Also Available on Spotify
In the fifth episode of NOTABLE, host Adrienne Beckham (she/her) continues the conversation with Jasmin Sethi (she/her) where she reflects on her experience and philosophy on entrepreneurship, professional development and entering professional spaces throughout her career as a person with a disability.
Jasmin Sethi is a lawyer, economist, entrepreneur, and CEO of Sethi Clarity Advisors (SCA). SCA is a woman-owned and disabled-person-owned small business boutique consulting firm that helps financial firms in various capacities. Her achievements have been recognized by countless clients, including Morningstar, Capital Group, and Saifr, a compliance innovator incubated by Fidelity Labs. Jasmin also serves on the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee. Jasmin was recently named a Most Admired CEO by the Philadelphia Business Journal. Throughout her work with companies and non-profits, Jasmin also promotes the financial access, literacy, and empowerment of individual and institutional investors.
Music by Eric Stewart, “Cloud Anthem”
Pop! Pop! Pop! Records / Center For Creative Works
Thanks for support from Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Transcript
[00:00:00.00] – Adrienne Beckham
In today’s episode of Notable, I am sitting back down with Jasmin Sethi where she reflects on her
experience and philosophy on entrepreneurship, professional development, and entering professional
spaces throughout her career as a person with a disability. Come join our conversation.
[00:00:18.08]
My first question is just what is your favorite thing to do on the weekend?
[00:00:28.14] – Jasmin Sethi
If the weather is good, I like to get out for walking to just get away from devices because I’m on
device, I’m on computer and phone a lot during the week. This past weekend, I did a pretty long walk
out in near New Hope on the towpath. I really just like easy, I don’t do very rigorous hikes, but just kind
of nice long walks out of the city. That’s one of my favorite things to do in good weather, then the
winter, that gets more limited.
[00:01:03.19] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Make use of the good weather now while it’s still here. Hopefully, this winter will be not too bad.
[00:01:12.02] – Jasmin Sethi
That’s right.
[00:01:12.23] – Adrienne Beckham
It’s been a few months since we’ve sat down together to have a conversation, so I wanted to just start
by asking how your professional development has gone in the time since we last spoke.
[00:01:26.07] – Jasmin Sethi
It’s been pretty good, generally always thinking about how to expand the business. That’s been my
main focus. I’m trying to move into a new business area that I haven’t done before, and I’ve been
working on gathering information for that, talking to potential partners, getting feedback. I generally
worked with big companies, but I’m trying to add a new service that is more directed at individuals
and small businesses, have a lot of substance knowledge, but really learning about the landscape and
operationally how to do things. Yeah, I’ve been kind of just learning by doing and talking to people.
[00:02:11.07] – Adrienne Beckham
Do you find that learning by doing is your favorite way to learn things?
[00:02:14.20] – Jasmin Sethi
There’s some parts of my work that are very technical that take studying. I work a lot with the law and
regulation. There are things where you have to just research, but I do find a lot of times you have to
talk to people about the practical aspects. How does this actually work in the real world? I would say I
do like learning a lot from people who done something in the area I’m looking at before, so kind of
learning by experience and sometimes if you can learn by other people’s experience, that can save
you time on your experience, I would say. We should all take advantage of that.
[00:02:57.15] – Adrienne Beckham
Yes, absolutely. Learning from others in combination, so you don’t have to make all of the mistakes
yourself. Okay. We’ll move into our second question, which is larger about boards and arts
organizations and how they function. Do you think that a board of directors is needed for an arts
organization?
[00:03:25.16] – Jasmin Sethi
I do. I think a lot of arts organizations do benefit from having a board of directors. Like any nonprofit,
it’s helpful to have perspectives of people who have a duty to the organization but are not working
directly for the organization, but have an outside perspective. The arts organizations aren’t any
different. Also, it helps them reach a broader base, I guess, based constituents or potential clients,
members, whoever they’re trying to read.
[00:04:09.06] – Adrienne Beckham
There is certainly value to structure, and I think that’s what boards do bring to an organization. As
much as artists like to maybe exist in a world without structure, there is value in structure. Bringing
those things together is important. That leads into our next question, which is more specifically about
the structure of a board of directors. If you could reimagine maybe the typical structure of how a
board of directors works, is there anything that you would change?
