Born in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India. My Father was a primary school teacher who became a “voucher migrant” to England in 1963, leaving behind his wife and three daughters.

Having never travelled more than 30 KM from my village, in July 1965, I found myself with my mother and sisters on a train to Delhi; then on a plane to England to join our father who had settled in Southampton.

Much against the advice of my school teacher that I should aspire to work in the local factory, I followed in my grandfather and father’s footsteps, both teachers, and trained as teacher, because I excelled in sports and loved people and places.

Art-for-arts sake never attracted me. Instead it was the power of art as a force for political and social change that ignited my passion. So, I spent the first decade of my professional career from 1979 to 1986, empowering Black and Asian creativity through funding, cultural programming, and policies.

We met on the barricades of fighting against racism. In 1985, Julian Henriques, son of a professor and Parminder Vir, daughter of postal worker, married across cultural, racial and class divide!

The accepted wisdom, in early 1980’s Britain was – it’s impossible for someone like me – a working class immigrant - to break into the film and TV. The spark to make films was lit in 1982, when I organised a Festival of Black American Films in London. Watching these films and listening to the struggles of African American filmmakers to tell their stories fuelled my imagination to do just that in the UK. I never went to film school and yet sustained a career in the industry for over two decades, telling compelling untold stories from around the world.

Bringing Babymother, a reggae musical feature film, set in Harlesden, London to the screen was a herculean test. Despite the many challenges, in 1998, it was one of the few Black British films to receive a UK release since the 1980’s.

In 2000, UK ethnic audiences were deserting mainstream television. The broadcasters were faced with a choice: either adapt of become increasingly irrelevant to modern multicultural Britain. To me, it was not rocket science on how to reflect, represent, employ and develop ethnic talent on and behind the screen in television and film. The business case strategy, I developed and implemented for Carlton Television, led to the formation of Cultural Diversity Network (CDN), of which I was the co-founder. We achieved diversity facelift, but this is not the same thing as institutional transformation - the industry remains largely white, male and middle class to this day.

In 2001, I read a paper by Jim O’Neill, Goldman Sachs, on BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India and China, where he predicted they would be the fastest growing economies in the world! Suddenly, India was beginning to emerge as an economic powerhouse on the global stage. I wanted to be a part of that story - the bridge to the business challenges and opportunities offered by the emerging markets for developed economies. It marked a turning point as I became interested in the business of the media and creative industries as economic drivers of growth.

My first board experience was terrifying. In 1981, at just 26-years old, I was appointed to the BBC Board of Governors. Since then, serving as a Board director of several private and public-sector boards, my mission has been to ensure the organisations deliver on their promises to their communities, stakeholders, investors, and members. The experience has been priceless, exposing me to different leadership styles, perspectives organisation cultures and expanding my professional networks. Being invited to serve on a board, I have come to appreciate is a privilege and a responsibility, not to be abused.

My career has been about solving problems, meeting great challenges, and making a contribution. Inspired by the Founder, Tony Elumelu’s vision to institutionalise luck and democratise opportunity to create a generation of African entrepreneurs, I joined the Tony Elumelu Foundation, based in Lagos, Nigeria, in April 2014, to help operationalise this vision. It was an opportunity to bring my unique mix of talent and passion to design, develop and implement one of the most ambitious entrepreneurship programmes on the continent. The TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, is a 10-year, $100 million commitment to identify, train, mentor, and fund 10,000 entrepreneurs for the economic development of Africa.