Sonia Dandona Hirdaramani

Stories Seldom Told

“When I first heard the term unconscious biases, it actually had a negative connotation to me, as the word bias often does. But after some thought, I realised that unconscious biases are actually very natural. What separates us as humans is our ability to learn from our experiences, both good and bad. Now, like emotions, we have positive ones and negative ones, the problematic ones are the bad ones, like for example, anger. How do we deal with that negative emotion, we have to acknowledge it, we have to manage it.”

Sonia Dandona Hirdaramani had a career in finance, fashion and entertainment before pivoting to personal investing and non-profit work after her move from New York to Sri Lanka.

When she was working in entertainment and fashion, she was commended by Hillary Clinton for building bridges between South Asia and the USA

She currently lives in Sri Lanka with her husband and two young sons.

An occasional writer, Sonia writes a column, Island Life, Global Views, in the Daily Mirror, the English newspaper with the highest circulation in the country.

She also wrote a chapter for Anupam Kher’s best-selling book, “Your Best Day Is Today.” She is a graduate of Columbia University and completed a Harvard University Graduate Proseminar in Journalism.