[00:04:51.23] – Jasmin Sethi
In the nonprofit?
[00:04:53.23] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, board area.
[00:04:55.17] – Jasmin Sethi
I don’t know if I can make something that’s sweeping. I’m on a couple different nonprofit boards right
now, and they are very different in their bylaws, even in their governance. I suppose it’d be great if
people looked at best practices and shared them, and maybe there were some standards that people
could generally look to, like there are for corporate. But I think we know what some of those are. But
different groups are going to have their cultures and their ways of doing.
[00:05:32.23] – Adrienne Beckham
As I’ve gone on this journey with Notable and working and learning more about boards, the phrase
Robert’s Rules of Order has come up quite a bit for me. I was wondering if you know what Robert’s
Rules of Order are, if you’ve heard of them.
[00:05:54.12] – Jasmin Sethi
I’ve heard of them. I don’t know the rules. I’ve followed them if other people implement them and tell
me what to do, but I haven’t had to be the one understanding them or administering them.
[00:06:11.01] – Adrienne Beckham
I have a very limited knowledge of what they are myself, so just curiously polling everybody that I
know at this time to be like, “What exactly are they? Do you-
[00:06:24.13] – Jasmin Sethi
Have you seen some benefit from organizations employing them? Do you think that things run better
when they follow those rules?
[00:06:32.06] – Adrienne Beckham
I can speak for Art-Reach’s board. We do follow them a little bit, but they also seem to be a bit more of
just like a baseline that organizations tend to build upon as they’re making rules and bylaws for how
their meetings run. I think in that way, it can be a benefit because it’s a starting point, so you’re not
starting from scratch and building rules and policies and how a meeting functions and how decisions
get made from point A to point B.
[00:07:16.03]
But there is also something to be said about not following rules so rigidly so that larger conversations
can happen maybe a bit more organically to come up with new solutions that aren’t based in maybe a
more traditional way of thinking. So I think it really depends on the type of organization and how they
use the rules.
[00:07:46.11] – Jasmin Sethi
I don’t know if Robert’s Rules will speak to governance. I think my concern around boards, for any
board, corporate or nonprofit, is around governance. How are people selected? What kind of voice is
given to new members? Any leadership of committees on the board or of the board as a whole is
there a voice, or is there just a subset of the board bringing on people who they like to hang out with,
or is there an actual intentional approach to bringing on people who are adding value to the
organization, filling needs that need to be filled, selecting leaders in a way that incorporates multiple
voices?
[
00:08:33.07]
It may not always be democratic. Some places have more of a democratic process than others, but I
am concerned when I see board processes that allow leadership to be selected by a very small
minority of the board.
[00:08:52.16] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, absolutely.
[00:08:54.14] – Jasmin Sethi
I have seen that in certain organizations. I’m not talking about arts organizations. This is not about a
particular organization that would be in the arts world necessarily, but I’ve seen it in general where
there can be just huge variation in bylaws for nonprofits. People are volunteering and is a nonprofit,
so there’s a little bit less rigor around leadership roles, and often people want to work amicably. It’s
not going to be necessarily a contested election.
[00:09:31.22]
I think there is a desire for consensus, but sometimes that desire for consensus can actually be a bit
of peer pressure to suppress dissenting voices. I think that’s where I get worried. Are there multiple
voices actually playing a role in selecting leadership at each subgroup and overall for the board? I
don’t know if Robert’s Rules really speaks to any of that, but I would say that’s my main concern
around nonprofit boards.
[00:10:08.14] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think so much of that too, we see it just play out in different areas
of society too, so it’s one of those problems that doesn’t have an easy fix because it’s ingrained into a
lot of some of these other systemic problems that happen in our country, in our world. Thank you for
sharing that.
[00:10:37.17]
That actually leads into another question that I wanted to ask, which is as you have found yourself in
board spaces and leadership spaces, how do you see yourself using that platform to maybe transfer
power and influence to others that maybe don’t have similar access to you? How do you go about
that? Is that an experience that you have?
