accept that I can't do everything. I'm super proud of it though - and it's really added to my confidence in my day job too.