Sonya Barlow is an award-winning BBC Presenter, Entrepreneur, Author and Keynote Speaker.
A Travel and Tech Content Creator, Sonya presents The Everyday Hustle on the BBC Asian Network, named the best radio show in 2022.
She is the CEO of the LMF Network – Like Minded Females – a careers platform and inclusion consultancy bridging the skills gap and redefining workplace culture. She has written the popular book “Unprepared to Entrepreneur” and has been named among Europe’s Top 50 women in tech, as well as Marie Claire’s Future Shaper, UK Entrepreneur of the Year, and she was invited to Keynote at The House of Commons.
Sonya’s background in technology, business and travel enables her to globally support businesses in diversifying their workforce, share innovative solutions and advocate allyship throughout the workforce. She has worked with household brands such as Lloyds banking group and Capital One on their tech podcast, led campaigns for HP, Rolls Royce, Logitech and Linkedin and delivered keynotes in Germany, Lithuania, Kenya, Pakistan, Amsterdam, France, the UK, Portugal and Mauritius, to name a few.
Sonya’s background includes leading technology solutions across Europe, building transformative infrastructures in fintech and banking and leveraging teams to support tech-based solutions in the energy, telecoms and retail sectors. She worked in technology as as senior consultant for 5 years in big data, machine learning, AI, insights and media across a number of industries before building her own tech based solution and app.
Sonya Barlow is a neurodivergent British Pakistani woman with chronic migraines, ADHD and mental health conditions, and diversity, resilience, and neurodiversity are topics close to her heart when delivering keynotes. She is also a highly accomplished Moderator and Event MC, with official hosting duties for London Tech Week, CogX Festival and Amsterdam Fintech Week.
We know that inclusive practises can generate 33% more profit for businesses, but in practice what does this mean? Sonya is a thought leader on all things diversity and inclusion, covering topics from introduction to diversity to inclusive allyship, leaderships styles, to hiring best practices and retention of staff. She knows mentoring, knowledge sharing and networks support inclusive practises which workplaces leverage to build our profitable organisations.
Failure is a common trait which very few of us want to touch on, given that everything online looks pretty and perfect. Sonya is honest about her failure journey, from being fired in the workplace to facing rejections along the way. All these experiences have given her the resilience to develop her career as a public figure. As well as resilience, Sonya covers recovery, failure, imposter syndrome and confidence.
According to recent stats, the future of work and shortage of soft skills is costing £22bn. The topics Sonya can cover on the future of work include AI and digital transformation, soft and professional skills, mentorship, remote working, ed tech and alternative education, as well as gender equality, accessibility and workplace flexibility.
Sonya is a rare Pakistani woman open about her struggles with mental health, ADHD and chronic migraines which has brought on levels of loneliness and determination. Recgonising that few brown woman represent the neurodiversity space, Sonya is keen to contribute to this ongoing discussion with her lived and learnt experiences, cultural context and neuro conditions, which seem to be trending but very few understand.
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