[00:11:24.06] – Jasmin Sethi
Yeah, I think onboards, again, I’m not going to name names of particular boards, but I have been in a
situation where I’ve been in a position to recommend a junior person and support their candidacy for
a board, to mentor people who might be of interest to the board and interested in serving on the
board. I think giving people feedback on what they could do to develop themselves professionally, to
get on the radar of the right people, and so forth. That’s definitely something I think about, and that’s
something that people have done for me. I think it’s a way to pay it forward.
[00:12:07.23]
Always looking out for good people to add to a board to recommend. I think that’s definitely a key, like
watching out when you meet people who might have good credentials, alignment of interests. I think
that is a duty as a board member. That’s probably the main way that I’ve implemented that.
[00:12:30.05] – Adrienne Beckham
Are there specific maybe skills or things that you look for in people as you’re thinking about who to
recommend?
[00:12:40.04] – Jasmin Sethi
Fairly different types of leadership, people who can take charge and run with a project, an event, make
it happen, people who can offer certain knowledge that can be useful to the organization, a certain
perspective from their work or other experience. I would say those are the key things. Also, generally
people who are committed, they’re responsible, they’re going to be responsive and keep to their
commitments, meet timelines, and things like that.
[00:13:09.17] – Adrienne Beckham
I want to move into another question that is about maybe some of the more personal causes that you
support in your life. How do you incorporate those causes into maybe some of the leadership work
that you’ve done for other organizations or even in your business?
[00:13:36.17] – Jasmin Sethi
As you know, I’m on the board for the Grounds For Sculpture, and one of the things that I’m very
interested in furthering is accessibility in the arts. Grounds For Sculptures, I’m very committed to that.
I know Art-Reach is very committed to that. As a blind person, one of the areas where I experience
that the most is whether or not I can touch tactile art. That is something that Grounds For Sculpture
has been very good about, but a lot of places are not.
[00:14:10.05]
Even when there is art that can be touched at museums, there is a process to get in. You can’t just
show up and say, “Hey, what art is there that I could touch? Can I wear gloves and be directed to it?
Line up with an audio tour or something like that?” No, you often have to pre-arrange. You have to get
a hold of the right people. It can take a while, may not line up with your schedule.
[00:14:37.15]
That’s something that I have been pushing, and I’m going to shamelessly push it here as well because
I would love to get more people interested in this and helping out with this. I’ve been pushing it
through GFS, and I guess openly advocating it for Art-Reach to take on as an issue.
[00:14:55.14]
In my head, I have this idea, I don’t know if it’s implementable, but what I’d like to see is just like
there’s the access card that can be used at various venues associated with outreach, can someone
show up with that access card or a similar ID and say, “I have permission to touch. I have been
documented as a blind person who needs to touch art.” Then, once you’re validated, people see,
“Okay, you’re not just faking it.”, or whatever it is they’re concerned about. They have the gloves, and
you can just do it on the spot. It doesn’t require a lot of prearranging.
[00:15:37.18]
That is a cause that I’m very interested in. I have not made progress beyond GFS. GFS has been very
good about it, and we’ve talked about this, but that is something I would like to see work more
broadly. I think then that’s relevant to your work.
[00:15:58.21] – Adrienne Beckham
Another question about you, but specifically about your own self-care as a leader. I think when we
have all of these causes in this work that we want to do, particularly when it’s work that’s very
important to us, it can be hard to turn that part of our brain off and prioritize things like rest. I was
curious, how do you prioritize rest and recovery in your work as a leader, and how do you support
yourself in your work as a leader in the spaces where you show up?
[00:16:43.21] – Jasmin Sethi
I have been a strong believer in that rest and exercise are not optional. Sleep and rest are just as
important as eating. People build their meals into their schedule. They don’t always think, “Oh, I need
this much sleep.”, or “I need to exercise. For me, I treat them all as required. If something’s going to
conflict with me getting the sleep I need or the exercise I need, then it’s just the same as, “I don’t have
time in the day.” That means that I have to say no, I have to reprioritize, or shift. I think that’s definitely
a choice people have to make and have that mindset of what are the important things.
[00:17:23.17]
Then I do think, like I said, having time away from devices. In today’s day and age, we spend a lot of
time on computers and phones. That’s the nature of our work, our socializing, everything. Really trying
to make time out, especially outside of business hours, or sometimes even during the business day.
