Parmesh Shahani

Parmesh Shahani is an author and an activist for LGBTQ inclusion in corporate India who has guided many of the country’s leading companies on their inclusion journeys. Most recently, he served as Vice President at Godrej Industries and founded and ran the award-winning Godrej India Culture Lab for a decade, between 2011 and 2021. His first book Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India (Sage Publications) was released in 2008 and his second book Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion in the Indian Workplace (Westland Business) was released in August 2020 and won the CK Prahalad Award for Best Business Book of 2021 and well as the Laadli Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2021.  Parmesh holds an MS in Comparative Media Studies from MIT. He is a TED Senior Fellow, a Yale World Fellow, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and also a board member of KHOJ International Artists’ Association, and Breakthrough.