Home: Manhattan, New York, NY. Age: Old enough to remember when the youngest person in the room was the remote control. Birthplace: London, UK. Profession: Strategic thinking partner & advisor to CEOs and executives. Organization: Paru Radia, LLC. Title: Founder & Principal. Languages spoken: English, Gujarati, basic French, very basic Swahili.
Current project: Becoming who I was always meant to be. What’s been your big (or biggest leap)? Bucking cultural expectations, leaving my family and forging my own path on a new continent, alone. Betting even harder on myself after I was diagnosed with cancer in 2024. Recent travel or adventure: Iceland to see the Northern Lights, and Sedona to experience the vortex energies and the peace.
Personality profile: Open, intuitive, quick-thinking; candid, decisive, witty and fiercely independent. What one word would your closest friend use to describe you? Intentional. What is your greatest joy? My newfound freedom. What is your guilty pleasure? Luxury travel. Minus the guilt. What is your favorite place (or way) to spend money? On anything that brings me ease and peace. What was your first paying job? Recruitment Assistant at British Airways.
What was your favorite college course? Psychology. What was your favorite childhood toy or game? Magna Doodle and Connect Four. What book have you repeatedly read? Many Lives, Many Masters, by Brian Weiss. What’s prominently featured on your home or office wall? A whiteboard. What’s the best advice you received growing up? Live within your means. What’s the best advice you received in your career? Trust yourself.
What is your big idea?
Regularly spend time in solitude. It helps you hear your own voice, trust what you know, and own who you are. A surprising amount of noise disappears when you stop living in reaction to everyone else.
What change are you working on to effect in your profession or field? Teaching people how to be candid while remaining respectful and kind. It removes noise, reduces politics and helps people make better decisions faster. What change would you like to see in the world? I wish more people could hold two truths at once: stand firmly in their own perspective while genuinely considering and respecting someone else’s.
What title would you choose for the movie about your life? Are You Serious? As a kid, what did you first want to be when you grew up? A dancer. After your loved ones, what object would you first save from your burning home? The plaster casts of my Mum’s hands that we made together the week she passed. How would you choose to spend tomorrow, if you knew it was your last day on earth? Capturing the lessons I’ve learned in my life, so they might help those who come after me. What period in your life would you do differently, if you could? My late teens. I would have rebelled sooner.
Personal mission: Be free. Personal motto: Own it. Desired epitaph: She lived on her own terms.
