Shani Dhanda
Social entrepreneur, disability specialist and speaker, Diversability & Virgin Media
Shani Dhanda is a social entrepreneur, disability equality advocate, and business and culture change agent. Using her determination to create everyday equality, she is the founder of three initiatives, all united by the common purpose of empowering underrepresented communities:
- Diversability, an inclusive platform providing discounts for disabled people, reducing the financial pressures from the unavoidable extra costs of living with a condition or impairment.
- Asian Woman Festival, the UK’s first-of-its-kind annual festival smashing stereotypes to empower and celebrate Asian women.
- Asian Disability Network, an educational platform and support network for people who experience multiple types of stigma due to their ethnic and cultural identities.
Passionate about representation, in just the last twelve months, Shani has been the face of LinkedIn’s first-ever TV ad which was featured across digital, social media, print and radio channels. She’s also in a Netflix series Nadiya’s Time to Eat, with Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, which was originally aired on the BBC—featured in Vogue’ Forces for Change’ series and many more publications. Shani was crowned the Greater Birmingham Chambers’ Future Face of 2020 for her work as a social entrepreneur and campaigner.
As an award-winning disability specialist and speaker, Shani has worked with companies including Virgin Media, Google, Viacom and LinkedIn. She helps organisations break barriers and integrate inclusion into their business frameworks. She’s also a trustee of global disability charity Leonard Cheshire Disability and an Executive Committee member of the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce.
As a subject matter expert, Shani brings the voices of disabled people and their organisations to policy development for the government’s Office for Disability Issues. She is an ambassador at Valuable 500 and Parallel London.
Shani’s style and approach are described as ‘a winning combination of authenticity and passion, helping to remove the awkwardness and fear of having confident conversations about disability within business and society.’