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Sonya Barlow

Tech Entrepreneur, BBC Presenter, Keynote Speaker, Author, Event MC, Founder of LMF Network, TEDxSpeaker, Content Creator & Podcast Host specialising in entrepreneurship, technology, AI, personal branding, gender equality, neurodiversity, future of work, mental health, diversity and inclusion.

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About

Gender: Female

Nationality: United Kingdom

Languages: English

Travels from: United Kingdom

Engagement Types

Topics

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biography Highlights

Sonya is a highly accomplished Event MC, Moderator and Keynote Speaker specialising in entrepreneurship, technology, gender equality, inclusion, future of work, diversity and neurodiversity.

Biography

Meet Sonya Barlow

Sonya Barlow is an award-winning BBC Presenter, Author, Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneur, TEDxSpeaker, Content Creator and Writer. She hosts her talk show The Sonya Barlow Show where she interviews world leaders on the stories behind their success, with high-profile names such as Princess Lamia of Saudi Arabia and Footballer Gilberto Silva. In 2022, Sonya was named a LinkedIn Top Voice for Gender Diversity and her BBC show The Everyday Hustle, was The Best Radio Show in the UK.

Sonya is the CEO of the Like Minded Females (LMF) Network, an inclusion consultancy and social networking platform redesigning workplace policies and professional careers to encourage diversity and inclusion. Sonya has also written the popular book “Unprepared to Entrepreneur” and won multiple awards, including Europe’s Top 50 Women in Tech, Marie Claire’s Future Shaper, UK Entrepreneur of the Year and Asian Women of Achievement. She is one of the youngest South Asian females to have two TEDx talks, titled “Please Come Online” and “Failure Comes Before Resilience”.

Sonya’s energetic and captivating personality has seen her invited to Keynote at The House of Commons on gender diversity and delivering global keynotes on business, technology and inclusion in Germany, Lithuania, Romania, Kenya, Pakistan, Amsterdam, France, the UK, Portugal and Mauritius, to name a few.

Sonya’s background in technology, business and travel provides her with the unique ability to understand technical terms, share innovative solutions and advocate allyship. She has a great sense of cultural communication and is often told that her power is summarising large bits of information into notable smaller action steps that the audience can easily takeaway.

She has worked with household brands such as Lloyds banking group and Capital One on their technology podcast, led campaigns for Loreal, HP, Rolls Royce, Fiverr, Logitech and Linkedin and delivered talks to high-profile stakeholders across industries such as Fintech, Technology, Finance, Hospitality, Public Sector, Higher Education, Government, Fashion, Retail and Corporate.

Sonya Barlow is a neurodivergent British Pakistani woman with chronic migraines, ADHD and mental health conditions. Diversity, resilience, and neurodiversity are topics close to her heart when delivering keynotes. She is able to deliver workshops and keynotes about her own experiences of ADHD, with advice on coping mechanisms and how your neurodiversity can be an asset if channeled in the right way.

Sonya has worked in the technology sector since 2015 and is currently building an app to encourage professional working women to build their networks and knowledge, whilst supporting workplaces to retain diverse talent.

Videos

Showreels

Speaking videos

Media, podcast appearances and interviews

Popular Talks

Diversity

We know that inclusive practises can generate 33% more profit for businesses, but in practice what does this mean? Sonya is a thought leader on all things diversity and inclusion, covering topics from introduction to diversity to inclusive allyship, leaderships styles, to hiring best practices and retention of staff. She knows mentoring, knowledge sharing and networks support inclusive practises which workplaces leverage to build our profitable organisations.

Available: Virtually

Resilience

Failure is a common trait which very few of us want to touch on, given that everything online looks pretty and perfect. Sonya is honest about her failure journey, from being fired in the workplace to facing rejections along the way. All these experiences have given her the resilience to develop her career as a public figure. As well as resilience, Sonya covers recovery, failure, imposter syndrome and confidence.

