MBA Student Fellow Project
In her BMO GATE MBA Fellowship project, Nishtha created a podcast that tackles the tough topic of colourism in the workplace and beyond. Colourism is the practice of treating people differently based on their skin tone. Lighter skin often receives preferential treatment, while darker skin faces discrimination. This bias exists across various racial and ethnic communities and influences important areas such as employment, housing, and social interactions. The podcast features interviews from people who share their own experiences with colourism, as well as interviews with DEI and mental health experts who share how colorism can affect individuals.
Listen to “Pigment Paradox: A podcast on colourism in India and beyond”
About Nishtha
Before Rotman, Nishtha worked as a project manager in the fintech domain, a highly male-represented industry which opened her eyes to the many challenges that women face in an economic setup. Inspired by her mother and the several women she met during her 12 years of volunteering experience with Rotary International, she became an advocate of gender equality and worked on many projects to set up vocational centers for women in slums. During her undergraduate studies, she came across incidences of colorism and reflected on her own experiences of skin color bias that she faced growing up. This motivates her to work on understanding and addressing this issue at a corporate level. Through this experience, she leveraged the mentorship and support network of the GATE team to create a podcast to address the colorism that women face in a professional space.