After much emotional effort I wrote this three days after Dolly Parton passed . I am the only one in my immediate circle who loves Dolly Parton and her music, let alone know who she was. The kind of grief you carry for someone like that passing – that no one around you can relate to – its different.

I grew up in a nondescript small town in India, a long way from the Smoky Mountains. But somewhere along the way, a woman from a one room cabin in Tennessee taught me more about leadership than most of the books I’ve read.

Dolly Parton never apologised for who she was, all of it – the hair, the rhinestones, the laugh. She once said she knew exactly what she looked like and did it on purpose!

People underestimated her for decades and she let them, right up until she was the one who’d written the song, built the theme park, and bought the rights back.

That’s the first thing she taught me- be yourself, loudly, unapologetically and let your work speak.

The second thing was kindness that isn’t the performative or meek kind. The kind that funds a vaccine during a pandemic and gives away a book a month to millions of children who might never own one otherwise. She gave quietly, constantly, and without making anyone feel small for needing it.

The third was women. Her whole career was proof that a woman could be warm and formidable in the same breath. She never once shied away from sharing learning’s from her own journey of making it – her wit, clarity and ethic all out there in what she said and how she lived her life as a true inspiration to women around the world. She held the door open and never once pulled it shut behind her.

I hope that I’ve built my own leadership ethos around those three things. Be yourself. Be kind. Bring other women with you. All while caring for your work and doing the best you can. Like ‘I’ll always love you’ and ‘Here you come again’….

Her music will be playing on my earphones for a long while yet. If she meant something to you too, her family has asked for no flowers just a donation to the Imagination Library, so another child gets a book.

Thank you, Dolly. Go on being yourself, wherever you are.