“I couldn’t get out of my house and talk to new people,” Sonya Barlow says, as we walk over to a drinks station during a busy networking event. Having been discriminated in the workplace since leaving university, Sonya Barlow, now the CEO of an award-winning network, tells me that she was left in a “very dark place” last year. Yet a business idea that was sparked overnight in 2018 has led her to becoming the CEO of an empowering female group that is on the rise in London.

We’re surrounded by futuristic quirky offices, with big colourful open spaces, and plenty of free food; you could compare London’s funky Plexal Centre to a conference at one of Google’s innovative offices. “I’ve already had quite a lot of coffee today,” says Barlow, as she orders herself a hot chocolate.   

Barlow’s coffee consumption is a reflection on the long hours she’s spent networking and communicating with people today, you wouldn’t have thought she was the same person a year ago: “My life became everything but myself, it became very much about my nine-to-five, it became very much about being in a corporate world, and eventually it became quite toxic,” Barlow says.

Being the only woman of colour in a group of middle class white individuals, Barlow says this was the main cause to her depression: “In my first job I was made fun of for my accent,” she says. “Although I am well represented, there was a jar for me to put money in every time I spoke slang or pronounced something wrong.”

Although Barlow was born in Pakistan, she moved to England when she was just three years old and describes herself as “the most British person” you could meet. She attended a grammar school, and also went to one of the best business schools in the country, yet her ethnicity has led her to have a lost identity within the workplace. In her second job she was amongst 350 white colleagues who didn’t understand her cultural background, and she was often undermined by her managers: “If I asked for a pay rise or for any extra help they would hinder my career progression.”

Despite what Barlow has experienced, she didn’t quit, and sought to set up her own business. This was when Like Minded Females was born. Coming back from an event one night, Barlow and her friend Jui Joshi had a lightbulb moment: “We couldn’t find a community which represented us and our need for being around positive energy.” They wanted to create an organisation that would connect individuals and empower women by hosting brunch and panel events, with special speakers to impose positivity. In the past year they have rocketed; they have connected with over 3000 individuals and have made some life-long connections.

It’s pretty much impossible to imagine Barlow as the quiet and unsociable person she was last year. But now that she is back to her bubbly self and has started her own business, she is speaking out about her discrimination to help others find their identity: “I’ve had trash thrown at me because of my colour, and that was hurtful, but I’ve learned to rise above it,” she says. “I want to teach the younger generation to celebrate who they truly are, so they don’t change their identity just to please someone else.”

Being discriminated hit Barlow hard, but having embraced her ethnicity, her dream would be to expand to the Asian market and help underrepresented communities. She would someday love to leave her job working in tech to dedicate all of her energy to this community: “Something which started as a passion has grown so organically, it’s become a leading community in London, providing authentic initiatives for people to come together.”