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The First, the Few, the Only: an ABTB Means Business Fireside Adventure with nFormation’s Deepa Purushothaman and Fireside’s Falon Fatemi
March 1, 2022 @ 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
$32.50
About the Event
For over ten years, Adventures by the Book has been offering our signature one-of-a-kind, multi-sensorial events and travels with authors. That’s because when it comes to connecting people and communities with books, we mean business!
And now, we are taking that mission quite literally and are thrilled to welcome you to join the next in our new Adventures by the Book Means Business series, offering you the opportunity to meet some of the greatest minds in the business world.
And speaking of the greatest minds in business, we are thrilled to celebrate the first day of Women’s History Month with Deepa Purushothaman, co-founder of nFormation professional community for women of color, as she discusses her inspiring new book, The First, the Few, the Only, with Fireside co-founder and CEO Falon Fatemi.
Here is your chance to join the live conversation between Deepa and Falon, on the exciting new platform that Falon co-founded, to discuss The First, the Few, the Only. Learn how to support their deeply personal call to action for women of color to find power from within and to join together in community.
Your Adventure includes a hardcover copy of The First, the Few, the Only (with signed bookplate), tax, shipping within the U.S. and Canada, a live Fireside discussion with Deepa and Falon, Q&A, and the unique opportunity to converse live* with these brilliant creative artists and innovators.
*Admission to this event is unique, as Fireside is open by invite only. Simply purchase a book below and we will send you a private VIP link to attend the virtual event. Use your iPhone or iPad to chat live with the authors on the virtual stage; however, or listen to the live broadcast on all other devices. Event access is provided via instructions emailed to you the week of the event.
About the Author and Book
Deepa Purushothaman is the author of The First, The Few, The Only: How Women of Color can Redefine Power in Corporate America and the co-founder of nFormation, a company that provides a brave, safe, and new space for professionals who are women of color.
Prior to this, Deepa spent more than twenty years at Deloitte and was ‘a first’: an Indian American woman and one of the youngest people to make partner in the company’s history. In her time there, she helped grow Deloitte’s Social Impact Practice, served as a National Managing Partner of Inclusion, and served as the Managing Partner of WIN—the firm’s renowned program to recruit, retain, and advance women.
The First, The Few, The Only is a deeply personal call to action for women of color to find power from within and to join together in community, advocating for a new corporate environment where we all belong—and are accepted—on our own terms.
Women of color comprise one of the fastest-growing segments in the corporate workforce, yet often we are underrepresented—among the first, few, or only ones in a department or company. For too long, corporate structures, social zeitgeist, and cultural conditioning have left us feeling exhausted and downtrodden, believing that in order to “fit in” and be successful, we must hide or change who we are.
As a former senior partner at a large global services firm, Deepa Purushothaman experienced these feelings of isolation and burnout. She met with hundreds of other women of color across industries and cultural backgrounds, eager to hear about their unique and shared experiences. In doing so, she has come to understand our collective setbacks—and the path forward in achieving our goals.
Business must evolve—and women of color have the potential to lead that transformation. We must begin by pushing back against toxic messaging—including the things we tell ourselves—while embracing the valuable cultural viewpoints and experiences that give us unique perspectives at work. By fully realizing our own strengths, we can build collective power and use it to confront microaggressions, outdated norms, and workplace misconceptions; create cultures where belonging is never conditional; and rework corporations to be genuinely inclusive to all.
About the Moderator
Falon Fatemi co-founded interactive entertainment platform Fireside with Mark Cuban and Mike Ihbe. Previously she was the Founder of Node, the first horizontal AI-as-a-service platform that enables users of business applications to see into the future by putting the power of prediction into third-party applications with 4 simple API calls. Node had raised $40M from top tier investors and was acquired by SugarCRM in Aug of 2020.
In September 2020, Falon was listed as Fortune’s 40 under 40 as one of the most influential people in Technology: https://fortune.com/40-under-40/2020/falon-fatemi/.
Previously, at age 19, Falon was the youngest employee at Google and has spent over a decade focused on go-to-market strategy, global expansion, and strategic partnerships at Google, YouTube, and the startup world.
In her free time, Falon writes a column for Forbes covering company building in Silicon Valley and how AI is impacting the future of work forbes.com/sites/falonfatemi/. In 2019 she was recognized as Goldman Sachs top 100 intriguing entrepreneurs and in Inc Magazine as a Science Pioneer in the top 100 Women Building America’s Most Innovative and Ambitious Businesses.
In 2018 she was recognized in Fast Company as one of the top 100 Most Creative People in Business and in SFBusiness Times as one of the 40 under 40 visionaries changing the bay area and the world. In 2017, Falon was deemed “The Rainmaker” as one of the 50 women on Marie Claire’s New Guard list comprised of “female visionaries changing the world we live in.” She is also a contributor for Entrepreneur Magazine, and has written articles for Wired, Business Insider, Fast Company, Venturebeat, Re/Code, TechCrunch, Huffington Post and more.
About Fireside
We are thrilled to announce that Adventures by the Book has been invited to host a literary series on Fireside which will include book discussions, author talks, book clubs, special presentations, and much more.
During the course of WWII, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted a series of “fireside chats” on the radio, as a way to regularly communicate self-assurance and calm during times of despair and uncertainty in our country. While once a thing of the past, thanks to the brilliant collaboration of billionaire entrepreneur and Shark Tank TV star, Mark Cuban, and Falon Fatemi, former CEO and Founder of Node.ai, Fireside chats are back, bigger and better than ever, and in a technological format that allows YOU to actively participate!
Fireside is the exclusive, invite-only new podcast platform for the next generation – a socially responsible space for us to come together in real-time to collaborate and create meaningful conversations. Together, we will engage in discussion, debate, and discourse in a public forum and make it a thing of celebration and beauty. We are ready to share our microphone with you and hope you’ll join us as we collaborate in the world’s most dynamic auditorium.
