Veenoo Sharma is the Founder and President of The Power Diaspora Forum (TPDF) and a Commonwealth Advisor on Diaspora Entrepreneurship. A serial entrepreneur, she has co-founded a portfolio of high-growth brands and built ventures across residential and commercial real estate. She created TPDF with a clear mission: to equip female leaders with better access to capital, policy and political networks to smash glass ceilings and rewrite the rules for the women who come after them.
Why did you become an entrepreneur?
My journey into entrepreneurship started long before being an entrepreneur became fashionable.
When my family experienced bankruptcy, I learned very quickly how to hustle. I was studying law at the time and I realised I needed to make money to help my dad, which ultimately led me into investment banking.
Generating cash, pivoting when things weren’t working, and spotting opportunities became essential. It taught me resilience, but it also showed me that there was very little work I was unwilling to do if it helped move things forward.
My father was an entrepreneur, so I also grew up around business conversations, risk-taking and problem-solving. Looking back, those experiences shaped me far more than I realised at the time.
What started as necessity eventually became ambition. Once you’ve experienced the freedom of building something yourself and operating without a ceiling on what is possible, it’s difficult to imagine doing anything else.
Do you ever regret giving up your law career?
Initially, yes. For several years I thought about returning to law. It’s a respected profession, and there is comfort in having a clearly defined career path. Entrepreneurship can often feel like the complete opposite.
However, I couldn’t imagine going back now.
My law degree gave me an excellent foundation for business. The attention to detail, analytical thinking, research skills and ability to navigate complexity have all proved invaluable throughout my entrepreneurial journey. I may not practise law, but I use my legal training every day.
What has been your biggest success as an entrepreneur to date?
Completing my first new-build development in central Edinburgh.
Anyone who has worked in property development will know that it is not for the faint-hearted. There are countless moving parts, challenges you never anticipated, and lessons you can only learn by going through the process yourself.
That project taught me more than almost any business course ever could. The learning curve was enormous.
I still remember the day the final property sold. It was one of those rare moments where you stop and appreciate just how much has gone into getting something over the finish line.
Tell us more about The Power Diaspora Forum (TPDF).
TPDF is both a personal journey and, I hope, a legacy platform.
It was created to help women access the relationships, capital, mentorship, acceleration and opportunities needed to scale. Throughout my own career, I have seen first-hand that talent alone is rarely enough. You can have the most brilliant idea in the world, but if you’re not operating in the right rooms and building the right relationships, progress becomes much harder.
For me, TPDF is not about access alone. Women have already proven they belong in every room. The challenge now is ensuring women are represented in the rooms where decisions are actually being made.
When we look at leadership across politics, business, media and finance, the higher we go, the fewer women we find. TPDF exists to help change that.
Why do you think something like this is important?
Because the numbers still tell us there is work to do.
If we look across politics, business, finance and many of the world’s most influential institutions, women remain underrepresented in senior decision-making positions.
We have spent years opening doors and creating access, which is important. But the next challenge is scale. How do we help more women move into positions where they influence strategy, policy, investment and leadership?
I also believe women often bring a different perspective to leadership. Emotional intelligence, collaboration and long-term thinking are qualities that can strengthen institutions and organisations.
Most importantly, our daughters need to see that there are fewer ceilings left to break. Success should not feel rare or exceptional. It should feel achievable.
Why do you think historically female founders have struggled to raise capital?
I think there are both structural and cultural reasons.
Many women continue to carry a disproportionate share of responsibilities within the home and family. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it can mean women are effectively doing two jobs at once.
Building a business often requires networking, relationship-building and visibility. Those opportunities frequently happen outside traditional working hours, and not everyone has equal access to them.
There has also historically been a perception that female founders represent a higher risk, despite growing evidence to the contrary.
As a result, women often face both a perception challenge and an opportunity challenge. Neither is insurmountable, but they do help explain why raising capital has traditionally been more difficult.
You are speaking at the United Nations later this year. Can you tell us more about that?
TPDF is hosting its Women in Power series across several major international institutions throughout 2026.
Next month, we will host a roundtable at the United Nations Office in Geneva, bringing together senior political figures, diplomats, business leaders and policymakers to discuss the barriers that continue to prevent women from scaling into positions of leadership and influence.
The goal is to produce a practical policy brief containing recommendations that governments, institutions and businesses can use to better support women into positions of power.
Following Geneva, we will continue the series at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and at Commonwealth Headquarters in London.
The focus throughout is simple: moving the conversation from awareness to action.
What does it mean to be a diaspora entrepreneur and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
Diaspora entrepreneurs are natural builders.
There is something powerful about leaving one place, creating opportunities in another, and building a life from the ground up. That experience often develops resilience, adaptability and a willingness to take risks.
It also creates a global mindset. You become comfortable navigating different cultures, markets and ways of thinking, which is a significant advantage in business and international collaboration.
The downside is that many diaspora communities have inherited a survival mentality. The drive to succeed can be so strong that work-life balance is often sacrificed in the process.
I do think younger generations are changing that. They are proving that ambition and wellbeing do not have to be mutually exclusive.
In your life, who has been your greatest inspiration?
My parents.
As immigrants, they faced challenges that many people never see. They experienced bankruptcy, rebuilt their lives and refused to allow setbacks to define them.
They taught me resilience, determination and the importance of character.
My father was also a very collaborative entrepreneur. He always believed that success should create value for others, not just for yourself. That philosophy remains central to how I approach business today and is very much reflected in the ethos of TPDF.
What was the best advice you’ve ever been given as an entrepreneur?
To make every business decision with integrity.
There will always be opportunities to take shortcuts, but I firmly believe that if integrity is absent, it eventually catches up with you.
You cannot build a lasting legacy without trust, and trust is built through consistent actions over time.
Businesses grow, markets change and industries evolve, but integrity remains one of the few things that never goes out of date.
