Is Your Community Truly Inclusive? A Conversation with Shopify’s Prasanna Ranganathan
Episode 14
Prasanna Ranganathan is the Diversity and Belonging Lead at Shopify where he leads the development of Shopify’s Global Diversity and Belonging Strategy. He’s previously worked as a lawyer, human rights investigator, producer, social media strategist, red carpet correspondent and so much more along his very unique career path (read his full bio below 🤯).
As a community builder, Prasanna has had the opportunity to work with Oprah Winfrey and curate an online book club and film discussion community.
Prasanna proudly claims his identity as an LGBTQ2+ and racialized person with a disability. In Episode 14, Prasanna and Marsha take a deep dive into how to make communities truly diverse and inclusive.
“Diversity and Belonging have became my life's work because I cannot be complicit in the systems and structures that continue to oppress others. I know from lived experience that it has been a struggle to get into every place and space I'd gotten into. So, if there are things I can do to move the needle to ensure that there's greater inclusion and to remove barriers, I will do them. I don’t have my head in the clouds thinking that I can do this alone, but I know that I can do a part. I can do my part.”
- Prasanna Ranganathan
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Prasanna’s Full Bio:
Prasanna Ranganathan (B.A., J.D., LL.M.) has worked as a lawyer, diversity and inclusion lead, speaker, and social media strategist. A former Canada-U.S. Fulbright Scholar and upcoming Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference delegate, Prasanna is currently Diversity and Belonging Lead at Shopify leading the development of Shopify’s Global Diversity and Belonging Strategy.
He previously served as Senior Legal Counsel to The Honourable Justice Michael Tulloch at the Independent Street Checks Review, Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice Canada, Senior Special Advisor at Federal Judicial Affairs Canada, a labour and employment lawyer in private practice, and as an advisor at the United Nations Development Programme.
A contributor to HuffPost, CBC, and Oprah.com, Prasanna has designed social media campaigns for film studios and high-profile media leaders including Arianna Huffington and Oprah Winfrey. He is an Associate Producer of Dream, Girl, a documentary on female entrepreneurs that premiered at the Obama White House in May 2016. A social media & red carpet correspondent, Prasanna has covered the red carpets at the 2019 Academy Awards, the 2014 Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the 2018 CTV Upfront.
Proudly claiming his identity as an LGBTQ2+ , racialized person with a disability (legal blindness), Prasanna is a seasoned speaker on diversity and inclusion, speaking at: the 2017 Walrus Talks Canada 150 Tour, the annual Toronto International Film Festival inclusion and accessibility training, the 2019 International Women’s Day Summit on Parliament Hill, and the 2020 Canadian Bar Association Mid-Winter Meeting.
Episode Transcript:
Marsha Druker
Prasanna, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited for our conversation.
Prasanna Ranganathan
Thanks so much for having me, Marsha, I'm really excited too!
Marsha Druker
Fantastic. So before we dig into it, I really like to get a sense of how my guests actually grew up and how they discovered community along their journey. I know that you grew up as a second generation Canadian. And I'm wondering what that was, like, what your upbringing was like and what your sense of community was like growing up.
Prasanna Ranganathan
I grew up in Saskatchewan. My parents both immigrated to Canada, my dad in the 60s to do his PhD at the University of Saskatchewan. And then my mom moved here in 1973, after they were married in India, and for me, community was really forged from an early age, because my parents especially were living in a community that they did not grow up in. So the bonds of family that would have tied them to other people weren’t readily accessible and available. And beyond the letters they exchange with family once a month, or once every two months, however long the mail took, that connection really needed to be built with the family and the community that they were forming in Saskatchewan.
And so for my parents, I think it was really essential to both have a community that understood their lived experiences as immigrants and they forge that community with other members of the South Asian community in Saskatchewan. And we really built a family in the prairies that was linked to our family back home, shared experiences, shared traditions, shared languages, and then also more broadly building community through the people we knew in our neighborhood.
And for me, that was really important because I'm an only child, the default setting is to be alone. So to see how they created community when they were also both alone inspired me to start to forge those connections throughout my life as well.
