Minari Shah: The exceptional leader, communicator, and storyteller

Minari Shah is a curious, clear, innovative, and an inspiring communications leader with expertise in in corporate communications and public relations across various industries. During her three decades of career, she has contributed extensively and introduced new waves of storytelling and innovations which have been truly impactful. 

So, to honour and celebrate her remarkable work, we engaged in a candid conversation with her for the e4m PR & Corp Comm ‘Comms Pioneer’ series and explored the various phases of her personal and professional journey that cemented her name as one of the industry’s most exceptional leaders and a true pioneer.

In today’s story, we deep dive into Minari Shah’s journey and learn about:

• Her three decades of journey from a business journalist to an inspiring comms leader
• Highlights from her extensive experience across B2B and B2C sectors
• Her Contributions as a mentor
• Her blueprint for impactful communication campaigns 
• Her golden rules for success

Her journey from a business journalist to an inspiring communications leader

Walking us through her journey from a business journalist to an inspiring communications leader, she narrates, “I made the transition quite simply in the time of dotcom bust when I wasn’t getting paid by my publication. It wasn’t hard to transition from journalist to PR as I didn’t have any chip on my shoulder and I was also fairly young. The harder part was really when I realised that in a strong sales-driven organisation, a PR job can be marginalised easily. I got quite despondent then and then learnt early on that one had to be quite intentional in making it more impactful, to make one’s presence felt, right to the top, to make a difference to business rather than merely focus on media coverage.”

Highlights from her extensive experience across B2B and B2C sectors

Drawing on her extensive experience across B2B and B2C sectors, spanning multinational corporations and Indian companies, Shah emphasizes the importance of transcending tactical approaches in PR. “There are too many learnings to distil in one answer but I will state the most important one - to always go beyond tactical and to integrate PR into the heart of the business strategy,” she says. According to her, effective PR requires the courage to offer candid feedback to business leaders, helping craft strategies that address real needs rather than focusing solely on superficial media coverage. She noted that impactful PR goes beyond generating publicity, aiming instead to deliver measurable business outcomes.

Narrating her journey from a rookie PR professional to a senior leader, Shah shares a keen observation, “I have always had business leaders willing to listen to what’s actually impactful. So I do not believe that leaders are not willing to listen, nor do I believe it’s about the designation and seniority. It’s about using facts and data; it’s about building a cohesive strategy with demonstrable business connect. 

Her favourite campaigns

Sharing some of the most impactful campaigns she has led throughout her career, she mentions, “Launching the global Dell campaign Take Your Own Path first in India, Creating the marquee event DWEN (Dell Women Entrepreneurs Network) globally; multiple big and then innovative launches for Tata Motors new cars, Amazon Festival Home & Amazon Festival Yatra, creating the flagship event property with Amazon SMBHAV.” However, Shah opines that the real success lies beyond the campaigns – to be a part of the strategic business journeyfor each of these brands – for instance, being part of the leadership team that took Dell from being a new entrant in India at no. 5 to being the market leader; to be a part of the team that played a role in Tata Motors turnaround leading to current success, to playing a role in shaping the narrative of then fairly new-to-India Amazon, to make it India’s much loved and most trusted online shopping brand. 

Sharing the successes of the notable campaigns she led, Minari asserts, “These were campaigns with immense complexity, with significant national or global scale, with tangible and substantial business impact, working across various internal and external stakeholders and leveraging multiple channels. Many of these were also long-term campaigns that burnished the brand halo and were successful across many years (and regions).”

Her contributions as a mentor

When asked about the initiatives she’s passionate about other than her professional sphere, she unveils her passion for mentoring women leaders and supporting fearless leaders who can innovate and experiment, and are strategic.

She elaborated on her active participation in mentoring programs in companies she worked with as well as through organizations like Global Women in PR, where she has guided mentees from across the globe. Additionally, she mentions her mentoring efforts through Ladies Who Lead where she guides women leaders and young entrepreneurs, supporting them in their overall growth.

