Show Notes:

Black and Ethnic Minority representation in leadership positions in the UK PR Industry leaves much to be desired and is well below FTSE 100 @11% and FTSE 250 @9% (Parker Review 2025). However, I am an optimist and do believe that direction of travel has been set by advocates and agencies… Collective progress may be slow, but equity & inclusion is mainstream and there are more role models than ever before…

Alicia Solanki, Senior VP EMEA @Team Lewis is one such role model challenging cultural expectations and stereotypes to make space for herself in the UK industry. In this fast-paced conversation on The Elephant in the Room podcast we spoke about the dynamics of leadership and representation in the industry from the perspective of a woman of colour.

Alicia also spoke about the importance of mentorship in fostering resilience and empowerment amongst underrepresented communities.

- Authenticity and cultural sensitivity

- Work life balance decoded

- Codeswitching – life saving hack or demotivating burden?

- Evolving definitions of leadership and empathy in leadership

- DEI alive or dead? Are clients continuing to prioritise DEI initiatives or are they backtracking on their previous commitments?

Each and every time I hear somebody speak about their lived experiences, I am blown away by how unique our experiences are to each one of us. How important it is for us to understand that Black and Ethnic Minorities or the global majority are not homogenous. That understanding context and intersectionality are key to informed equitable interventions for inclusive workplaces and thriving communities.

Her advice to young Black and Ethnic minority professionals entering the industry - ‘make your own magic’.

Episode Transcript

Sudha: Good morning, Alicia. Wonderful to have you on the Elephant in the Room podcast today.

I'm delighted because I've been following you on LinkedIn for some time and it's a great pleasure to have you here today.

Alicia: Thank you, Sudha. It's a pleasure to be here today.

And yes, my friends and family always laugh about how obsessed I am with LinkedIn, so I'm glad you found me on there too.

Sudha: Brilliant. So let's start with a quick introduction.

Alicia: So I'm Alicia Solanki. I'm SVP EMEA at Team Lewis. Team Lewis is a global marketing agency here in London, but we're also global. We're around the world in 25 offices. I've done my whole career agency side. Before that I was in the Omnicom family. So, yeah, I guess I love the buzz of agency.

I love the discipline of PR and how it's really expanded now. I have two children, Ella, who's 11, just started high school. So lots of change came going on in our house at the moment.

And then I have a little boy called Ethan, who's eight. So, yeah, married, busy life, juggling loads of plates. But I kind of like it that way. So that's a bit about me.

Sudha: Yeah. Oh, my God, it sounds really busy and with life changing stuff.

I mean, moving from primary to secondary is like a huge change and of course, agency life. Tell me about it. I love the buzz. I was agency side, moving on. As an ethnic minority woman with an amazing career in PR, I need to ask you this. Did you choose to get into the PR industry? And how did your family respond? Because, I mean, a lot of Asians really don't get it.

Alicia: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And you're going to laugh when I tell you that I bought the ‘Dummy's Guide to PR’ before I started my career because I knew nothing about what this industry was about. But what I did know is that it ticked loads of boxes. So I love politics, I love the media, I love writing and reading and being with people.

And there were very few careers, I guess, that ticked every single one of those boxes. And then I came across PR and started looking into it and realized that it could do that. So that was where it ended up. My family had no clue what this was. My mom still thinks I'm a pa, I think. So I just kind of let anyone believe that which is fine.

And I really remember one time when I think it was a cousin of mine, who I won't name, said to me, what are you supposed to do with a career with a degree, sorry, in English. And I remember thinking, oh God, I've really gone against the grain here. When you know, lots of my cousins and grew up in a really big Indian family. Right. Lots of people around the house and most of them did, you know, either economics or math. So I was definitely an outlier.

And so yeah, it wasn't easy and I definitely sort of went left when everybody went right. From a studies point of view.

Sudha: Good for making your own choices. I can understand. I mean I didn't tell my kids, they didn't know what I did for the longest time and I was okay with that.

So during your career, considering that, you come from a background which is not in PR and where there's little awareness of the industry, did you have access to mentors and allies and role models? How important is it for you to see people like ourselves as role models?

Alicia: Yeah. I'll take the first part of your question first. I started this career in 2005 and there definitely weren't that many role models, particularly Asian female, in really seeing positions.

I think fast forward 20 years where we are now, there are definitely lots of brilliant examples and each one of us hopefully trying to lift each other up and become more visible and use our platforms and our voices. But there wasn't back then.

But what there were, I would say is that loads of allies in other places that either saw a talent that you had, that maybe you didn't realize that you had advocated for you and gave you opportunities. And I started my career at Ketchum and there were some amazing leaders, colleagues there that, you know, played an instrumental part in my career.

And they know who they are. So I won't name them all because I don't want to miss anyone. But yeah, the ability to see something, I guess that you didn't see in yourself. So allies are important everywhere in your life. Sometimes they're obvious allies, sometimes they look like you have the same background as you, but that's not always the case.

And I think being open minded and looking around and networking like crazy and finding those people that can lift you up and can occasionally like throw you the microphone or give you the spotlight. I think for me those are the people that have been real jewels in the story. As I look back over 20 years. So yeah, they weren't there back then. I'm so pleased to say that there are definitely way more now.

Sudha: Agree. I totally agree with you. And you know, we just spoke about agency life and the buzz of agency life. So is there a thing such as work life balance and what are the strategies for staying grounded and avoiding burnout considering you have a life beyond work?

Alicia: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's one of the hardest things I think about being in this career. It is always on. There is a nature, a degree to which you have to be present with your team, with your clients and that's challenging.

Yeah, I mean I have a really long commute to get to work. It can take up to two hours each way, children to sort out in the morning, to feed in the afternoons.

But the way that I like to look at it I guess is that there isn't such a thing as work life balance because you just have one life and you just have to work out how do you turn the volume up and down every single day? So sometimes the volume at work is a bit louder, other days it'll be louder at home.

I like to keep it broadly in equilibrium because I find that that makes me happiest, it makes my family happiest, my colleagues happiest. It's not always easy, but I think you have to be quite disciplined about the way you look at work life balance.

You know, you can't always have your cake and eat it. There is sacrifice everywhere you look and often personal sacrifice is - definitely things that I'm not able to do in the week.

Do a yoga class or there just isn't the time. But I'd hope that in time when the children are older and things settle that you'll get to do some of those things.

But yeah, I think it's just being open minded about that, respecting your boundaries, having that self-resp...