Available: Virtually

Future of Work

According to recent stats, the future of work and shortage of soft skills is costing £22bn. The topics Sonya can cover on the future of work include AI and digital transformation, soft and professional skills, mentorship, remote working, ed tech and alternative education, as well as gender equality, accessibility and workplace flexibility.

Available: Virtually

Neurodiversity

Sonya is a rare Pakistani woman open about her struggles with mental health, ADHD and chronic migraines which has brought on levels of loneliness and determination. Recgonising that few brown woman represent the neurodiversity space, Sonya is keen to contribute to this ongoing discussion with her lived and learnt experiences, cultural context and neuro conditions, which seem to be trending but very few understand.

Available: Virtually

Sonya'S

TESTIMONIALS

I have supported many employers to deliver presentation evenings and panel events and without a doubt the way in which Sonya Barlow hosted the conversation is by far the best I have seen. She was engaging, understood her audience and involved the students throughout the discussion.

Cardiff University

Sonya is a great keynote speaker. We've had a lot of positive feedback and want to extend a big thank you to Sonya. She set the scene for the event really well. It was a perfect balance of delivering a quite challenging topic to make people think and at the same time allow people to be vulnerable enough to express themselves, be thoughtful and engage in discussions.

Manchester & Trafford Local Care

Labelled "Warmest, most welcome workshop ever!" by one of our members, we were thrilled with the Diversity and Inclusion workshop Sonya delivered us. A breath of fresh air in the mission of helping everybody to become more inclusive and understanding of different cultures, races, and disabilities, which we at The Coven are working hard to achieve. We are so excited to be working with Sonya on a series of workshops covering diversity and inclusion, mental health, how to manage difficult conversations, and build resilience. We know this learning will increase our knowledge of how to become the most diverse and inclusive we can possibly be.

Lauren Davey

Community Manager,

The Coven Girl Gang

At GoCo Group we were on the hunt for diversity, inclusion, and equality speaker for our national inclusion week activities and we were lucky enough to be referred to Sonya. Sonya worked closely with us in the lead up to the event to make sure the content of her session represented the area’s we wanted to discuss and educate our staff on, even issuing a questionnaire to staff to make sure the session answered all of our questions around D&I. Sonya’s talk was incredibly well-received across the Group, with one of the best attendance rates we’ve seen in our virtual events throughout 2020. I couldn’t recommend working with Sonya enough, I hope to work closely with her and her vast knowledge of all things diversity and inclusion in the future.

Milly Blenkin

Talent Programme Manager,

GoCompare

Sonya Barlow gave an amazing talk on our offsite at King in Stockholm. I appreciated her commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion by touching very important topics and the way those were delivered through engaging exercises. Happy to have attended this workshop!

Filippo Marchiafava

UI Artist,

King

We've had a great first event with Sonya and Like Minded Females for a recent British Airways International Women's Day event. We ran a workshop for female-identifying students, where Sonya was fab from start to finish. She really understood our business needs and used her insight from other corporate clients to tailor the workshop. She was very inspirational on the night of the workshop, speaking articulately but also being relatable to the young audience!

Mel Kose

Emerging Talent Manager,

British Airways

Sonya gave a fantastic presentation to students at the University of Oxford on behalf of Like Minded Females. She was enthusiastic and engaging whilst her talk was relevant, informative, and provocative. I would wholeheartedly recommend Sonya to any institution or corporate looking to diversify their organisation!

Nikita Khandwala

Strategy and Analytics,

Sonya worked with Royal Mail’s London women’s network for inclusion week in Jan 2019 to deliver a lunchtime webinar on diversity and inclusion. She delivered a highly practical, inspiring session that had great audience feedback. She is a fantastic presenter who clearly knows her stuff and goes out of her way to deliver a session of very high quality. Would very much like to work with her again in the future and have no hesitation in recommending her.

