Business strategist | M&A & transformation | Author of The Jasmine Murders | The Leader's Oracle | Author on strategy & leadership | https://xitter.cf/t.co/o6pemm7ReF

NYC
Joined August 2008
Earlier this week, I was on the keynote panel of the first Investors for a Better America conference, hosted by @MediatorsFoundation and @ActionTank with @deviateren One of the questions was what one thing did each of us think was worth fighting for. Some of the panel were optimistic given continued innovation and startup trends. What am I willing to fight for? Inclusivity — because USA was built not just by "great men" but by those willing to put in the hard work to build their skills and ship the next day! The competitive edge in American manufacturing is not sitting in a corner office. It is standing on the floor at midnight. I made an argument that some people find uncomfortable: inclusivity built America. They are a source of competitiveness we lose sight of when we obsess about how happy the top 100 are. Here is what I believe after years in the manufacturing world. Capability is built, not born. The best operators, leaders, and problem solvers I have worked with were not born with rare talent...sure, some are. Most were given real opportunity, training, ownership, a clear path forward, and they rose to it. When we treat every shift as a place to develop people rather than just fill slots, quality goes up, retention goes up, and so does our ability to compete globally. Inclusion is not a slogan here. It is how we win. And that's the democracy we're fighting for. So I want to hear from the people who run these floors and hire for them. What is one change that unlocked real potential in your frontline team? Share it below. #Manufacturing #Leadership #WorkforceDevelopment #Inclusion #FutureOfWork I'm tagging some of the fabulous leaders I've had the good fortune to work with in the comments. And special thanks to Ken Allen for the deft camera work!!!
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The difference between being a writer and an author are some of the war stories of getting published and learning from them. @mirakamdar_official shared some home truths with me. Listen to the whole episode at tinyurl.com/R6Qspotify #publishing #authorslife #writer #BooksWorthReading
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Enjoyed chatting with my fellow "sister in crime" Roseanne Limoncelli Preorder The Spiral at tinyurl.com/R6QLimoncelli @RCLBrooklyn @SINCnational Watch the whole episode: tinyurl.com/R6Qspotify
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Yay - The Jasmine Murders is now available as an eBook. Run, don't walk 😇 tinyurl.com/TJMebook #BooksAsAGift #BookPromotion #Author
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Roopa Unnikrishnan retweeted
If there’s one photo to sum up the Trump era, this is it.
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Come listen to the inimitable Mira Kamdar share her thoughts on her books, writing and getting published on Roopa's 6 Questions for authors. The whole episode is at: tinyurl.com/R6Qspotify
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Roopa's 6 Questions for Authors #18: Mira Kamdar, Mira is an award-winning Paris-based author, born in the United States to an immigrant father from India and a third-generation Danish-American mother. She has navigated between different identities her whole life. As a four-year-old, she asked her mother: “Which way am I half? Up and down? Or sideways?” She is still trying to find the answer to this question, one she has examined in four books: Motiba’s Tattoos, published by Public Affairs; Planet India, published by Scribner; India in the 21st Century, published by Oxford University Press; and 80 mots de l’Inde, published by L’Asiathèque in Paris. Her books have been translated and published in over a dozen languages, including in French by Actes Sud, and reviewed by Le Monde and La Vie des idées. Foreign Affairs Exper... youtu.be/6MoS6ii4C3Q?si=rXam… via @YouTube
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Roopa Unnikrishnan retweeted
As an African, I've been told it's unlikely for me to speak up against racism toward India. But this man is why I do. He was my tutor. Years ago, he completely changed my life. Maybe some of you recognize him, if you do, please share this post so it reaches him by surprise! Now I’m being heavily trolled just for defending his country from racist stereotypes. India does not deserve online hate mobs and shallow poverty-porn memes simply for asserting its sovereignty or daring to dream of hosting an Olympic Games. This is a hill I am willing to die on To anyone seeing this across Africa, the Middle East, America, and Asia: don't let Western manufactured propaganda dictate your reality. Before you reduce 1.4 billion people to internet stereotypes, step out of your mom’s basement and travel the world. You’d be amazed by the brilliant minds you find.
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Roopa Unnikrishnan retweeted
Bruh im in no hate to any gender we need each other but this is hilarious ngl😭😭😭
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Roopa Unnikrishnan retweeted
No, you cannot walk 10,000 steps daily, get 8 hours of sleep, cook every night, clean every day, take care of a family, make time for your own hobbies, and still be productive at work every day. This is not just propaganda, it is nonsense. Free yourself from it.
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Important thinking and work here:
Based on my Cornell follow the money findings, and with a daughter applying to colleges right now, I wanted to look across more universities to understand how far this goes. So I built Behind the Ivory Walls, a model that ranks America’s 31 richest universities on who controls their police, how many sexual assaults they never count, what they have already been caught failing to stop and how much they have paid to settle abuse claims. I scored every school on 10 criteria. They come down to three questions: who controls the police, how many assaults never get counted, and how much the school has already paid for abuse it was warned about. The 10 criteria: who employs the campus police, who those police answer to, whether city police are required to lead sex crime cases, whether the public can see the records, whether anyone outside oversees the department, how many assaults never make the official count, how many victims tell no one at the school, the school’s documented failures, the money it has paid for abuse, and pending lawsuits. Highlights of findings: (1) USC, Cornell and Columbia stand apart from the rest. Each one has paid or agreed to pay ~ $1 billion or more for abuse by a doctor the institution had been told about. (2) 21 of the 31 schools have no rule that requires anyone outside the university to see a sexual assault report before it reaches a prosecutor. Only seven have a written rule that hands sex crime cases to city police. (3) Only about 1 in 15 of the assaults students describe in their own schools’ surveys shows up in the official federal count. (4) 28 of the 31 run their own police force with arrest powers, and 28 have no independent oversight of those police at all. (5) 16 keep their police records completely closed to the public. At nine, the police report up to the university’s finance or legal office. At the University of Chicago, the department is overseen by the general counsel, the school’s top lawyer. (6) At 19 of these schools, students’ own survey answers point to about 7,600 sexual assaults a year. Those same schools reported about 510 to the federal government. At the University of Chicago, the federal count captures 1.9% of what its own students report. (7) At Penn, victims told no campus office at all in about three out of four incidents involving women. If you have a child applying to college this fall or attending one right now, all 31 schools are in the article. Public universities are next, so let me know what other schools you want run next! Full article is up on my Substack now (link in bio and it's free).
