About Farhana
Farhana is an award-winning social entrepreneur, visionary, coach, explorer and storyteller with more than 25 years of creative entrepreneurship and leadership experience. A self-described “one-stop shop,” Farhana has consistently envisioned, built and launched award-winning programs, initiatives and organizations from scratch in service to social change.
Farhana’s experience with changemaking began when, as a university student, her proposal to start a class on Kathak, an ancient storytelling dance from North India, was rejected by the school’s dean. After the dean challenged her to prove demand, Farhana petitioned the student body, gathering signatures across campus by hand to advocate offering the class as part of the school’s predominantly Western-focused dance repertoire. Her proposal was accepted and the class, taught by artist Gretchen Hayden Ruckert, would eventually become an accredited university course, exposing hundreds of students over more than two decades to Indian classical art. This experience would ignite Farhana's early work as an arts educator, performer, fundraiser, and program designer. Among her accomplishments include raising seed capital from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to produce the first, multi-day, classical Indian arts symposium at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She also designed the first Kathak youth dance company program in the U.S., enabling South Asian youth to break through elite stages of San Francisco Symphony Hall and the like to promote and preserve their ancestral art. The program still thrives today under The Chitresh Das Institute.
Motivated by seeing the economic struggles of women in her own family, Farhana was also changemaking in the economic development sphere. Here she helped to launch an entrepreneurship accelerator for low-income women as part of an Americorps/VISTA assignment. When the program closed due to a cash flow crunch, a philanthropist challenged her to start a new one. She then founded C.E.O. Women (Creating Economic Opportunities for Women) with a $1,000 seed grant. She and her team grew the organization into an award-winning nonprofit with a budget size of 1M, championing the entrepreneurial talents and assets of over 2,000 low-income immigrant women over a 12-year period. Under the organization, she and her talented team produced Grand Café English, a broadcast quality television series and curriculum designed to teach English and entrepreneurship through storytelling. The series is used today in adult education programs around the U.S.
In 2008, concerned with women’s rights globally, Farhana founded Bay Area Friends of Congo, an all-volunteer group led currently by Congolese-American activists, dedicated to raising awareness of human rights and environmental justice issues of the mineral conflict in Congo. In 2011, inspired by her passion for surfing, concern over ocean plastic, and desire for more diverse voices in the surf and ocean spaces, Farhana founded Brown Girl Surf, a unique platform and enterprise designed to raise environmental awareness and accelerate social and culture change for women and girls. Under her leadership, brown girl surf pioneered new storytelling narratives in surfing to international acclaim and accelerated programs around surfing and conservation for women and girls from Bangladesh to the San Francisco Bay.
Farhana is Principal of Surf Life Executive Coaching where she has spent the past 12 years coaching mission-driven executive leaders and their teams to reach their full potential and to create deeply resonant businesses and lives. She has worked with leaders in human rights, juvenile justice, environmental justice, conservation, reproductive rights, art, culture, business, architecture, design and science. In 2024 she became a Terra.do Fellow focusing on learning the science, human impacts and solutions to climate change which solidified her current coaching focus to support mission-driven leaders in climate.
Farhana is the recipient of numerous leadership awards including the Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurs. She has been a featured speaker at Patagonia, Google, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Tufts University, International Women in Business Conferences, and the Commonwealth Club to name a few. Her work has been featured in media outlets such as BBC News, ABC News, NPR, KQED, ESPNw, Women’s Health Magazine, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. In 2016, she was named one of Surfing World's 50 Most Intriguing People in Surfing. She has served as an advisor, board member and fellow to various nonprofits and philanthropies in the economic development, arts and affordable housing spaces throughout the past 25 years.
Farhana is a graduate of Tufts University and is a certified Co-Active and certified NeuroTransformation Coach. She trained 14 years in Indian classical dance under late master artist Pandit Chitresh Das and in Tahitian Ori under master artist Kumu Mahealani Uchiyama. She attended Ali Akbar College of Music in San Anselmo, California for seven years studying classical Indian percussion under master artist Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. Prior to dance, Farhana was a martial arts athlete and member of the U.S. National Karate Team in her youth.
A curious explorer of the world, Farhana has traveled to over 50 countries, to which she attributes her global perspective and ability to hold multiple realities. Her wanderlust inspired an ongoing set of adventure travel storytelling on themes of surfing, ocean, climate, sustainability and environmental justice. It also inspired the creation of Wild Surf Writers, a women’s writing circle she began for her surfing friends while locked down in North Africa during the pandemic.
Farhana resides in The San Francisco Bay Area of California (Huchiun/Oakland). Out of all the places she has traveled, she's still mesmerized by the flora, fauna and surf of Northern California. She is passionate about leadership, writing, the ocean, art, travel and a great brunch. She is immensely proud of the dance sisters she trained with for over 14 years, Farah Yasmeen Shaikh, Anjali Nath, Labonee Mohanta, and Leela Dance Collective, who emerged into world class artists and preservers of the Kathak tradition, the ancestral art she attributes to igniting her rich career and journey as a leading changemaker, coach, artist and storyteller.