For me, since I have my own business, I do work out during business hours. Having that time to get
off devices is critical, I think, for rejuvenating.
[00:17:58.11] – Adrienne Beckham
Have you found that organizations that you work with are receptive to you prioritizing that care for
yourself?
[00:18:10.02] – Jasmin Sethi
I don’t really think it’s up to the organization. I think it’s up to us in terms of how we manage our time
and what we commit to. I don’t usually have to tell, unless I’m going on vacation, which I would say
people have been respectful of when I’m on vacation. They don’t try to have me deal with anything
that’s not absolutely essential. I meet the deadline. It’s a matter of really time managing and meeting
your deadlines and taking on what you can and being realistic about it.
[00:18:43.05]
I think a lot of it is up to the individual. Today, I think we have a lot more power and a lot more choice
that we realize we have, but that also puts a lot of responsibility. If you’re an employee, it’s not
necessarily up to your boss to manage your day. You have to manage your priorities, meeting the
work expectations as well as your own personal responsibilities. In my case, as a business owner, I
have to meet the needs of my clients, and it’s up to me to do that, however I’m going to do that, but
also meeting my own personal responsibilities.
[00:19:25.20]
It’s really time management and prioritization on our own side. I’m a big believer one of the most
effective habits, I think that’s often cited for people who our effective leaders is to try to get some of
the hardest things done first thing in the morning. For me, I tend to try to do some of the hardest
tasks before business hours because I recognize that during business hours, I’m going to have a lot of
interruptions, a lot more phone calls and emails that may sidetrack me. If there’s something really
important I have to read or plan out or write or some important thinking, I do that outside of business
hours. That’s often early in the morning or maybe on a Sunday afternoon when I don’t have a lot of
interruption.
[00:20:11.01] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, time management is huge. It is interesting to think about how time management and disability,
how as a person with a disability, time management maybe even in some ways becomes an
accommodation in some ways, and being able to manage your time becomes a way in which to
accommodate your disability. Thank you for that answer. We’ll move on to our next question, which
speaks to the broader subject of this podcast and why we’re doing this. That is, what does disability
leadership mean to you?
[00:21:20.19] – Jasmin Sethi
I guess I’ll go through what was my philosophy always. I grew up at a time when we had ADA, but we
didn’t have a lot of accommodations. I was lucky enough to be very well-educated. I was good at
school. I was fortunate enough to go to Harvard for undergrad and graduate work. Technology was
there, but not as good as it is now, I definitely needed human support. I had readers people who
actually read things back in the day. Now I get very impatient with humans reading things. I’m like, “I
need the computer, I need the iPhone. I need to read faster. Human beings are too slow.” That was a
different time.
[00:22:08.11]
I always had it in my head from a young age that I knew I was going to be more expensive for the
employer. They’re going to need to ask them for technology and human support. I remember making
speeches, even in high school, and then throughout my career about how I had to show that I was an
investment, that I was worth it.
[00:22:37.16]
It was interesting because I remember talking to other people, and they said, “It’s not really going to
be worth it. You’re never really going to be able to prove that all that costs, you were able to bring in
more revenue for the business for the law firm or whatever than you cost them. There has to be just
this value of diversity on top of it.” I said, “Okay, but I’m still going to really try, and I’m going to give it a
real good try to be as worth it as I can.” I definitely felt that pressure throughout my career to be worth
it, to work more, to work better, to be worth the accommodation.
[00:23:19.16]
Then I started my own business, and then it was different because it was my revenue, and my
accommodations were part of my business. I decided what was worth spending the money on, what
was the most efficient. Any human help I hired served a multitude of functions. They did things that
they would do for any excited boss, as well as certain things that could had to be formatted differently
for me. It became a business decision, and I felt like I was on a more level footing in a way, whereas
as an employee, I didn’t feel that same. I felt like more expensive relative to the next attorney.
[00:24:07.13]
It was very freeing. I guess the philosophy I’ve always had is you have to recognize the reality that,
“Yes, you have a right both legally and morally, to have certain accommodations, to have certain
things work to [inaudible 00:24:35] society.” At the same time, we have to recognize that that does
create costs that sometimes even burdens for others, and that should be valued so that we also put
our best foot forward. It is a two-way street.