Marsha Druker
I'm an only child as well. And I can totally relate to that by default, you are sort of alone. If you want to have people around you and you want to have a community, you really have to seek it out yourself. You're not just born into it.
Prasanna Ranganathan
I do love it. It's like an intentional focus on building community as opposed to a default. Here's my community and where do I go from here?
Marsha Druker
Yeah, I really appreciate that as well. I think I'm very intentional about how I choose my friends and how I choose those people that are the closest to me. So what were you like growing up? You know, what were you like in high school? What were some of your interests, extracurriculars? How did you find your identity and your sense of belonging?
Prasanna Ranganathan 2:40
It was interesting. I had not yet fully blossomed into every dimension of my identity. I'm a proud gay man, but I did not come out till I was 30. So for me, high school is very much trying to find my community when I wasn't sense fully who I was in the world, I was hiding aspects of myself because I was not yet in the space to come out being someone who South Asian and and growing up in Saskatchewan and being in high school in the 90s when inclusion and belonging weren't necessarily at the forefront of the conversation in ways that they are today, I would say that it was hard.
But at the same time, I was also surrounded by a community of really wonderful people. I was in the International Baccalaureate program. So I really loved school, I loved reading, I lost myself in books, and built worlds or myself that navigated through the stories that these authors were telling on the pages. I also was involved in music and drama.
So the arts were really a point of connection for me and some of my closest friends to date, who I continue to have zoom calls with every Saturday during orientation are my group of friends from high school where we also sing choir together. So music, drama and improv were my outlets. And those are my communities, my artistic communities and then just school. I just loved learning. And maybe that makes me a nerd. But I'm pretty proud of that
Marsha Druker 4:16
I can relate. I was a huge nerd in high school, I was very competitive about my grades, and I just kind of threw myself into it. And I think I kind of found community around that as well. And then in university, like I still cared a lot about my grades, but I focused a lot more on extracurriculars and finding work experience and things like that.
Prasanna Ranganathan
Totally. I was active in high school too, which was lovely. I think I kind of describe it as like a treasure box experience in high school because it was just ostensibly based on stereotypical depictions of gay teens in high school on television. Sometimes that should not be based on public perception. It has been an easy experience for me. And I just really thrived. I had a great community of people who supported me and teachers who really believed in me, and it really inspired me to believe that I could or should do anything.
Marsha Druker
So what did you end up doing after high school? What did you study? And how did you get started on your career?
Prasanna Ranganathan 5:15
So it's really interesting in grade 12. Or maybe it's really interesting to me... I was deciding between two career paths. I always knew that I loved people. I loved hearing stories about people. I loved working with people and understanding what makes us as human beings come alive. And for me, there were two paths that really stood out. One was to become a psychiatrist, so that I could really understand the stories and journeys of individuals and then the other was to become a lawyer, because I loved words, and I loved reading and I thought this is a way to bring my love of reading and words and of literature together with my deep desire to connect with other people. And I ultimately chose law. I was terrible at physics, so only got through great 11 physics did not do great. Well, physics.
Marsha Druker
I'm glad that you were able to pick something that made sense for you. How did you start your career? What was your first role?
Prasanna Ranganathan
I went to law school in Victoria, BC. And then I did my masters in New York at Columbia Law School. And so between those two programs, I did a year of articling, where I clerked for two judges on the court of appeal in Saskatchewan. And so that was really my introduction into what law could look like in practice. I loved the study of law. Like for me, it was really about human centered issues and how we come together to solve those issues. And the practice of law working with those two judges really opened my eyes to the power of law to impact social change.
After that, I worked for a private law firm where I worked in labor and employment law. And then I quit that job actually and moved to Ethiopia, where I worked for the Canadian Bar Association My youth internship program and then with the United Nations Development Program on an internship as well. So I was there for about seven months and moved back to Ottawa, where I then spent the next nine years of my career with the Government of Canada as a lawyer, and then moved to Ontario to be a lawyer.
And so that has been sort of the trajectory of my career primarily in human rights, international development and diversity and inclusion.
Marsha Druker
It's so incredible. I was looking at your LinkedIn and your website, and I'm just blown away by a number of things that you've done in your career, and just how diverse that was in terms of the things that you've been able to do. But I do want to spend some time chatting about your experience in government and how that informed your sense of community so I know that when you were working for the government of Canada, you were kind of focused on the areas of judicial appointments and international judicial reform. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that work looked like and what those roles entail.