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Roopa Unnikrishnan retweeted
Jane Doe and her family were just swatted. Someone trying to hurt her and her loved ones reported a fake active shooting in her home, triggering a heavy SWAT response. She and her family could have been killed! And they wonder why women don't speak up. This picture needs to be shared again. And again. And again.
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Roopa Unnikrishnan retweeted
This is Scott Kretzschmar. He is one of the Cornell rapists. In the group chat, before joining in on the gang rape, he said “No more Jhu Fatties. Better not be a fatty again.” So let’s review - he planned to rape her. He just didn’t want her to be “fat”. And - pay attention here - he said AGAIN. AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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What is going on with France’s students? 🔗 shorturl.at/qLvbi
🇫🇷 French unions are demanding that Air France stop a shipment of military equipment they say is bound for Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems on a Paris–Tel Aviv flight Thursday. The CGT and Solidaires unions at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport say they were alerted by Urgence Palestine and the Palestinian Youth Movement that flight AF966, scheduled to depart at 9:35 a.m. on Oct. 8, will carry French-made "gearheads," planetary gear reducers used in military vehicle systems. The unions say the cargo was sent from Saint-Étienne via Lyon and is destined for Elbit Systems Land, which makes turrets, artillery, mortars and munitions. "Not one flight to feed the war machine!" the unions said. They stated that the shipment would violate France's obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty and the Genocide Convention.
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Roopa Unnikrishnan retweeted
For years, I had a certain image of scientists in my mind. Brilliant, driven, deeply immersed in their work—but often somewhat removed from the ordinary rhythms of family life. I imagined the stereotypical scientist as someone who was absent from the mundane responsibilities of raising children: missing school events, family dinners, birthdays, and sometimes even the moments that mattered most. Professionally, I held enormous respect for them. Personally, however, I always wondered whether the pursuit of extraordinary professional achievement came at the cost of an ordinary, happy family life. I remember an incident from my postgraduate years at Yale. I attended the wedding of a fellow student whose mother was a highly accomplished scientist. She couldn’t attend her own daughter’s wedding because she was caught up in an important project. She simply sent her daughter a message saying, “Sorry, honey, I couldn’t make it.” I remember being genuinely struck by it. I couldn’t help thinking: how important must a project be for you to miss your daughter’s wedding? That experience stayed with me and became part of the lens through which I viewed the scientific world. And then I saw Karl Deisseroth making sandwiches for school lunch. Watching Karl completely changed that perception. Here was an exceptionally accomplished scientist, yet I saw him doing the most ordinary—and perhaps most extraordinary—things for his children: making their school lunches, preparing their meals, dropping them off, hugging them, being present in the everyday chaos of family life. His wife, too, an accomplished scientist in her own right. And yet, when you look at their family, what comes through isn’t a life sacrificed at the altar of achievement. It is warmth. Partnership. Happiness. Presence. Karl challenged a very deep assumption I had carried for years. Perhaps you don’t have to choose. You can be extraordinarily successful in your profession and still be there for the people you love. You can pursue the frontiers of science and still pack your child’s lunch. You can change the world professionally and still come home to your family. And perhaps that is what makes Karl’s story so compelling for me—not just that he wins professionally, but that he wins personally too. Because at the end of the day, success isn’t only about how much you achieve when you’re away from home. It is also about who is waiting for you when you come back—and whether you were present for the moments that mattered along the way. @Stanford @NobelPrize
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Roopa Unnikrishnan retweeted
NOBODY is connecting the dots on these Gen Z protests. India. France. Spain. Chile. Different signs. Same problem. Young people can't get hired. Can't afford rent. Can't afford a house. Can't see a future. At the same time, AI is quietly deleting the jobs they were supposed to start with. Entry-level hiring has COLLAPSED since 2024. You can't tell a generation to "work hard" when the first rung of the ladder is gone. The streets are the only place left. Follow + 🔔. This is going global.
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Absolutely ecstatic to say that my debut novel – The Jasmine Murders – has been longlisted for the Godrej Literature Live! award at the Mumbai Lit fest! Humbled - and thrilled to say that I’m in amazing company on this list. Thank you to the @litlivefest jury for considering my darling book - an homage to my parents - for this award! And thank you @AlephBookCo for everything! @dropcap @stck_me
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Guess who's at Frankfurt Buchmesse #FBM26 - the Frankfurt Book Fair? Uma and Jayan, my beloved heroes of The Jasmine Murders! Thanks @dropcap for shepherding my book to a global audience!! Visit the booth if you're there - Hall 5.1, stand D55. @Book_Fair @alephbookco @stck_me
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Fascinating how we seem to fall into some of the most interesting elements of our lives - here's how the brilliant @kaihan became an author. You can hear the whole episode here: tinyurl.com/R6Qspotify
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