Her Story
About Pamela
Pamela Kadakia founded Joy+Belonging around 2022-2023. She began her journey as an educator in the community college space in 2012 and taught until 2019. In 2020, she worked for a year at the California Department of Education. She is now shifting her focus from higher education to corporate settings, helping organizations create inclusive cultures where employees feel they belong. Kadakia, a first-generation immigrant's eldest daughter with parents from Hong Kong, emphasizes the importance of self-examination and releasing perfection in her approach to leadership and conflict resolution. She values clear communication and volunteering her time to assist foundations run by friends.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Pamela
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think my greatest value is kind of do the self-examination first. I think a lot of times... we're very quick to cast blame... And we don't give ourselves the time or the opportunity to sit with and do that self-internal examination. So, one of the things that I learned early on... is a lesson of kind of sitting and thinking through, well, how am I participating in this? How am I contributing to this in both in the negative or positive way, you know? And then also just, Clear communication, because 9 times out of 10, when there's conflict, it's because of just poor communication.
02What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
It's okay to make mistakes and release perfection. As a first generation immigrant's eldest daughter from Hong Kong, I felt like it was not okay to make mistakes for pretty much my entire life. It's really taken me in adulthood to unlearn that and learn that mistakes are teachers, and embracing the mistakes doesn't activate my body in the same way that it used to.
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