Marilyn Benjamin

Legal Secretary,

Royal Mail

Sonya ran an interactive workshop with our business to help challenge the way we think about Diversity and Inclusion. Her session was engaging, thought-provoking, and inclusive, allowing the audience to contribute their thoughts to help shape the actions that we take as a company. Thanks, Sonya!

Rachel Pollitt

Human Resources Business Partner,

UK Soldo

Sonya led our International Women’s Day event at British Airways with the utmost professionalism. The workshop focused on skills awareness and confidence building for female students, and we received wonderful feedback from the attendees on how valuable and motivating they found the session. Sonya clearly has such passion for this topic and this shines through when she’s addressing her audience. Thank you, Sonya, for arranging this event and I hope to cross paths with you again in the future!

Jessica Thorne

Customer Change Lead,

British Airways

It was indeed a great pleasure working with Sonya, her presentation at the Tech Connect Live Expo was brilliant and she did an amazing job as stage moderator too. Judging from the comments of those who attended.

Pooja Rai

Event Content Manager,

TechConnect Live

Sonya was a dream to work with – completely professional throughout and full of insight and ideas. Looking forward to working with her again!

Jessie Callaghan

London Brand Manager,

The Hoxton

The key skills of being a coach are building trust and being able to reflect on a person’s aspirations. Sonya has been my career coach over a span of 2 months and has made a huge impact in building my confidence levels and guiding me with the next steps in my career. She made me realize my capacity to do so much more, broke my barriers, and tailored activities to suit my personality and my schedule. She is the person to go to if you have an aspiration to stand out in the crowd or feel low in your confidence level, or do not have a clear vision about your career. I appreciate her efforts and her genuine interest to bring the best out of an individual.

Meera Subramanian

Fraud Business Analyst,

Santander

Sonya did a workshop for the team at Tangent about imposter syndrome and this not only brought everyone together and opened up new channels of communication but also provided a safe space to do so. Sonya is a bright and ambitious individual with great speaking skills. Sonya is personable and these sessions are informative, empowering, and great for company morale.

Danielle Antoinette Bowman

Marketing Manager,

Tangent Media

Sonya came to Vilnius for her keynote speech at the Women Go Tech conference in June 2019. I found her a passionate and inspiring public speaker, open about her challenges, and desire to share her insights with the audience. Sonya is a young professional in her field as well as a growing influencer with a clear message to the digital society.

Justinas Lingevicius

Senior Officer,

British Embassy Lithuania

Sonya is a tremendously positive person with a great insight into the subject of the side hustle and making yourself seen and heard. I absolutely loved her talk on the subject of the Elevator Pitch – and took away with me a few good homework points to go through! I'm looking forward to the future talks she'll be hosting and would definitely recommend her participation in talks, panel discussions, and workshops.

Anna Holloway

Recruiter,

Blue Digital

Sonya was a really articulate and perceptive presenter who had everyone in the room listening to her every word. During her workshop with SheSays London and Like Minded Females she offered a lot of practical, inspiring, and useful information which I think everyone can benefit from hearing.

Emilia

Founder and Creative Director,

Kireli Studio

Books

Unprepared to Entrepreneur: A Method to the Madness of Starting Your Own Business

Times have changed: you can launch a successful enterprise with your phone, sell through social media and tap into a whole world of opportunities. Unprepared to Entrepreneur is an honest guide to launching your own business, sharing real stories from real people who have tested, failed and won at business. It profiles the underdogs, those who brainstormed ideas whilst travelling on the bus, started a business from their phone and managed to create three income streams whilst maintaining a full-time job in the city to show you that you can do it too. From a working Google doc as your business plan, to ideation strategies that live and die off Instagram engagement; they won’t teach you this at business school. Sonya Barlow takes a look at the resilience needed to make it in business, the incredible tax on mental health and the non-negotiable steps to creating a viable business. This is the ultimate guide to side hustling, freelancing and entrepreneurial freedom of the future.

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