[00:24:56.08]
It’s been true for any minority group. Women got ahead because first, women had to advance, had to
make certain sacrifices in order to get to the same levels as men. They had to sacrifice time with their
kids. You’ve always seen these, there are some necessary trade-offs. I do think that sometimes the
tail person, you have to work harder to prove yourself.
[00:25:30.00]
It may not seem fair, but in the long run, the hope is that it gets one actually valued in a different way.
People do recognize often if they’re thinking about it, that it is harder they recognize, “Okay, a blind
person or a deaf person or a person with disability had to work harder to get to the same end. They
had to be more resourceful, maybe they had to be [inaudible 00:25:54] in certain ways, they had to
develop certain problem-solving skills.” That is valued by people over time.
[00:26:03.02]
I guess what I’m saying is that to be a good leader, you have to accept there is some nuance to all
this, that it’s not just a simple “This is right or wrong.”, that there is a mutuality that goes with
accommodations, inclusivity that puts essentially a responsibility on everyone to do their best work.
Does that make any sense?
[00:26:35.13] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, it does make sense. I think you touched on a few things that, I think, show up in our work at Art
-Reach too, specifically the idea of thinking about accessibility and accommodation as a part of the
way you do business and thinking about it at the beginning rather than thinking about it as separate
from doing business, it is a part of doing business. I think that’s something that we talk about in a lot
of different areas, the work that we do.
[00:27:41.06]
The intersection of where humanity and business meet can be an interesting dance to try and figure
out and how to navigate the needs of both the human and maybe the larger goals of a business.
[00:28:13.08] – Jasmin Sethi
Yes, I think we would like businesses to think about inclusivity up front, whether it be websites,
accessible websites, accessible spaces. In the long run, that should be good for business because
more people are included, there’s more clients, there’s more perspectives. In the short run, there are
costs because things have to be changed from how they’ve been for so long. That’s often the case for
any kind of transition.
[00:28:50.18]
Then there’s more burden on the people with disabilities who are dealing with that transition, the ones
who are pioneering in it. Now there’s a number of blind lawyers, but when I first started, blind people
going into law, and there’s a lot of other areas where there are not as many people with disabilities in
certain fields. They have to bear that transition costs. There is that to recognize. I think those are the
people who then have to prove that it’s worth the transition cost. They always have to make the case.
[00:29:28.17]
On the flip side of that, turning that argument around, when you have disabled people as
entrepreneurs, which is another area I’m interested in. I know we’re talking about disability in the arts.
I’m also interested in more disabled people being able to pursue entrepreneurship and separately
working on some projects to advocate for that.
[00:29:51.14]
Then like myself, disabled people can think about the disability as part of the business, which is what I
think you’re talking about. It can become the accommodation can become part of your business cost,
how you run your day, how you manage your time, how you make the business work with your own
personal situation, given your disability, given your strengths, given your life, all of those things. That
is different than when you’re an employee, and you have less flexibility and freedom too.
[00:30:21.05] – Adrienne Beckham
You also touch on this interesting idea of what does it look like for there to be more disabled
entrepreneurs and more disability led businesses in that way, which I think is some of the hopes of
the shows maybe shedding more light on, maybe that work that’s happening. I personally hope to see
more of that to myself. I’m excited to see how your work in that area pans out.
[00:30:58.04]
Okay, my next question for you on the same lines as the conversation we’ve been having already, do
you feel as you are thinking about all of the work you are doing to try and further accessibility both in
the arts and promoting more disabled leaders and entrepreneurs, do you feel like you are able to
affect meaningful change for the disability community in the work that you’ve done so far?
[00:31:38.14] – Jasmin Sethi
Slowly. It is very slow. I think I’m sure you know that. Any meaningful change comes very slow. That’s
my hope. You start a little bit at a time. We were working on more audio descriptions at Grounds For
Sculpture. We’ll probably get a group of blind people in there for a tour. I think I’m working on an op-ed
around government policy and promoting work and entrepreneurship by people with disabilities.