Prasanna Ranganathan
So when I was first with The Department of Justice, I worked with a team of Canadian lawyers and judges, who were supporting Canadian lawyers and judges in other countries that were in the process of reforming their justice systems. So while I was with the Department of Justice and federal judicial affairs, we partnered with judges and lawyers in countries such as Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, Mexico and Ukraine, to work with them as they were going through judicial reform programming. So the really interesting part of that work was like it allowed me to be a lawyer and be steeped in like Canadian legal practice and best practices.
But it also exposed me to how people set up systems of justice and legal reform and law reform in other countries and get a deeper understanding of what law as a normative principle and as a real, live tangible principle could look like on a day to day basis. And it was really exciting because for me, I think one of the biggest issues with development work is this perception that countries go in and tell other countries, you need to fix all of the following things. And in order to get funding, you need to do the following things. And that is very true in many domains.
The work that we were doing, however, was very partnership based, we would go in with Canadian best practices, we would say, this is how we are doing things in Canada. And it was really exciting to have that Canadian approach because we had the benefit of both common law traditions, which are the traditions of courts and hearings like you would see on TV, and also certain civil law traditions, which are very prominent in Quebec.
And that makes us really unique in our ability to work with countries around the world. So our approach was always very much here's how we do things in Canada. If it adds value to you. We are happy to work with you to build a system that brings in some of these practices.
But if it doesn't, let's work together to create something completely bespoke and unique that will speak to your lived experiences and whatever loved about that is every time we did that work, we learnt about ways in which our justice system could improve and be better and stronger and more tangibly beneficial to the people we're supposed to be serving.
Marsha Druker
That's very cool. Partnerships are so key, I think, especially to listeners of this podcast, who are building communities or who are in community roles within organizations. What are some things that you learned about building strong partnerships while you were doing that work?
Prasanna Ranganathan
The role about partnerships was always going in with an inquisitive mindset. It was about going in and learning more than speaking. So for me, I always really wanted to go into those meetings, curious about the ways in which different communities were solving the problems that directly and daily impacted them. And how can I learn more, understand more about my role in the world and how I could be of service but more broadly, how can I use my skills and voice to be in service to broader conversations?
So for me those Partnerships were central in both my approach to work, but also it was just a fundamental paradigm shift. It was no longer this idea of when we view development work as going in and making a difference. It was really about viewing development work as this is a partnership, we're each going to benefit. And it's going to be powerful and tangible when we come to the table with an understanding that we will do good work if we are open to listening, open to collaborating and open to growing together.
Marsha Druker
And how did this whole chapter of your life inform your sense of community?
Prasanna Ranganathan
I think it did so in a few ways. One is he gave me a sense of the public services community. So you often think of public perceptions of the public service, like they'll talk about the size of the bureaucracy, they'll talk about the cost of the bureaucracy, they'll talk about bureaucratic processes. But I think what is lost in the narrative about public service is that these are groups of people that have come together to do their life's work in service to society in a broader context in conversation, and in doing so they form a community around those purposes. So it's like, if we are passionate about justice and law, we will work on the issues that believe will impact Canadians.
If we are passionate about international and global affairs, we will work in the Foreign Service in order to bring those commandments to life on the global stage. So it was a farming community within the public service to bring life to those purposes and objectives. But for me, it was also about a broader understanding of community in the world.
So as we decided on our priorities as we work with different countries on justice reform initiatives, it was really understanding how the systems and structures we have set up either help to create community, help to add value to community or create systemic barriers and structures which harm communities. So that was really powerful for me to see firsthand.
Marsha Druker
So I want to jump into the community that you've built in film. But first, I'm really curious how and why did you pivot from government to film and social media? And how did you break into the industry?
Prasanna Ranganathan
So I'm going to take you back to Grade 12 Prasanna, where I told you I had two options. I told you I had a choice between medicine and law. But what my heart was probably thing that my brain did not want to hear is that the third option was I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to be in theater, or I wanted to be in film or I wanted to do the arts. And for me, I guess when I think back on it now, that makes a lot of sense, because I think the draw to law was what I had seen on television and film.
