Thriving as Ourselves: Navigating Neurodiversity and Belonging at Work

Welcome to the final SAWHE Power event for 2025 on 'Thriving as Ourselves: Navigating Neurodiversity and Belonging at Work'

This insightful session, led by Neurodiversity coach and consultant, Reena Anand, will explore, using lived experience and professional practice, how neurodiversity intersects with cultural identity and expectations, especially for South Asian women navigating the workplace.

The session will cover:

• The impact of cultural norms, masking, and systemic barriers on confidence, belonging, and visibility
• Strategies for self-advocacy and advocating for others
• Approaches to reframing neurodivergent identities through a strengths-based and culturally sensitive lens

AUTHOR BIO:

Reena Anand is a neurodiversity consultant, coach and speaker with a specialist focus on the intersection of race, culture and neurodiversity. A former solicitor and ombudsman, her work is grounded in lived experience: both her children are neurodivergent and navigating support systems as a global majority parent highlighted the urgent need for culturally aware, neuro-affirming practice - sparking her mission to drive change across communities, organisations and services.

Reena has worked with global corporate organisations, local authorities, NHS Trusts and schools to build more culturally responsive and neuro-affirming environments. Her parent workshops and talks draw on evidence-based research and first-hand knowledge of the challenges families face in securing appropriate support. She is committed to evidence-based practice and recently completed her Postgraduate Certification in Neurodiversity Coaching for the Workplace with Distinction, further strengthening her ability to support inclusive environments through both lived experience and academic insight.

She is the founder of Being Inclusive, a consultancy that supports families, schools and workplaces to remove structural and cultural barriers to inclusion. Reena is also the Chair of Governors at her local primary school and a trustee at the Race Equality Foundation.

Reena hosts the Unpacking Autism podcast and is currently writing a book for Jessica Kingsley Publishers (due 2026) on parenting autistic children from global majority backgrounds.

In 2024, she was awarded the Freedom of the City of London by the Lord Mayor and previously received the Lord Hastings Integrity Award at the Baton Awards.