About

Lead… using the power of your own story.

The Leading With Pride Story:

Leading With Pride (LWP) is a comprehensive leadership development program for LGBTQAI professionals, activists and allies. It is the passion and vision of Dwight Cook with the help of many other people. As a corporate executive with an extensive history of transforming teams and as an advocate for Diversity and Inclusion, Dwight was inspired by watching Employee Resource Group (ERG) leaders struggle to build successful programs. He created LWP by integrating several of the tools and principles used in transforming teams and making them assessable to early career professions and activists. A pilot session was tested in October of 2018 in Bangalore with PowerPoint slides and flip charts. Since then the program has evolved to included extensive online tools and content delivery and has garnered a growing number of corporate collaborators.

Sabah Mistry will be the Production Director and co-facilitator for most sessions. She has been with the LWP program since early in its evolution. She is passionate about the program and has contributed greatly to its growth. In addition to her role at LWP, she is COO at IDIA, an NGO focusing on helping disadvantaged people become lawyers. Sabah is located in Bangalore

Suresh Kumar manages the website development and testing. He has eight years of experience in technical and administrative support across several sectors. He is founder of Queer Wings Group, an LGBTQIA -focused promotions group and works from Tirunelveli

Arnab Haldar develops curriculum for LWP. He is passionate about education and has worked developing course work for the Education Initiative (ZIIEI) and the Sri Aurobindo Society among others. He enjoys experimenting and thinking “out-of-the-box.” Arnab works out of Delhi.

Shankar Ravi is a Learning And Development Advisor for LWP. Shankar is passionate about creating educational experiences that resonate with the life experience of people and helps us with our learning strategy. Shankar is currently pursuing his Masters in Education at Harvard University in the USA.

Saurabh Kumar is a Technical Advisor for LWP. He is helping us make learning easier and longer-lasting through our digitization strategy. He is currently pursuing his masters in Data Analytics in the UK.

Dwight Cook will be the primary facilitator for this session. He is the founder and architect of the program. He has an extensive career in transforming international teams within corporations as well as in LGBTQAI activism and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programming and policy. Dwight’s home is in Long Beach, California in the USA and he spends a great deal of his time throughout India.

Key Influencers

Ember Cook Psy. D.

Clinical Psychologist in Private Practice Social Justice Activist and Strategist

Sudanshu Pandit

Chief People Officer, Jade Global D&I Advocate Learning and Development Expertise

Arti Gusain

Director, Major India Corp Leadership Institute Thought Leader Development Program Designer

Suresh Ramdas

Professional Trainer at HP Mr. Gay World India 2019 Stanford University Leadership Development Graduate

Vieshaka Dutta

Director, Diversity and Inclusion Co-founder; Working With Pride

Bindhu Bhatia

MD & Founder NeuCode Talent Academy Consultant, NLP Master and Coach

Rashmi Vikram

Director, Diversity and Inclusion Diversity and Inclusion Consulting Education and Development

Claudia Mino PH. D.

Director, Learning and Development Change Management Leader

Veena Kulkarni

Founder, Road to Utopia Learning and Development for underprivileged populations

Neil Schneider

LGBTQIA and HIV Activist Husband and Friend

Leading With Pride is an empowerment program of Working With Pride.

Working With Pride is a collaborative of Diversity and Inclusion professionals and advocates engaged in connecting, collaborating and enabling each other to build inclusive workplaces in India. (www.workingwithpride.org, hello@workingwithpride.org)

“Society Began When We Learned We Can Do More Together” Tim Cook