Meet Gunel Krishnan

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gunel Krishnan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gunel below.

Gunel, so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?

As an immigrant I am very familiar with the feeling of being the only one in the room that is different, not known or recognized. That feeling guided me through the learning experience of introducing myself in a way that will turn everybody’s attention to my story. I learned to push away self doubt and hesitation to stand for my values and self worth.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I came to the United States almost fifteen years ago from Azerbaijan. As with many immigrants, I have lived through a lot, and as every immigrant I wanted to come here to pursue my American dreams. I had an established career as a national TV Host in Azerbaijan and was known for being an influential TV person with a solid reputation. When I arrived here, all of that was washed away. I learned a lot through acquiring two university degrees, networking and pursuing a new career path in this country. What I found was breaking into the professional United States culture is not easy as an immigrant. I ran into many obstacles and inaccurate stereotypes. This ignited a passion in me to use my voice, tell my story and share my learnings to help other immigrants and businesses break through these obstacles and maximize opportunities in this beautiful country.
Since then I have been serving on high-level executive director position in non-profit organization Azerbaijani Association of Minnesota (AAM). AAM has been instrumental in bringing in educating local Minnesota communities about the culture of Azerbaijan.
I developed my own consulting company Gleam BIG to implement my knowledge and experience as public speaker, social media expert and event manager.
My work is to help Americans understand the strength and value of integrating other cultures and styles into our workforce. I speak to different audiences and share my story along with provocative questions and suggest actions that expand insights, help spark ideas on how to build confidence, and help people lean into a potential they may not have thought possible. I also love and have experience in event planning and management.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1.Key Skill- Leadership
Understanding the needs of immigrant’s lives, their struggles to help them
2.Management (time management, project management) skills.
3.Confidence. Being in the public, using my voice really helped me to shape up my confidence and not being afraid to speak up.
My personal goal/mission of bringing communities and people together.
4.Visualizing myself as successful in what I want to achieve.
5. Being in charge of my choices. Being eager to meet people and not being afraid to tell my story.
Recognize and build upon all of this! Belief that I and everyone can do it in this country!

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

My work is really about business collaboration with the companies or organization who are looking to hire, understand, manage and build more welcoming and inclusive workplace environment. As well as ensure all of that is in place for their branding when doing outreach programs or events.
To help motivate and work with people on their individual journey to be professionally successful and understand how business is conducted in this country versus where they immigrated from.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.gleambig.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gunelkrishnan/

Image Credits

Vikiplo_photogprahy