It was the the speeches in court, it was persuading people. It was the drama of that profession in certain respects. And only upon practicing did I realize that it was very different portrayed on TV. And so for me, it really came down to I love my career as a lawyer, I was traveling around the world working with other people, I was learning so much I was working on our judicial appointments, processes in Canada, even up to including appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada. All of it was really incredible.
But it did not speak to the creative part of my spirit. And so I know on my resume, it's interesting to see how those two are related, but I did them at the same time. So I worked full time as a lawyer with the government. And I also started a full side hustle in social media marketing in social media, community building and online engagement. And in becoming an associate producer on a documentary film, I did all of that while also being a lawyer.
Marsha Druker
That's really impressive. So tell me a little bit more about that. How did you first break into it? How did you get that offer?
Prasanna Ranganathan
My parents and I applied for tickets to be in a studio audience of The Oprah Winfrey Show, back in 2010. And on our first try, we got the ticket. And after the taping, she does a segment where she sits with the audience and asks questions, or people can ask her questions. I stood up and asked her a question about what it was like to be at the Oscars. Because I'm obsessed with movies. I'm obsessed with the Oscars.
And I asked her what that was like. And unbeknownst to me, they taped that segment after the show as well. And in that segment, I talked to her about my passion for the arts and how I was a lawyer and how I really didn't want to be a lawyer. But my dream was to be a seat filler at the Oscars, and we talked about that, and I thought it was a great conversation.
That was filmed and put on TV, put on their website, and all my colleagues that were excited. So it's an interesting conversation to go back to your workplace where you're a lawyer and you're like, I don't really want to be a lawyer? I work for the government of Canada, but I'd rather be in theater and for me it was a pivotal moment because it's the first time I said it out loud. And it's like, if you're gonna say it out loud, say it out loud to Oprah Winfrey on television.
Marsha Druker 16:13
Go big or go home!
Prasanna Ranganathan
Go big or go home! If you're gonna speak your dream, speak it out loud to the person who's been listening to the stories of people for over 30 years. And so after that, I was like, okay, I've said it out loud. So what am I gonna do to make this dream come true. And interestingly, at that time, about a year later, Oprah started her television network. And she had put out a call on Twitter to say like, if people are watching the programming, please live tweet with us so we can build the conversation and bring more engagement to the network. So about 20 of us started live tweeting every show, we would organize like discussion groups and conversations and events.
And ultimately, we formed this group called the own ambassadors, which now has over 50,000 followers on Twitter. There's a vibrant social community to support all of our programming. And to say thank you, she invited us all to LA for lunch. So this was the first time our community or community of 25 people who started this group we had never met in real life. So when I talk about forming a community for me, community can happen anywhere. And for me, it happened on social media, it happened with people who loved the same television that I loved. It happened with people who love Oprah's message of inspiration and connection and community.
And we formed a community. And that day at lunch, the community that we had formed met in real life, we always said, at that time, it was 140 characters as much as you could have on Twitter. And I think now it's gone up. But we used to say from 140 characters to family that was kind of our tagline. And from there, it took off. I started working with film studios and television networks on the Designing social media campaigns.
And I worked with publishing companies and authors on designing book clubs. So what book clubs would look like is we'd ask everyone to read the book, and convene on twitter at a certain time. And then we'd have a guided discussion with the author about the book all on Twitter. And so really just gave people around the world access to the authors and artists that they otherwise would not be connected to.
Marsha Druker:
What I find really amazing about this is that it started out with really just putting out content on social media, specifically Twitter, and you were able to really turn that into a community and to be able to foster conversation rather than just putting out content. Can you tell me about when that pivotal moment was and what steps you took to turn it into an actual community and into an actual dialogue?
Prasanna Ranganathan:
I love that you highlighted that. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about social media is that brands need to be pushing out content. It's like here's an ad. Here's a funny video. Here's a photo, here's a tweet promoting our product, click on this link go through. What we found actually was that people wanted to have conversation with the brands, they wanted to have conversation with the artists, they wanted to share their perspectives. And they wanted it to be a two way dialogue.
