Making Strides – 2024

2025 started off with a challenging beginning. From the devastating fires in LA to transitions in leadership, and a string of tragic airline crashes, it’s been a year so far that reminded us of how unpredictable life can be. After taking a much-needed pause to reflect and recharge, we’re back in full motion. 

As we move forward, we want to take a moment to highlight some incredible community contributors who made a lasting impact in 2024. These individuals went above and beyond, making us all proud to be South Asian. There is no particular order to this list, as each person has played an equal role in shaping our collective story. So, let’s give a huge round of applause to these go-getters and changemakers! May they continue making strides!

1. Raju Sethi

Who doesn’t know Raju Sethi? The man is a pioneer in the South Asian diaspora for being the creative force behind the North American entertainment show AVS for over 30 years. He is currently the President and CEO of the network that was founded in 1987 by his father, Narinder Sethi. Originally, Sethi was on the core team to launch TV Asia in America with Amitabh Bachchan in the early 90’s. He realized that the younger generation needed a fast paced outlet to catch up on entertainment news, and he filled this void with the weekly English-language show. The show featured pop culture news about South Asians within the diaspora as well as the hottest Bollywood gossip, bringing us new movie trailers and music videos, coverage of red carpet events, hot interviews, and more all hosted by a group of versatile, talented, award-winning hosts. He has enhanced his father’s dreams by making AVS comparable to mainstream entertainment news like E! News, and the show also airs on local networks. Sethi has not only created a massive platform for highlighting South Asians, he is known for working with other media outlets to collaborate and uplift each other. Last year a big win for us all, the show began airing on WPIX channel 11 in the tristate area, the first South Asian show on mainstream television. Raju leads with kindness, is a mentor to many and til date is working to create a space for all of us. It is no surprise that he recently won the 2024 Raywa and Roshni Media’s Inspiration Achiever Award.

2. Gitesh Pandya

Gitesh Pandya is the founder of Box Office Guru, a media consulting firm that specializes in Indian films releasing in the North American market and theaters. He is a trailblazer who has excelled at creating and executing a variety of media campaigns for the South Asian American audience. Over the past 13 years, he has worked on promoting some noteworthy films like Oscar winning “Slumdog Millionaire,” ‘The Namesake,” Gurinder Chaddha’s cult classic “Bend it like Beckham,” and many more. The agency has worked with a variety of high-profile clients, such as Paramount, Focus and Sony for services such as film promotion, publicity, and advertising. In addition to media work, Pandya is also a film producer. He produced the 2001 award winning film, “American Desi” a movie that has become a cult classic for North American desi kids. Last year, Pandya worked on campaigns for ‘Ghostbusters’, Dharma Productions’ ‘Kill’ at Tribeca Film Festival, and Sandhya Suri’s film ‘Santosh’. Additionally, he was recently inducted as a member into the Academy Awards to vote for the shortlist of the Best International Feature category and the Student Academy Awards. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of Box Office Guru, and we hope for many more years to come!

3. Neerja Patel

Neerja Patel is a public relations diva who has been ruling the North American market with strategic brilliance, her creative storytelling skills, and a powerful determination to keep family values and culture at the core of her work to meaningfully reach today’s audience. She has been a trailblazer in her field for the past 15 years with her company Neerja PR focusing on the South Asian diaspora, while representing South Asian brands, leaders, celebrities, non-profits, and event venues, while covering a range of industries from food, fashion, entertainment, art, comedy, and talent. Patel has worked with brands such as Google, Shopify NY, and Lufthansa Airlines, with South Asian stars such as A. R. Rahman, and with top fashion designers for events like NY Fashion Week and South Asian New York Fashion Week. One of her favorite projects of late was celebrating Diwali at Walt Disney World. While providing the services and skills of a large agency, Patel is hands-on in attentively creating campaigns, organizing events, and developing other promotional strategies that deeply resonate with their targeted audience as well as doing the research when things don’t work to continuously improve herself. She stated Neerja PR actually began “accidentally” when actor and friend Manish Dayal asked her for help writing and promoting his then, new role as “Raj” on the reboot of the popular American show, “90210.” The media loved it and she realized there was a void in stories about South Asians outside of India as well as stories that were not just about Bollywood, politics, or business in regards to South Asians in general. Patel has been one of the leading forces in our community to change the narrative in the mainstream media. In a recent interview, Patel said “I think we’ve arrived, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. A lot of media is welcoming diverse voices, wanting diverse representation and opinions. So I think the door is open. Last year we were able to get Diwali stories on Good Morning America. We have cover stories on all of these big magazines. So we are there.”Patel also uses her influence to support non-profits supporting women and education, she also sits on the board of Veerni, a non-profit providing secondary education to delay the marriage of child brides. She’s also worked with others such as the Desai Foundation, Sakhi, and Saya. She was honored as one of the 100 Women to Know in America by JP Morgan Chase for not just her entrepreneurial endeavors but for her work uplifting the community. Just a few months ago, Patel was featured as the covergirl of SEEMA Magazine, a digital media and cultural hub focused on empowering South Asian women.

