65: Telling the Stories of Immigrant America Through Our Place Cookware with Shiza Shahid

This week's episode is truly such an honour and treat for me to share with you all, as the guest this week is Shiza Shahid. Shiza is someone who is an incredible inspiration, a force for positive change in the world, and a woman who knows how to creatively shake up the status quo in business ventures so that they can be rooted in community building and diversity.

Shiza is already known as the co-founder of the Malala Fund, as well as NOW Ventures, but she's on the show today to share some exciting details her latest venture, the direct-to-consumer cookware company Our Place. Hospitality is sacred in Shahid's native Pakistan and feeding someone is an expression of love. Shiza brings her home country's passion for hospitality into all of her business ventures. She has a strong desire to leverage philanthropy, entrepreneurship, technology, and the media to drive scalable social impact in business. Our Place, her e-commerce brand, is making unique cookware rooted in the modern multi-ethnic American kitchen, cofounded with Amir Tehrani and Zach Rosner, further embodies this passion. Our Place sets itself apart from its competitors by focusing their efforts on sustainable packaging, non-toxic non-stick coating on their signature Always Pan free of Teflon and PFAs. The brand launched in September 2019 with its Essentials Collection at Hank's Mini Market in South LA in partnership with the LA Food Policy Council to end food deserts in the region. Their following collections focus on unsung cultural traditions such as Nochebuena and Lunar New Year and give back to the communities they source their products from.

Whether it's artisans in Oaxaca, MX or female-owned and operated factories in China - Our Place's main focus is doing things better, better for the environment, better for the community and better for their workers. Shiza shares today how Our Place came to be, the way her relationship with kitchen and culture influenced how she runs the business – from the product development to how it's shared and styled.

Learn More about Shiza and Our Place:

• Our Place Website
• Instagram: @ourplace
• Instagram: @shiza
• Facebook: @fromourplace
• Twitter: @ourplace