So for us community really formed around the idea that I know the word community is often like, used in very different ways. And for us, it was not about the commodification of community, but it was reconnecting community to its roots and compassion. So the idea was to move away from commodification and move towards compassion.
And what I mean by compassion is really understanding the people you're interacting with, form that connection with them, maybe realize that though you don't live in the same country or the same place, the same things move you the same things inspire you, you're driven by the same things.
You're seeking love, you're seeking connection, you're seeking light. And so through these conversations, those themes became readily apparent and it was like for all the backlash that social media gets about the ways in which it can harm people or end people's careers. For us, it was really eye opening that social media was forming the connections that people were desperately seeking in their daily lives, myself included.
Marsha Druker
Yeah, I think like, the beautiful thing about social media is that you can be very intentional about it, you could see the negatives about it, you can go seek out a lot of hateful content conversations that you don't want to be part of and sort of look at that. Or you can be super intentional about it and really find the communities that you're looking for and have a place where you can have a voice and where you can connect with people with similar values and similar interest, but also have an understanding of other perspectives as well.
Prasanna Ranganathan
I'd love that because I also want to say like social media, in many ways, has been the great equalizer. Like I think before access to a platform was through very specific media outlets that often featured a very privileged view that had access to it, whether it was wealth, whether it was like white privilege, whether it was a range of other things that gave you access to those spaces, and in many ways, social media, for good and bad has allowed everyone to have a platform.
I mean, the work that exists now is being critical as to who are the authoritative voices on topics, really deciding and discerning what information is being shared and pulling it apart. But the thing is, is like now when you say, Oh, my gosh, people are constantly upset, or people are constantly complaining, or people are bringing up issues of racism and discrimination. It's like people have always been speaking about these issues.
They've always been talking about racism and discrimination. They've always been talking about lack of accessibility, gender discrimination, gender based violence, but they have not had access to communities who could listen. And social media has allowed all voices to come to the forefront. It's now the responsibility of all of us to determine who are the authoritative voices who have lived experiences in these areas, and how we can amplify those voices but I just really think that social media is dead. Our conceptions of what community can be.
Marsha Druker
So from that experience from jumping into film and social media, you kind of reinvented yourself again and you jumped into an amazing role at Shopify until the tech world. Can you tell me a little bit about how that came about, you know how you found the opportunity that you're currently in?
Prasanna Ranganathan
Before Shopify, I worked as a lawyer with the Government of Ontario. And it was on a two year review, looking at street checks and carding. And after that review had ended and we'd submitted our report, I was really at a crossroads because I was trying to decide whether I stayed on as a lawyer or I pursued my passion for diversity and inclusion, which had been a thread through all of my work.
So I looked at diversity in the legal profession when I was a lawyer diversity in the judiciary when I worked with judicial affairs. And then diversity in policing services when I was on the review, and for me, I was like, that was where my passion lies. I really wanted to figure out diversity in film when I was associate producer on that documentary film dream girl.
And so for me, it was always How do I do this work in a way that's direct and immediate and not just a part of my career. And so this job is Shopify came up just at the time when the review ended, and I applied for it. And I applied for another job to also be a lawyer in the government at the same time, and I got an offer for both the same week. And so the Shopify offer after I met my director, David King, who I work with, and Siobhan has, well, Macintosh is also Shopify. For me, if there was no choice, that was the job I knew I wanted to do.
Marsha Druker
Sometimes you're presented with amazing opportunities, but there's one that you just feel in your gut that this is the right way to go and you have to make that jump. So you're the Diversity and Belonging Lead at Shopify - such a cool title! What exactly does your role entail? And what does your day to day look like?
Prasanna Ranganathan
My day to day looks very different. It can be based on a range of things, I would say my primary focus areas have been doing an audit of our hiring processes. So looking at where the hiring process where bias might creep in, where there might be a disproportionate impact on members of certain underrepresented groups and also analyzing ways we can foster more diversity and belonging through our processes.
The other piece that I led over the last year was building our Global Diversity and belonging strategy. So that was really exciting because it was one of the first tech companies to build a strategy with employee voices as the foundation. So everything that I loved about people came to life because I was able to travel around the world to all of our offices in Europe and Asia and Australia, to speak with employees.
