Challenging the Glass Ceiling for Racialized Women in Leadership

What this episode covers

Breaking the Ceiling, Building the Future Leadership often asks you to walk paths no one made for you. In this episode of From Our Vantage Point, host Maria Turnbull brings three extraordinary voices together: Zahra Esmail, Pablita Thomas, and Paromita (Mita) Naidu. What emerges is a raw, urgent, hopeful conversation about what it takes for racialized women to lead—and to remake the systems around them. Pablita Thomas, Vantage Point's Board Chair, brings the precision of a seasoned executive. As the Executive Director of the BC Hospice Palliative Care Association, she is known in the sector as a “non-profit fixer,” someone who steps into complexity and forges clarity. With experience in advocacy, public health frameworks, and fund development, she shows how leadership is both a craft and a calling. Paromita (Mita) Naidu, Board Member at Vantage Point, offers a voice rooted in intersectionality. A scholar-practitioner, writer, and thinker, she has spoken and written widely about equity, justice, and how workplaces can become sites of belonging, not just inclusion. She challenges us to see leadership not as individual ascent, but as collective transformation. Zahra, our CEO, has more than 15 years in the non-profit sector spanning governance, community development, homelessness, and international work. Her journey—from neighbourhood houses in Vancouver to leading a provincial capacity-building organization—anchors this conversation in both experience and vision. Together, Zahra, Pablita, and Mita open up about moments of doubt and defiance, the invisible rules that push back, and the surprising allies they’ve found along the way. They challenge us to move from equity as idea to equity as action—where systems shift so leaders don’t just enter spaces, but thrive in them. 🎧 Tune in to Challenging the Glass Ceiling for Racialized Women in Leadership and sit with both the struggle and the possibility. Proudly supported by Humanity Financial