On the Shoulders of Giants

Simi Shah’s platform, South Asian Trailblazers, is founded on the idea of learning from those who came before

By A.D. Thompson

On paper, Simi Shah seems pretty close to perfect. Harvard. Wharton. Forbes’ 30 Under 30.

She is a natural-born entrepreneur, as balanced as they come – a master of business mechanisms with a creative streak that runs deep.

An adviser to CEOs (former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi tapped Shah to be her chief of staff just as her memoir, My Life in Full, was set to launch), she grew her side hustle – a podcast in which she satisfied her natural curiosity to learn from interesting community leaders – into a full-blown media company: South Asian Trailblazers, while doing virtually all of these things.

She is also, in her own words, “the proud daughter of one of the cofounders of AAHOA,” Past Chairman Nitin Shah (1993-94), and this year served as the keynote speaker at the association’s fifth annual HerOwnership Conference.

Naturally, there was reflection on her childhood and young adulthood, and the great influence that AAHOA, the hospitality community, and her family’s innate foundation of entrepreneurship have had on her life and career thus far as she, like the association’s founders, continues a legacy of “elevating South Asian voices.”

“I stand on the shoulders of giants,” she told Today’s Hotelier, “and I am so grateful for AAHOA. It represents something very near and dear to my heart.”

Confidently Taking Chances

Shah’s award-winning media platform did not spring up overnight. It began simply, but with a strong foundation, much like herself.

“My parents emigrated in the 1980s,” she said, explaining that her father arrived in the States as a nuclear engineer, but realized, very quickly, that it wasn’t a career that would enrich him.

“He didn’t want to spend his life working inside a factory plant, and so ended up going into the hotel business, and I think from a very young age that this instilled in me this proclivity for entrepreneurship.”

Shah’s initial path began in private equity, but like her dad, she came to realize that spreadsheets were her version of the factory.

“There was this desire to build something of my own rather than spending my life building things for other people.”

Amid COVID, which prompted tumultuous career shifts, she quietly began working on what today is South Asian Trailblazers. It began simply as a podcast where Shah learned from interesting leaders in the community. She knew she wanted to build a business but had no idea which way it would evolve.

“There have been moments along the way where I wondered, ‘Is this really the path?’” Shah admitted, noting that while her family has always been unfailingly supportive, her parents sometimes “take turns” on who beats the drum loudest while the other takes a more conservative stance on her path.

“My family and I are very close,” she said, “so people solicit advice, but they’re going to give it whether you ask or not. That’s the thing about growing up in a business family. The lines are blurred from a young age, and it just becomes the norm.”

There was a confidence and an empowerment culled from a struggle that immigrant parents carry, she said; she grew up with advantages that her father, who came to the U.S. with language barriers, without connections or family, did not have.

His calm in the face of her leaving what was, at the time, her chosen path amid the pandemic was comforting.

“He understood my drive,” she said, pointing out that her family’s support rides a fine line “of feeding what I like to call my delusions about just how far I can go with a healthy dose of practicality.”

But being a woman, she said, was never a barrier.

“I have a sister who is 10 years older than me. I grew up with parents who truly and fundamentally believe that women should be just as empowered as men in their families and highly educated and be able to thrive and be financially independent.”

All of the women in her life, Shah said, were equipped and independent.

“They take life by the horns and are brilliant in their own ways and I have been lucky to have that around me.”

Building Upon Community

Harvard, she recalled, is a place where you can believe that the world is your oyster and it is a blessing, but also humbling.

“Everyone there is so talented. You’re around brilliant people who are trying to achieve so many crazy things … people who want to change the conversation on climate, who are producing successful films, who are so brilliant across dimensions. It makes you feel like you could do it, too.”

South Asian Trailblazers has since grown into a multipronged media platform – this, in a time when legacy media continues to struggle and new formats continue to emerge.

Shah says that from early on, community is what has helped propel its success. “We started doing community events coming out of COVID because I was always focused on having really high engagement,” she said. “I would love to have millions of followers and subscribers, don’t get me wrong, but the question is: Can I get 100 percent of you to turn out in person?”

That’s where the real value lies, she said.

“South Asians are very natural gatherers and community builders,” she noted. “AAHOA is proof of that.”

With Trailblazers, Shah is looking to continue that mission, to keep it relevant for the next generation while connecting with leaders from every generation. Her sweeping resume has been as big a factor as her platform.

“All the South Asian leaders, from Fortune 500 CEOs to sitting members of Congress to celebrities, who would come on my podcast … would come to me and say, ‘You know something about media. Can I pick your brain…?’”

And out of these queries has come an advisory business.

Shah now aids leading chief executives and founders in thinking critically about building their online brands, where they show up in the media, what stages they are speaking on and, most importantly, what they’re saying.

“It’s my combination of being someone who’s been in front of the camera and behind it, who’s been a chief of staff, working with experienced leaders dealing with confidential and sensitive topics, of someone who’s been in private equity, so I can understand the business lingo of what a lot of these people are doing, but translate it for a media audience.”

A Trailblazer Herself

She started South Asian Trailblazers with the idea of learning from the best of the best, and through the lens of identity.

And now, at 29, she has become one of them. And there is nothing to do but continue to learn and grow.

In a recent Substack post, Shah wrote that great decisions don’t come from desperate places.

“The desire to make something that you’ve poured energy into for any amount of time can be extraordinarily powerful, but also a little bit paralyzing,” she explained.

In places, she has felt acute pressure to make a particular project work.

“I’ve taken unique pathways in how I’ve worked with executives in certain companies in the last year to free myself a little bit from that pressure, and it has paved the way for me to make smarter decisions.”

Shah invokes Newton’s First Law of Motion in describing her nature.

“I just think you have to keep moving,” she said. “An object at rest stays at rest versus an object in motion, which stays in motion. I find that I have to catch momentum and keep riding it. It’s important to take steps back and reflect, but not for too long.”

Shah knows she is fortunate to have reaped the benefits of her parents’ hard work – “do I think I could move across an ocean, like my dad, with $8 in his pocket, knowing no one, not knowing the language, in a time that was pretty discriminatory in this country…?”

She suggested she lacks that resilience.

“But it’s one of the reasons my dad helped found AAHOA and I am lucky they created a different life for me.”

And despite the variance in their paths, she said, they never minimize her challenges. They simply imbue confidence that she will figure it out.

So far, she has.

And so, for women sitting on the edge of big decisions – fellow South Asian Trailblazers themselves – Shah emphasized that it’s never embarrassing to start.

“The only thing that could ever be embarrassing is to let something beautiful live inside your head for the rest of your life because you’re afraid of what other people might think.”

Women, she said, will often leave an open job unapplied-for because they don’t check every box in the description while men don’t seem to have the same hesitance.

“We are so capable,” she said emphatically. “We are literally, in my opinion, biologically multitaskers. We are leaders who have natural empathy.”

The past few years of her own growth have shown her the barriers women face in so many spaces, despite their education or level or empowerment. They need to press on. Like the AAHOA founders.

“[Hotel owners] were facing discrimination and needed to support one another to get loans and be able to build businesses and create livelihoods and achieve their version of the American dream.”

South Asian Trailblazers, she said, is an iteration of that idea.

“We are telling stories so that people in my generation can hear from these people, understand what they’ve done and are doing.

“We are helping to elevate the community’s new leaders.”

So, they, too, can stand on the shoulders of giants.