They're about what diversity and belonging meant to them. And then build a strategy that was rooted in their voices, and wasn't just a North American strategy that we shipped globally, it was very intentionally built from employee voices around the world.
Marsha Druker
That's so amazing. And I think that's such a key theme throughout this podcast as well when it comes to the community that you really like to build something that's going to make an impact for the queue who you're trying to do it for. You have to listen to them. And so many of your answers are going to come directly from there instead of trying to guess at it yourself and make those decisions at the top level. What have been some of the challenges and opportunities that you've encountered in this work?
Prasanna Ranganathan
The exciting aspect of working in Shopify is that you can identify an issue that warrants further exploration and examination and you can design that solution to that issue and you can like launch it. You're given a lot of agency and power to drive this work as individuals and to drive this work as a team. And for me, that was really exciting.
I loved my time in government, but the one thing about government is that there's often so many layers of approval. So you need to brief someone they need to reach someone else. At Shopify, it's very much you're in direct contact with the leadership. They're very passionate about this issue. And you can work directly with them to bring about this change. So for me, that was the part that I just love so much.
Marsha Druker
That's really amazing. Shopify is a huge company now. It's not the scrappy startup that it was when it was just starting out. But it's really incredible to see that that culture was maintained.
How do you build community internally and support your team at work?
Prasanna Ranganathan
So for us, I would say community is built in many ways. I would say the relationship that's probably most sacred or central for building community is your relationship with your direct lead, so Your boss or the person you report to. And so for me that's like a touchstone of community. The next layer of community, I would say is the team on which I work, which is the diversity and belonging team, the employee experience diversity and belonging team. And so that community was core to me because in order to do this work across the company, we need to be able to as a team, be strong, unified and connected with one another. And I have never worked with more amazing people in my life. So that's been amazing.
When we talk about diversity and belonging we really want to talk about at the core of that conversation is community which communities are underrepresented. That's the central focus of our work. So when we talk about community, we're talking about underrepresented communities.
So how do we ensure that our overarching community which is Shopify or the company or whatever company you're in, reflects the world in which we live by removing barriers to underrepresented communities by bringing them in and once they are in ensuring that they feel That sense of belonging.
Marsha Druker
I love that. That's amazing that all these resources in these groups are available within Shopify. So I want to shift gears a little bit and get some of your advice for listeners. And I think what we just chatted about flows really nicely into it. So we're recording this in July of 2020.
So with everything that's going on with the BLM movement, I'm curious about your thoughts on how companies can support their Black employees, their customers and their wider community members at the moment.
Prasanna Ranganathan
So I would say in general, like organizations and companies have a responsibility to very clearly quickly and swiftly say Black Lives Matter. And they need to say that publicly they need to see that internally. They need to see that often. And they also need to very clearly state that anti black racism in all of its forms has no place at the organizations where they work. So I think those two pieces are central at the outset.
And then it is the daily work of ensuring that the systems and structures that exist within an organization do not further marginalize or perpetuate systemic harm against members of the black community. So it's looking at our systems and structures, it's looking at our policies. It's looking at every single interaction. And the way that I really think companies can organize their work and governments is really around the matrix of like individual and team level learning and growth.
And there's three pillars to that. I think one is called like learning. The second is amplify and the third is act. So learn, amplify, act. What can we do as individuals to learn more about anti Black racism and the issues facing members of the black community? What can we do to amplify the voices of our black colleagues of the black community more generally? And what can we do to act not just sit aside and bear witness or watch but to actually bear witness in a way where we're acting?
We're showing up we're calling out microaggressions. We're calling out Discrimination where we're using our voices to amplify those movements. And so I think that needs to happen at an individual level where we all go on that journey. But it also needs to happen at a team and organizational level of learning, amplifying and acting.
Marsha Druker
I love that I was gonna ask you about your thoughts on performative allyship and performative diversity. I think it's very clear when it's happening and everybody could smell it from a mile away. How can a company make sure that they're actually making a meaningful impact over time?