Farhana’s experience with changemaking began when, as a university student, her proposal to start a class on Kathak, an ancient storytelling dance from North India, was rejected by the school’s dean. After the dean challenged her to prove demand, Farhana petitioned the student body, gathering signatures across campus by hand to advocate offering the class as part of the school’s predominantly Western-focused dance repertoire. Her proposal was accepted and the class, taught by artist Gretchen Hayden Ruckert, would eventually become an accredited university course, exposing hundreds of students over more than two decades to Indian classical art. This experience would ignite Farhana's early work as an arts educator, performer, fundraiser, and program designer. Among her accomplishments include raising seed capital from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to produce the first, multi-day, classical Indian arts symposium at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She also designed the first Kathak youth dance company program in the U.S., enabling South Asian youth to break through elite stages of San Francisco Symphony Hall and the like to promote and preserve their ancestral art. The program still thrives today under The Chitresh Das Institute.
Motivated by seeing the economic struggles of women in her own family, Farhana was also changemaking in the economic development sphere. Here she helped to launch an entrepreneurship accelerator for low-income women as part of an Americorps/VISTA assignment. When the program closed due to a cash flow crunch, a philanthropist challenged her to start a new one. She then founded C.E.O. Women (Creating Economic Opportunities for Women) with a $1,000 seed grant. She and her team grew the organization into an award-winning nonprofit with a budget size of 1M, championing the entrepreneurial talents and assets of over 2,000 low-income immigrant women over a 12-year period. Under the organization, she and her talented team produced Grand Café English, a broadcast quality television series and curriculum designed to teach English and entrepreneurship through storytelling. The series is used today in adult education programs around the U.S.
In 2008, concerned with women’s rights globally, Farhana founded Bay Area Friends of Congo, an all-volunteer group led currently by Congolese-American activists, dedicated to raising awareness of human rights and environmental justice issues of the mineral conflict in Congo. In 2011, inspired by her passion for surfing, concern over ocean plastic, and desire for more diverse voices in the surf and ocean spaces, Farhana founded Brown Girl Surf, a unique platform and enterprise designed to raise environmental awareness and accelerate social and culture change for women and girls. Under her leadership, brown girl surf pioneered new storytelling narratives in surfing to international acclaim and accelerated programs around surfing and conservation for women and girls from Bangladesh to the San Francisco Bay.
Farhana is Principal of Surf Life Executive Coaching where she has spent the past 12 years coaching mission-driven executive leaders and their teams to reach their full potential and to create deeply resonant businesses and lives. She has worked with leaders in human rights, juvenile justice, environmental justice, conservation, reproductive rights, art, culture, business, architecture, design and science. In 2024 she became a Terra.do Fellow focusing on learning the science, human impacts and solutions to climate change which solidified her current coaching focus to support mission-driven leaders in climate.
Farhana is the recipient of numerous leadership awards including the Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurs. She has been a featured speaker at Patagonia, Google, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Tufts University, International Women in Business Conferences, and the Commonwealth Club to name a few. Her work has been featured in media outlets such as BBC News, ABC News, NPR, KQED, ESPNw, Women’s Health Magazine, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. In 2016, she was named one of Surfing World's 50 Most Intriguing People in Surfing. She has served as an advisor, board member and fellow to various nonprofits and philanthropies in the economic development, arts and affordable housing spaces throughout the past 25 years.
Farhana is a graduate of Tufts University and is a certified Co-Active and certified NeuroTransformation Coach. She trained 14 years in Indian classical dance under late master artist Pandit Chitresh Das and in Tahitian Ori under master artist Kumu Mahealani Uchiyama. She attended Ali Akbar College of Music in San Anselmo, California for seven years studying classical Indian percussion under master artist Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. Prior to dance, Farhana was a martial arts athlete and member of the U.S. National Karate Team in her youth.
A curious explorer of the world, Farhana has traveled to over 50 countries, to which she attributes her global perspective and ability to hold multiple realities. Her wanderlust inspired an ongoing set of adventure travel storytelling on themes of surfing, ocean, climate, sustainability and environmental justice. It also inspired the creation of Wild Surf Writers, a women’s writing circle she began for her surfing friends while locked down in North Africa during the pandemic.
Farhana resides in The San Francisco Bay Area of California (Huchiun/Oakland). Out of all the places she has traveled, she's still mesmerized by the flora, fauna and surf of Northern California. She is passionate about leadership, writing, the ocean, art, travel and a great brunch. She is immensely proud of the dance sisters she trained with for over 14 years, Farah Yasmeen Shaikh, Anjali Nath, Labonee Mohanta, and Leela Dance Collective, who emerged into world class artists and preservers of the Kathak tradition, the ancestral art she attributes to igniting her rich career and journey as a leading changemaker, coach, artist and storyteller.
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