(May 5, 2025) As a child in Kuala Lumpur, Shamila Gopalan spent evenings tucked under her desk lamp, filling the margins of her schoolbooks with sketches of distant cities. Those innocent daydreams took on sharper edges when her mother sank into a deep depression and died at just forty-two. “If my mother had even one strong female role model to support her, it might have made all the difference,” Gopalan has said, reflecting on how that loss fueled her lifelong mission. Today, through HerWit, her profit-for-purpose platform she founded in Melbourne, she channels that personal fire into mentoring women of colour—helping them launch and scale their businesses while growing into confident leaders.
Ordinary World: Roots in Malaysia
Born to Indian-descent parents in multicultural Malaysia, Shamila learned early how different identities can intersect and collide. At home, she was Malay by birth and Indian by heritage; at school, she was a high-achieving student compared against both local and expatriate peers. Family life carried its own pressures: her mother’s battle with depression left Shamila craving a guiding presence she never found at home. That void planted a seed —she would one day become that guide for others.
Shamila Gopalan
An MBA in Manhattan
That quest for guidance led her across the globe. Driven by a hunger for knowledge, Gopalan landed in New York City to “earn my Master’s in Business from The City University of New York,” diving into tough case-study debates and global finance lessons . In those lecture halls, she sharpened her analytical skills and learned how to thrive in completely new surroundings.
Climbing the Corporate Ladder
Her graduation opened doors at CNN, where she stepped into the fast-paced news business as a strategy manager. Over the next 20 years, she moved up at Fox International and National Geographic, heading content and commercial teams across Asia and the U.S. Even in senior roles with larger budgets, she was often the only woman of colour in the boardroom—and she came to see that corporate titles alone couldn’t break down deep-rooted biases.
It was during a sabbatical from CNN that Shamila saw new possibilities. Free from quarterly targets, she turned to the people she’d met over 15 years. “One of the great things that I had after leaving CNN and starting my business is the very strong network that I have built,” she told Australia’s Pause Awards audience . Those connections became her safety net and her springboard, giving her the confidence to leave a corner office and start her own venture.
Pivoting Towards Entrepreneurship
Shamila’s first startup taught her humility. Although she had planned carefully, cash ran out sooner than she expected, and old doubts crept back in. Instead of giving up, she treated every mistake—from flawed pricing to team clashes—as a lesson in grit. Drawing on those insights, her second venture achieved a successful exit. Yet she couldn’t shake the idea that others could learn from her experience and avoid the same pitfalls.
Launching HerWit in Melbourne
In 2018, she moved to Melbourne for its lively start-up culture and diverse community. There, she launched HerWit—a profit-for-purpose platform that helps women of colour take their businesses from idea to lasting success. HerWit combines one-on-one coaching, hands-on workshops, and a supportive peer network—exactly the kind of guidance she says she wished she’d had at the start of her own journey.
She didn’t stop with HerWit. In 2018 she became Chief Commercial Officer at SisterWorks, building programs that give migrant and refugee women the skills to enter the workforce. She also joined the board of Media Diversity Australia to push for fair representation in film and journalism. And on university campuses, she mentors STEM and creative students, showing them how to use professional strategies to grow their own projects.
At an International Women’s Day panel in 2021, Shamila directly addressed past injustices: “We started from not being able to vote, work, own land, make our own decisions – we have to celebrate and appreciate those who have come before us and look forward to the other things we need to do to push the needle further,” she told the audience, linking history to a call for shared progress.
Sharpening the Pitch
She focuses on practical pitching skills in a funding environment that still favours men. In HerWit workshops, she tells founders to “be confident, but not confrontational in asking for what you deserve,” and shows them how to back every ask with clear financial projections and market research . This combination of mindset coaching and hands-on tools has helped many solo founders grow into effective business leaders.
Her persistence paid off when a major Australian bank sponsored a multi-city HerWit tour, funding workshops that tripled enrolment in six months. Success stories piled up—one tech startup landed its first corporate contract, and an artisan food brand doubled its revenue—proving the program’s impact.
Building the Blueprint for Others
As HerWit’s impact grows, Shamila also mentors female scientists through the Superstars of STEM program, judges social-enterprise entries at the Pause Awards to spotlight diverse founders, and co-hosts the podcast Unapologetically Brown, where she and her guests share honest stories of women of colour building businesses.
Now, when Shamila looks at those old sketches, she doesn’t see just dreams—she sees the steps she’s taken and the guide she’s built for others. From a small apartment in Kuala Lumpur to boardrooms around the world and back to community spaces in Melbourne, her journey has led her full circle. By sharing the support she once needed, Shamila Gopalan makes sure the next generation of women entrepreneurs never has to go it alone.
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