Prasanna Ranganathan
That's a good question. I would say yeah, we often get rooted in the performance and forget about the plans. So I would think it's important for all of us to move from performance to planning, and really with planning, then stating those goals clearly and executing on them. There is a role to play in bearing witness. There is a role to play in public statements and communication. And then the next step is how do we take action from there?
Marsha Druker
Yeah, that's great advice. And then I'm also curious about how we can make sure that our communities are truly inclusive, you know, not just saying that they're inclusive, but how can we make sure our day to day that we're acting to make sure that they're fully inclusive.
Prasanna Ranganathan
So as a member of the South Asian community, I also have to own my complicity and our community's complicity in anti black racist. So what we have to do is daily be self reflective on the ways in which our communities are perpetuating harm against other communities, or marginalized groups. The first thing is to acknowledge the ways in which our community might be exclusive. Have those difficult conversations, even when it's complex and fraught and might involve people that you are related to that you're close to have those deeply uncomfortable conversations and learn from those moments of self reflection and deep conversation, come out with a new way forward, be like now that I know better, I will do better.
Marsha Druker
And I think something that you touched on is like now that I know better. I can do better, we really do have to realize that, you know, sometimes you might hold an opinion. But when you get more information and you educate yourself more, it's totally normal to be able to change that. And I think it's a very healthy thing,
Prasanna Ranganathan
Franklin Leonard who's like the head of the blacklist, he's an amazing person to follow on Twitter, I highly recommend that but he has this amazing quote when he says, When you've become accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. So all of the people who are having these conversations about whether it's anything as toxic and racist, as all lives matter, all the way through to oh my gosh, like, what more do they want? What more do they want, like any form of this conversation is because you will become accustomed to privilege.
And so when people are saying, I have been treated unfairly, I have faced racism, I have faced sexism, I faced homophobia and discrimination. The inclination is not to say I'm hearing you I'm bearing witness to you. What can I do to make it better? the barriers that come up are the forms of like, oh my Gosh, if they're asking for this, what is it going to mean for me? And so I think the moment we can acknowledge that and move forward is the only time when we can actually make a tangible difference.
Marsha Druker
So shifting gears a little bit, you've had such an incredible and winding career journey, you know, we've only scratched the surface on it. But what advice do you have for listeners who are going through career transitions of their own and who are finding themselves wanting to pursue a totally different interest than the current type of role that they're in? How would you evaluate those types of opportunities? And how can people be confident in making those shifts and those pivots within their own careers?
Prasanna Ranganathan
This is a great question. And I would say it is an individual journey, but two things that have really helped me. The first was a quote from Oprah because she's my favorite: Let passion fuel your profession. So let what brings you alive in life be what brings you alive at work. And not all of us have the ability to say I really want to be an actor. I know that I don't have the skills to do that. yet. If I decide one day to do it, I need to do the work to do it.
But I will say what is the next right step that is often my guiding thing. So what is the next thing I can do to move me in the direction of my dreams? So whether it's today like having this conversation with you, I love having conversations with people, I love talking to people. And so for me, bringing me closer to my passion, which is connecting with people.
This was the next right step to bring me to that space every day. What is the next right step that will bring you closer to the life of your dreams. And then while you are building towards that light, realize the many ways in which joy is manifesting along the way and celebrate those moments of joy as well.
Marsha Druker
I absolutely love that. I like what you said about celebrating those moments of joy. I think it's so key because I think as people who are really high performing and ambitious, we're always on to, what's the next thing? How can I do this? What's next in my career, what's next in my personal life? And sometimes we don't take a moment to just stop and appreciate what we've actually done to date and that promotion is that thing that you've done, it can sometimes just get swept under the rug.
I want to spend a little bit of time chatting about your personal community. I'm curious what communities are you part of and why are they meaningful to you?
Prasanna Ranganathan
So in terms of identity, I'm a member of the South Asian community, I'm a racialized person, and I'm a person with a disability. I'm legally blind and have a degenerative eye condition. And I am also a member of the LGBTQ2+ plus community. So those communities are with me on a daily basis as I step into any place or space, my identity, my belonging to those communities as a tangible extension of who I am in any room in which I could enter.
I would say that community for me is also family. I'm very close to my parents. They're in fact the people I speak to every night before bed. And for me community is the three of us no matter where I've lived around the world, that has always been true.