That’s more for federal legislation. We know how that moves at a glacial speed. It’s very, very slowly,
but it’s a long game, so you have to be patient and just put out what you can.
[00:32:25.03] – Adrienne Beckham
Yes, it is.
[00:32:25.21] – Jasmin Sethi
But I also think at an individual level, what we can all do is educate. I think a lot of people learn from
just how I do things. Just seeing people out in the world with disabilities doing meaningful things,
contributing to society, having great careers. They see like, “Oh, I didn’t think somebody with such a
disability could do X.” Then, if they see it right, just like we’ve seen in sports, Paralympics, and so forth,
it challenges people’s notions of what can and can’t be done. That’s very important. I think that’s
something we can all do in small ways every day.
[00:33:07.16]
How many times people will ask, “Oh, I don’t know how you do this. I don’t know how you get through
the day, blah, blah, blah, with this disability.” Educating people with, “Oh, what is it that you think would
be so difficult? What is it you want to know about how I do something?” As they observe, as they
learn, as they see that on, that is very informative for people. It gives people a different way to think
about things.
[00:33:36.10] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, absolutely. I think some of the goals of this show is to help people reimagine what leadership
looks like by just showing them different people, particularly disabled people who are leaders and say,
“Yes, we’re out here, it’s happening.” Like you said, it’s a long game of changing perception. But you
hope every day that you’re making a difference just by being you and showing up.
[00:34:18.17]
I have two more questions for you. My first question is, what advice would you give to a person with a
disability who wants to serve on a board?
[00:34:35.18] – Jasmin Sethi
I think it’s the advice of anybody who wants to serve on a board, the general advice for getting on a
board is networking and telling everyone, figuring out what kind of boards you want to be on, that’s
important, figuring out your interests and what you have to offer. Then you want to meet people in
that space, and you want to tell as many people as you can. You don’t want to be shy. “I’m really
interested in doing this. This is why I’m interested. This is why I think I have something to add.” Not an
arrogant way, just in a matter of fact “This is why. This is something I can contribute to.”
[00:35:16.06]
I think for disabled people in particular, they should really embrace the networking in person, if
possible, or at least really one-on-one, very substantive, whether it’s a phone, a video chat, but really
putting out there what they want, why they want it.
[00:35:40.07]
Something that I learned later, as I got older, later in life, is embracing the disability. I think we’re in an
age now where we can be more honest. There was a time when I didn’t tell employers about my
disability until right before I showed up for the interview because I thought I would get ruled out. Now
I’m at a stage in life where I just have it out there. You can find it on my website. It’s just there, and it’s
part of my story. I tell people up front if I talk to them on the phone, and they don’t know, I just tell
them right up front. It’s part of my story, you just embrace it.
[00:36:17.08]
Then people are like, “Oh, that’s very interesting.” I just tell the story of how that led me to want to be
educated, to want to be interested in inequality and financial issues. People appreciate that. Definitely
have your stories, and disability probably will end up being part of your story because it often is a big
definer, and people want to know about it. Just address it head-on.
[00:36:47.10] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah, there’s a lot of power in embracing your story fully as a disabled person, I think. Being able to
lead with that, I think, is something we’re seeing more and more of that in the world right now. I think
that’s a beautiful thing. I think that is definitely really great advice. Thank you for that.
[00:37:24.00]
My final question is, what advice would you give to people without disabilities who are serving on a
board that either has or wants to have people with disabilities on their board?
[00:37:41.21] – Jasmin Sethi
I would say if they’re already there, ask which people… At GFS, they ask me what I need in terms of
any kind of accommodation around materials or scoping out the site. Don’t make assumptions, just
ask.
[00:37:59.16]
Then, in terms of looking for people, I would say, all these networks are out there like yours, and reach
out to find people who are qualified and just like you would do for any other kind of recruiting, and just
try to meet people who have an interest. If you’re meeting a variety of people with all different
backgrounds, you should meet people with disabilities, just like you’re trying to meet people of both
genders, different race, different identifications. It would make sense to just meet diversity, diverse
audiences.
[00:38:43.10] – Adrienne Beckham
Yeah. Thank you. Those were all of my questions for you today. I want to thank you so much for your
time and all of your thoughtful insights and answers.