4. Kolkota Chai & Hasan Minhaj

Kolkata Chai Co. has been creating quite the buzz on the streets of New York City by bringing authentic desi chai to the mainstream to challenge the white-washed chai latte’s of the world. The company was started by brothers Ayan and Ani Sanyal. Their parents moved from India to Massachusetts, USA in 1987 where their hyphenated identity of being Indian-American entailed eating pizza, listening to hip-hop and vacations in Kolkata playing cricket and drinking chai. The brothers had a love of Indian street food, and let’s face it, street food from the motherland just hits different. On their website the brothers write “There was a lore to street food. It was democratizing, generational and spoke to all socio-economic levels. We went to the same spots where our mother used to get bhel puri during her college times — where the chef’s father used to serve our grandfather.” They wanted to bring that same feeling of community, tradition, and authenticity back to their current home, New York City. Kolkata Chai Co. not only has a storefront where you’ll often find long lines of next-gen South Asians hanging out, but an online shop which includes a chai subscription option that offers a wide variety of South Asian based teas. Most recently, comedian, actor, and former Daily Show host Hasan Minhaj joined the team! Minhaj has officially joined as a partner and investor in the company, and he’s been promoting, including sharing a cup of chai with Drew Barrymore on her talk show”. In just 5 years, the Sanyal brothers have taken the company to great heights, and now with Minhaj, we can’t wait to see where they go next!

5. Mariyam Ishtiaq

Chef and influencer Maryam Ishtiaq is absolute super mom goals! She is a chef, podcast host with her husband, a food content creator and blogger, and she’s just collaborated with Jewels by Sunaina for a jewelry line. Ishtiaq is also a founder of “It’s Actually Co”, a halal bone broth company that aims to bring clean, fresh ingredients in a bone broth to your kitchen. She posts her recipes and lifestyle content on Instagram for people to recreate for meals, and inspire her audience to make home cooked food. As a part of her entrepreneurship, Maryam has launched her own private chef booking site ad menu, where people in her area of Dallas, TX can enjoy authentic meals by her! Also, this year she will be the first Pakistani chef on Gordon Ramsay’s reality show “Next Level Chef”!

6. Anu Sehgal

After 15 years working in the corporate sector, Anu Sehgal took on more creative endeavors when she saw a need for authentic South Asian programming for children that cultivated their heritage and learning. Using her superpowers, Sehgal launched The Culture Tree to bridge this gap. The organization first started with a focus on language, but has since expanded to include cultural events, cooking classes, and partnerships with organizations to bring South Asian culture and languages to children across the country. As if it wasn’t enough, you can add author to her resume, Sehgal writes children’s books that celebrate and teach Indian culture. She has attended several book festivals, including the AAPI Children’s Literary Festival. In March 2023, Sehgal received an award from the Society of Foreign Consuls in New York for her outstanding achievements and work towards community empowerment – she was one of 15 women around the world awarded. In November 2024 she also received the City Hall Diwali Citation for exemplary work for the NYC Community. We are thankful for her contribution to the community and for making our culture a priority!

7. Sandeep Tupili

Sandeep Tupili is a a local designer that has caught the eye of some big names! Tupili is the founder of up-and-coming South Asian clothing brand, Maison Tai. The brand has showcased their latest collections at South Asian New York Fashion Week in 2023. Celebrities like Lily Singh, Vir Das, and Zarng Garg to name a few, have worn the brand’s designs, as it melds together South Asian embroidery and craftsmanship with modern styles and designs. In March 2024, Tupili launched Maison Tai’s new retail line at Wolf & Badger’s SoHo store in New York, which featured pieces crafted with traditional techniques that reflect Kanjeevaram’s silk heritage. Tupili is dedicated to bringing awareness to Indian materials and craftsmanship while redesigning modern South Asian wear, which is seen through his products.