And for me, community, it's so interesting because I also sometimes describe it as WhatsApp channels. Like do you know how you have WhatsApp groups and you've like, named them things? Like even when I think about those groups, I think about our Whatsapp group names, and it's my friends from high school who are “Friendship”. It's “Cool Cats”. It's a community of friends for the last 10 years from Ottawa and Toronto.
It's those groups that come alive in my mind, and its friends who along the way have seen me at the highest highs and see me at the lowest lows and have allowed me to understand parts of myself I didn't know existed and allowed me to know I was not alone. Community is really people who show you that you are not alone and people who ask of you to become a better version of yourself.
Marsha Druker
And that's such a beautiful definition. I really love that. And I couldn't relate to so much of that. I think, you know, as an only child, I'm super, super close with my parents, as well. It's like, we're kind of like The Three Musketeers. And we always have that conversation going. And I love that analogy about the WhatsApp channels.
I think there's a community for really every facet of who you are, whatever your interests are, whatever you want to be involved in, then you could always build a community around that. And it's only been about the size of it, I could just be like you and two really close people talking about something that's meaningful.
This is a little bit of a strange question, but I'm curious about how you choose your people, you know, really like those five to six people that are closest to you.
Do you feel like you're intentional about choosing them and how do you maintain those relationships and friendships?
Prasanna Ranganathan
I think a great description of this is Grey’s Anatomy, season one, where Christina looks to Meredith and she's like, I need to put down an emergency person. And she's like, “Yeah, I'm your person.” But for me that really stood out because like, who are the people that I would want to be contacted in case of emergency? And not just in like the morbid sense or a dark sense but the idea of like, when everything is crumbling around me, who are the people that will pull me up?
And who will I be there to do the same for and more on a tangible basis? Who are the people that are forcing me to reckon with the parts of myself that I do not know exists? Who are the people forcing me to grow?
Who are the ones making me ask myself uncomfortable questions? Who are the people that are not just going to be my hype squad but will be my hype squad when I can't seem to find goodness in myself? That is who has defined for me personal community and the close group of friends that I have.
Marsha Druker
Oh, that's so lovely. Those meaningful friendships really are a blessing. So diversity and belonging is really at the heart of everything that you do. Especially, with your role at Shopify. Why is it such a big part of your identity?
Prasanna Ranganathan
For me, I think so long, so much of my life, and I think so much of my parents' life and so much of the lives of people who are from underrepresented communities. Is there a space for me here? Will you make room for me? Will you let me speak? Well, what I think matters. And so I really just wanted to say, if the world includes all of us, like we all exist in society, all racialized communities or in society, LGBTQ2+ plus folks, people with disabilities, indigenous people, women, we all exist in society.
Why are we not found in proportion to our representation in society, in the organizations that make up the world in which we live? Why are we not in government? Why are we not in business, why are we not on screen, and I just was like, it does not make sense to me that we live in this world. And that is not an extension of the community. And then for me to realize that the structures of systemic oppression and racism exist.
For me, diversity and belonging became my life's work because I was like, I cannot be complicit in the systems and structures that continue to oppress others. And I also know from lived experience that it has been a struggle to get into every place in space I'd gotten into it has not been an easy path. And so if there are things I can do to move the needle to ensure that there's greater inclusion to remove barriers, I will do them. I do not have my head in the clouds thinking that I can do this alone. But I know that I can do a part. And I really want to, I can do my part and I really want to.
Marsha Druker
It’s so important what you said about one person isn’t going to be able to change everything. But you can do your part and you can really move the needle every day. I think you’re making a huge impact in what you’re currently doing and everything leading up to it. I love that you see diversity and belonging as your life’s work and I know you’ll go on to do more incredible things and I’m so excited to keep watching your journey.
My last question for you is - what does “community” mean to you?
Prasanna Ranganathan
Community is the process of making the invisible thread that connects us all, visible.
Marsha Druker
That’s a very interesting definition. I really like that. Well, Prasanna thank you so much again for joining me, this was such a wonderful conversation.
Prasanna Ranganathan
Thank you so much, Marsha. I really loved it.
