#33 Daily Harvest's Head of Comms and Brand Marketing, Sushma Dwivedi
Comms by day, hindu priestess by night
Welcome! I’m Simi Shah, and every other week, I dive deep into the journey of a South Asian trailblazer. If you enjoy this issue, subscribe and write us a review.
Hot of the Pod🎙️ Sushma Dwivedi, Head of Comms and Brand Marketing @ Daily Harvest
For our latest episode, I’m joined by Sushma Dwivedi, Head of Communications and Brand Marketing at Daily Harvest and Founder of the Purple Pundit Project.
Sushma spent the early innings of her career with major global communications firms Edelman and Fleishman Hillard. Focused on food and beverage, she worked closely with companies like Chobani, Dannon, and Perdue Farms.
In 2020, she joined Daily Harvest, a food startup that makes ready-to-blend smoothies, soups, and more all with the intent of making healthy eating easier. In November 2021, the startup raised their Series D at a valuation of $1 billion backed by investors like Serena Williams and Gwyneth Paltrow.
But that’s not all. Sushma moonlights as a Hindu priestess or pundit. In 2016, she founded Purple Pundit Project to help South Asian couples more easily find modern, inclusive pundits and officiants for their weddings. To date, she’s officiated over 40 weddings, many of which were for LGBTQ+ couples — and one while she was in labor.
More on that story below!
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In the last few years, we’ve seen a number of food startups get a really big start and then lose that momentum. What compelled you to join Daily Harvest? What sold you on the company?
First of all, you're absolutely right. That’s been par for the course for the last year or two. I built my career in food beverage. I started out at Fleishman Hillard on the consumer marketing side of things. I moved to Edelman to focus on corporate reputation and I led the food and beverage sector in the New York office for quite some time. It really gave me an in depth understanding of the food landscape for both big food — I've been embedded at PepsiCo and I've worked with Chobani twice — as well as smaller brands like Blue Apron.
What brought me to Daily Harvest was I had lunch with Rachel Drori, the CEO. We Mom-ed out for an hour because we have kids in similar age range. As I started to learn more about all the food that was upcoming, my interest became increasingly piqued. I was really looking to be more aligned with my own values on a daily basis. Knowing that Daily Harvest was a company that had been rooted in the practices of making sure that our food was organic; that we are moving towards regenerative farming practices; that we are encouraging farmers to transition their land and paying for it on the company's dime meant a lot to me… To me, the charge here was very much add more shine to a really substantive company. And that's a marketer's dream. It's been super fun, a wild ride over the course of almost two years for me.
Tell me about your side hustle as a pundit and the time you officiated a wedding while in labor.
I was at the hospital in labor with our second child. It was noisy on the floor and I asked what was going on, and they said, ‘Well, we're trying to find a hospital chaplain. There is a couple two doors down who went to City Hall to get their marriage license, but then her water broke.’ I didn't know this at the time, but there are different birth certificate implications if you're legally married at the time of child's birth. So I say, ‘This is totally random. But listen, if you can't find the chaplain, I could do it. I'm ordained.’ She kind of just laughed me off and was like, ‘Oh, that's really sweet. And it’s weird because you're in labor too.’
Ten minutes later, a very sheepish looking resident walks into my hospital room and says, ‘Um, Sushma, we haven't met yet. But I hear you can officiate weddings. Is that right?’ And she said that they found the hospital chaplain, but he wasn't ordained, so he couldn't legally marry them. So she says, ‘Now you by no means have to do this because, again, you're also in labor. But we figured since you mentioned it, we would see what was feasible.’ I asked my OB, ‘How far away am I from actually giving birth?’ And he said at least four hours. And I'm like, ‘I totally got this.’ And we had a beautiful ceremony — for not that long — lots of tears, lots of laughs. It was the craziest thing ever.
In 2021, a New York Times piece highlighting your work came out, and you faced a lot of criticism because (1) people aren’t used to seeing female pundits and (2) people took issue with you officiating LGBTQ+ weddings. How did you grapple with the criticism, especially as someone that's used to operating in the public arena?
It's nuts, right? The comms person in me absolutely knew that this is going to be a 48 hour news cycle. It went up online, and I got so much hate for it. And then it came up in print, and I got a lot more hater-ade. Every bone in my body knew to just let it be. It would die. They would move onto something else in time.
But the human in me was dying to go battle with every human being throwing any vitriol out there and to defend myself. I didn't do it because I didn't want to extend that news cycle any further. But it was really hard. I'd be lying if I said it rolled right off my back. I spent many sleepless nights that week and shed many a tear.
The flipside is: I also saw an overwhelming amount of support. And that's what kept me going. It was really wonderful to receive notes of support from younger South Asians who were like, ‘Listen, this sucks, but you're you're fighting the good fight’. I also saw a lot of support from reform rabbis who reached out and we're like, ‘Shalom, sister, we have been where you are, and it's tough. Please keep doing what you're doing; please don't let it scare you off. We've been there. It's tough to ride the wave. But everybody deserves more inclusive religion. And one day, we hope to partner on a Hin-Jew wedding together!’ So I've got a little posse now of rabbi friends!
Full episode on Apple, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you stream podcasts. Until next time!