About Us
People Like Us is an award-winning not-for-profit that celebrates and supports media, marketing, and communications professionals from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and minoritised ethnic backgrounds.
We’re also on a mission to help foster a fairer workplace for all through equitable pay – whatever your heritage; whatever your industry. We’ve had significant successes so far and we’ve got big ambitions.
Who are we?
We're two brothers - Sheeraz Gulsher and Darain Faraz – who’ve been working in the comms field for several years. But People Like Us is way bigger than the pair of us. It’s about breaking down barriers and creating foundations for genuine inclusion in the workplace.
Our Vision
Elevate ethnically diverse professionals by dismantling the workplace barriers they face, while also providing them with the support needed to navigate these challenges.
What do we do?
Well, we do a lot. We hold quarterly events to shine a spotlight on people from underrepresented backgrounds. Whether you’re looking for a job, or just want to meet like-minded industry pros, we’re offering you a platform for professional and personal growth.
We also support professionals behind-the-scenes with tailored solutions on a range of career related challenges. This includes navigating tricky conversations in the workplace, finding mentors, LinkedIn/CV-shaping and, more broadly, advising organisations on inclusivity.
We also work with other interested parties on substantial workplace investigations focusing on inequity and inclusion. Since 2021, we have teamed up with PR Week to investigate pay disparities across gender and ethnicity in the comms industry. This will run for a fourth year this summer, with the majority of entrants closing pay gaps year on year and improving representation (particularly at the most senior level).
Our research has discovered that the Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected people from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and minoritized ethnic backgrounds at all levels. They had to take bigger pay cuts and 42% felt like their career prospects suffered. As we move into a new type of economy, what steps are your companies doing to change things?
We’ve created a free toolkit for companies of all sizes to measure their own pay gaps with the overall ambition of making race pay gap reporting mandatory for companies in the UK in the same way it is for gender.
So what’s involved?
We want to do a bit more than fix these issues – we also want to have fun doing it.
So come play with us. Sign up to be one of the 10 people chosen to speak at our gatherings who know they’ve done something worth shouting about and do that for three minutes. The deadline’s tight but we know your stories are powerful.
Sign up for our tool kit, partner up with us if you really are committed to change, get us on board to understand how things can become better. Get in touch if you want to be a speaker, find a mentor, sponsor us, lend a hand or even hold your own People Like Us event and use our model in your industry. We want to hear from you.
Our comms worlds need to reflect society, and we know that with more diverse faces comes more diverse thinking – and an ability to create stronger work that connects with broader audiences, as well as leading to open doors for those who don’t always get that.
-Darain and Sheeraz.
Meet the Board
Sheeraz Gulsher
Co-founder and co-chair
Sheeraz is an award-winning PR professional with over a decade of experience both in-house at Sky and Snapchat, and at agencies including Hope&Glory and PrettyGreen. Sheeraz is a passionate campaigner for equal pay for ethnically diverse working professionals in the UK. Sheeraz also runs talent consultancy, Braver, which is accelerating the media and marketing industries’ desire to be more diverse.
Jay Safdar
Director of Digital and Social
Jay boasts a wealth of experience from client-side roles, overseeing brand and performance marketing at companies including American Express, John Lewis, Barclays, EE, Amazon, and HSBC. Presently, he leads Growth Marketing at a prominent B2B FinTech company, WEX, where he manages media and creative strategy across eight EMEA markets. When not immersed in the digital world, Jay enjoys indulging in house music and savouring delectable cakes, all while balancing his passion for fitness and plant care.
Kristianah Fasunloye and Shaline Manhertz – Joint Directors of Stakeholder Engagement
This dynamic duo collectively bring 50 years of strategic communications and engagement expertise acquired in central and local government driving transformative change in governmental systems. Heading up communications and media teams on instrumental and impactful projects, including:
Establishing a lasting legacy from the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Pioneering efforts to enhance maternity services safety for mothers and babies through the Ockenden Maternity Review, the largest ever review of an NHS service.
Kristianah and Shaline use their wealth of understanding of the best government policies, processes, and systems and implement them in other industries.
Tobi Ruth Adebekun
Co-chair
Award winning multidisciplinary PR professional. Currently at Netflix, previously at Snapchat. Passionate about culture, arts and community. Mentor at the University of Nottingham. Deputy Chair of the Barbican Centre Board. French speaker and lover of all things adventure and travel. Big fan of the sunshine.
Tim Clancy
Director of Marketing and Research
Tim is a marketer currently contributing his expertise to LinkedIn. His career spans across market research and brand strategy agencies, where he has skillfully employed his data-driven and storytelling talents. Over the past two years, he has played a pivotal role in analysing research conducted by People Like Us. Tim is excited to join the board and continue building awareness and fostering a positive perception of People Like Us.
Darain Faraz
Co-founder and Director of Communications
As a People Like Us co-founder and former International Brand Marketing Director at LinkedIn (where he worked for over a decade), Darain boasts a track record of crafting top-performing, award-winning campaigns. His industry accolades include coveted Cannes Lions awards, and he is a frequent presence on Marketing Week and PR Week's top 100 lists. Currently based in Suva with his family, Darain also serves as the VP of the PTA for Fiji's largest school. Amidst these commitments, he is actively pursuing a range of passion projects, with a heightened focus on contributing more to the mission of People Like Us.
Fahad Ahmed
Treasurer
Fahad is a highly experienced finance professional that has advised PR, marketing and advertising agencies for over a decade. Most recently, Fahad led commercial and operational finance in his role at multi award-winning agency Ketchum as its finance director. Fahad was also part of a number of high-profile client wins including Adobe and Danone.
Baljit Kaur Gill
Director of Partnerships
Bal is a seasoned consumer marketing leader with over 15 years of strategic communication expertise. Her portfolio includes household brands such as MAC Cosmetics, Müller, and Mondelez. Baljit's core passion lies in championing women's rights, particularly in the South Asian space and the workplace. Outside of work, she embraces the role of a dedicated mother to two children, exploring life through their eyes.
Tanya Wilkinson
Director of Events
Tanya is a distinguished leadership coach, intersectional DEI & Sustainability strategic advisor, and Founder of Green in the Grey. Tanya possesses a wealth of experience spanning 14 years in corporate marketing, entertainment, events, branded content, and ESG. Throughout her career, she has held significant roles such as head of marketing partnerships & events for Formula 1 globally and business director for Drum (Omnicom Media Group). Tanya has also led Virgin Media’s V Festival headline sponsorship and contributed to frontline label marketing at Columbia Records (Sony Music) and Geffen Records (Universal Music), representing artists like Calvin Harris and Mark Ronson.