Her views on balancing moral compass with business objectives

Shedding some light on on how to balance being a "moral compass" for organizations while also driving business objectives, Shah shares, “Being the moral compass has always been a key part of being a reputation custodian so the most important part is to demonstrably show how reputation matters to business, why it would make a difference to customers or other stakeholders and therefore to work with a company’s leadership to build a brand narrative that squarely focused on pillars like customer trust, on social citizenship, on business integrity etc. A good development in the last decade is that globally, there is a clearly visible business merit in a robust reputation with issues such as sustainability, governance, economic impact, workplace conditions etc. all finding a strong customer and policy resonance and taking centre stage.” Addressing the potential tension between serving as a "conscience keeper" for businesses and meeting growth objectives, Shah points to the alignment between reputation and business interests as a positive development. “Relatively speaking, this reduces the friction between business objectives and being a conscience keeper for the business,” she briefs. 

Moments that made her journey fulfilling

Highlighting the most fulfilling part of her journey, she illustrates, “My moment of epiphany was in my second comms role, about 20 years back, that I had to bring PR and comms to the centre, to make it a leadership issue. Successfully doing this across many different Indian and global multinationals is what I would count as among my major achievements.” 

Besides this, she is proud of the teams she worked with – at Dell, at Tata Motors, at Amazon, and believes that she has worked with “accomplished, earnest, hard-working PR teams and colleagues (my own teams and agency partners)”; to together conceive and implement “wonderfully creative and scaled campaigns while always having a lot of fun”. “That camaraderie and the laughter, along with the shared learning, are among my most treasured moments in my career, along with business leaders recognising PR as a key function in success. Many of the young team members I worked with have gone on to leadership roles, in India and outside, in those companies or elsewhere and I am very proud of having worked with them all,” she says.

Her inspiration in storytelling and the growth of media landscape

Opening up about what keeps her creativity and passion alive in an ever-evolving industry, Shah exclaims, “There are so many stories always to be told!” with enthusiasm. For her, storytelling is intrinsically linked to people—whether it’s customers, employees, leaders, or partners. While stories in the communications world are crafted to support brands and companies, their essence remains rooted in the human experience. “So one can really never run out of stories because if one did, it would mean that business isn’t relevant to anyone!” she further exclaims. She explains a regular filter she used to measure this, saying, , “I have always asked my teams to think – would you stop and read that story, watch that video, notice the social post if it was not about your company and about people you know? And will it add to your insight about the company or change an opinion?”

She says her career has been driven by a dual challenge: discovering compelling narratives and bringing them to life in ways that create business impact. Whether as a journalist or a communications professional, she always found this pursuit both rewarding and invigorating. She recognizes the dynamic nature of the industry and adds that “From being over-indexing on media to growth of social platforms, the attention to user-generated content, the building of owned media channels, leveraging new forms of storytelling,” are the aspects that make this field exciting and challenging. 

Her advice for aspiring or young professionals

Minari offers valuable advice for budding PR & Comms professionals and emphasizes foundational principles and strategies for aspiring communicators to thrive in a dynamic industry, “I always ask them to deep dive and know the business in and out. What one might finally use in the campaigns may be the tip of the iceberg but without this, one cannot be a problem solver or even pre-empting business risks.” She also says her mantra is, “Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. Avoid spending time and resources on ‘vanity PR’ and instead focus on efforts that are truly needle-moving for the business”.

Lastly, Shah underscores the importance of work-life balance and personal growth, and guides professionals to have a life beyond work. She says, “Make sure to have a life beyond work—to have hobbies and things you care passionately about, and to make time for them. A well-read, well-rounded personality contributes significantly to becoming a more effective storyteller and communicator.” One of Shah’s most emphatic pieces of advice is to read voraciously and eclectically, build curiosity and don’t limit yourself to stories about your company or client.

Her future plans

After three decades in communications, she underscores the things that excites her most in the next chapter of her career, “The thing that I am really currently excited about is to build more sustainable, structured training and teaching mechanisms, to convert my insights and learnings into tangible teach-able PR techniques for the practising professionals and so really enable more and more PR leaders to be at the leadership table. Besides this, some other areas I am excited about – my recent learnings from running owned media platforms, my curiosity in what modern employee communications should look like as it becomes more critical to business organisations and my abiding interest in how to develop more precise measurement metrics and mechanisms for impact and results. These are the areas I will now hopefully be devote more time and attention to, working with industry leaders to build exciting platforms and systems.” 

There is a saying she learnt at Amazon and is still carrying with her even after she has moved on from there – “It’s still Day 1! There is indeed so much to do!”