8. Sanjoy D

 

Sanjoy Deb, known by his stage name Sanjoy D is a talented musician, producer and DJ. Born in Bangladesh and raised in California, Sanjoy is known for creating electro-pop tracks with addictive compositions that will have you dancing. He started off, as many DJ’s do, with Bollywood mashups and then went on to create more original work catching the eye of big labels such as T-series for a multi-single deal, working with the K-pop group Got7 and making music for social media influencers like Jacob Sartorius, Carson Leuders, Christian Delgrosso, and Sofie Dossi. Sanjoy has been killing it in the states with performances at every major city for an elite desi event to headlining his own shows as well as a constant stream of new music with artists like Guru Randhawa, Jonita Gandhi, Karan Aujla, Sunidhi Chauhan, Ikka, Tulsi Kumar, Muza, Slime, Bhushan Kumar of T-series, and more. This past year he has been leaving his mark in Bengali music. He headed back to the motherland for a tour of Bangladesh, produced new music that has expanded the Urban Bangla music scene alongside artists like Muza and Nish, as well as Bengali music legends like Habib Wahid. This year he also produced the theme song for the Bangladesh Tigers cricket team. He even stopped by the Ambani wedding for some fun. Sanjoy is the definition of hard work and he is just getting started.

9. Megha Desai

The lovely Megha Desai has been working her hardest to leave her mark on this world with her charitable work as the president of the Desai Foundation. The Desai Foundation is an organization that aims to elevate the health, lifestyle and menstrual equity for women and children through community programs in rural areas of India. Since starting at the foundation in 2010, Desai has transformed the small family foundation into a robust public one, and the foundation now works in over 3,500 villages across 8 states in India. For her work, Desai has been awarded five Cannes Lions awards, alongside a number of other accolades, and is considered a pioneer in the branded entertainment industry. Being the over-achieving desi girl that she is, Desai has also spent over 15 years in advertising at a variety of prestigious firms around the world prior to starting her work with her foundation. Every year Desai hosts an elite Diwali event with funds going towards her charity and its just commendable on how the community comes out to support her.

10. Simi Shah

Media influencer Simi Shah is the CEO and Founder of South Asian Trailblazers, a media platform that is dedicated to elevating the careers of South Asians in the world. Through her online content and podcast, Shah has highlighted the work of more than 100 influential South Asians, including Congresswoman Pramila Jaypal, artist Jay Sean, and singer Raja Kumari, to name a few. The company also serves as a talent agency, and helps notable South Asians book speaking engagements, and network with other industry-specific professionals. This previous year, Shah was named in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in 2024 for Media for her work in bringing South Asian representation to the forefront.

11. Nur-e Gulshan Rahman and Nur-e Farhana Rahman

From CBS News to the New York Times, New Jersey’s Korai Kitchen has made quite a splash on highlighting authentic Bangladeshi cuisine. The restaurant is owned and operated by a mother-daughter duo who came into the scene with absolutely no experience of working in the restaurant industry. Nur-E Farhana Rahman shared that the whole family loved her mother’s cooking and others would always say that she should open up a restaurant and now, at the age of 61, her mother, Nur-E Gulshan Rahman wished to give this dream a shot. The restaurant serves authentic Bangladeshi food, thus their tagline is “no chicken tikka masala” at Korai Kitchen as the popular Indian dish would often be requested when they initially opened because people were unfamiliar with Bangladeshi cuisine. Nur-E Farhana said in an interview with CBS that Bengali food is so under-represented as there wasn’t even a category for Bengali food on Yelp or Uber Eats and they had to request adding the category. Nur-E, who is lovingly known as “Amma” to all, is not a professionally trained chef, she is a mom with years of experience and a whole lot of passion and her hard work has gotten her nominated for the prestigious James Beard Award! The honor is truly well deserved! Korai Kitchen is such a unique experience, the restaurant has an all female kitchen, and there is no à la carte menu, the food is served fresh, with the menu changing twice per day. Their menu includes traditional Bangladeshi dishes such as various vegetable bhorta’s (mashes), fish curries, prawn curries, creamy chicken roasts, and dal. On weekends, you’re invited to Amma’s dawat as it is a pre-fixe meal served family style. Needless to say, the restaurant has been booked up so make sure you check them out soon!

12. Krisa Tailor-Arora

 

Ever think about your stationary and teaspoons being inclusive? Yea.. we didn’t either. Thank goodness for Krisa Tailor-Arora for thinking out of the box and bringing us some adorable South Asian inspired home decor, greeting cards, and stationary with her company, Pyarful! Tailor-Arora’s products tell the South Asian story and point of view. It’s the mission of Pyarful to convey every story from the heart, with South Asian culture, values, and traditions that are all hand drawn. The company started as a small stationary brand that has since transformed into gifting and lifestyle brand showcasing the Indian subcontinent’s charm. Tailor-Arora was always interested in art and creating designs, which she translated into her company, after working in health tech for more than a decade. The business just opened their first storefront in San Francisco in December 2024, as their customer base has grown over the past six years since its conception. A first of its kind South Asian inspired stationary store – Pyarful! is every little girls dream come true.