Helen Thomas: Founder & CEO, DeafMetrix

Origin Story: Identity, Upbringing & Early Influences

You’ve spoken candidly about shrinking yourself creatively while growing up Deaf. What was young Helen like before the world taught you to take up less space?

Young Helen was loud, not in sound, but in presence. I was the child who watched everything, questioned everything, and noticed every crack in the world long before anyone admitted those cracks existed. I wasn’t quiet by nature; I was quiet because the world decided that Deaf children should apologise for existing, for asking too much, for needing too much, for disrupting the convenience of other people’s comfort.

Before the world taught me to shrink, I was imaginative, bold, stubbornly curious. I built worlds in my head because the real one didn’t know what to do with me. And every time an adult dismissed my voice, or a teacher decided my Deafness was an inconvenience instead of a culture, a belief, or a way of being another piece of that world tightened around me. I learnt silence not because I was Deaf, but because people preferred me that way.

When you look back at your childhood and early education, what moments shaped the boldness, fire, and unapologetic honesty you lead with today?

Honestly? Anger. Not rage but the quiet, disciplined anger of a child who saw everything yet wasn’t allowed to claim what she saw. Watching systems fail my parents, watching interpreters misrepresent my words, watching teachers assume stupidity where there was simply lack of access all of that lit a fuse.

But there were beautiful moments too:
I had to become my own translator, my own advocate, my own fighter, long before any child should. And when you grow up teaching adults how to communicate, you eventually realise you’re built to redesign the whole system, not just survive it.

Did you have creative or leadership instincts early on that you now recognise, but perhaps didn’t feel safe or empowered to express at the time?

Absolutely leadership was there long before I had the language for it. I was always the one other student came to when they didn’t understand something. I was always the one organising, fixing, explaining, bridging. But I never called it leadership because society doesn’t label Deaf girls as leaders; they label us as problems to manage.

Creativity? That was my secret rebellion. Writing, imagining, building things with stories, it was the only place the world couldn’t interrupt me. It was the one space where Deafness wasn’t treated as a flaw but as a different way of seeing.

You studied both law and accounting — fields often associated with structure, rules, and frameworks. How did those disciplines shape the way you now redesign systems and challenge broken narratives?

Law taught me that systems aren’t neutral; they are designed by people with assumptions, biases, blind spots. Accounting taught me that numbers don’t lie but people do. Together, they taught me how to dissect a structure, find the flaw, expose the pattern, and rebuild it in a way that actually works for real humans.

Those disciplines gave me a lens but my Deafness gave me the truth.

Before the strategist, before the advocate, who were you becoming?

I was becoming someone the world didn’t know how to handle.
A Deaf girl who refused to disappear.
A child who realised early on that silence is not the absence of sound; it’s the consequence of systems that refuse to listen.
Someone who learned that shrinking doesn’t keep you safe, it keeps you erased.

Who was I becoming?

Someone dangerous in the best possible way.
Someone who would grow up and challenge the very foundations that once tried to contain her.
Someone who would take every moment of forced silence and turn it into strategy, structure, and truth.
I wasn’t becoming an advocate.
I wasn’t becoming a strategist.
I was becoming myself unapologetically, powerfully, and on my own terms.

And the world is still catching up.

The 14-Second Turning Point

You’ve said your life changed “in 14 seconds.” Can you talk about the emotional, cultural, and identity shifts that followed; not just the physical ones?

There wasn’t a countdown, no dramatic movie moment…just one quiet, brutal realisation that the life I thought I was building no longer existed in the shape I expected. It wasn’t the physical shift that changed everything; it was the emotional collapse that followed.

There’s a moment where you stop bargaining with the world:
“If I try harder…”
“If I behave better…”
“If I make myself smaller…”

and you suddenly understand that the world was never built for you in the first place.

That was my turning point.

Emotionally, it felt like the ground gave way.

Culturally, it felt like I was stepping into a no-man’s-land….too Deaf for hearing spaces, too questioned for Deaf spaces, too honest for both.

Identity-wise, it felt like someone had lifted the curtain and shown me the machinery behind society: the assumptions, the inbuilt design failures, the ways people prefer convenience over humanity.

Losing something in an instant didn’t break me; it broke the illusion I had been taught to live inside.

What did you discover about yourself in the years that followed that you may never have learned otherwise?

I discovered that resilience isn’t a personality trait; it’s what’s left when you realise nobody is coming to save you.

I discovered that survival sharpens your vision: you see hypocrisies, cracks, and uncomfortable truths with painful clarity.

I discovered that silence isn’t passive; it’s armour.

And I learned that Deafness wasn’t my limitation; the world’s inability to imagine me was.

Most of all, I learned this:
When life strips you down to nothing, you get to rebuild yourself without permission.

At what point did you begin to understand the difference between disability and the systems that disable?

It wasn’t one moment it was thousands of small humiliations:
The teacher who spoke while turning to the board.
The doctor who thought nodding meant understanding.
The workplace that said “We’ll sort access next time” and never meant it.
The strangers who assumed incompetence where there was only exclusion.
The opportunities that vanished because someone couldn’t imagine a Deaf person leading.
Each moment taught me that my “disability” didn’t exist until someone else failed to design a world where I could exist fully.

The turning point was this realisation:

I wasn’t broken the system was.
And once you see that, you can never unsee it.
That’s when I stopped shrinking.
That’s when I stopped waiting.
That’s when I became dangerous because a person who finally understands the truth becomes someone who can redesign everything around them.
I didn’t just adapt to a broken system. I learned how to expose it.
And then slowly, deliberately, how to rewrite it.

From Survival to Strategy; Founding DeafMetrix

DeafMetrix has quickly become known for its disruptive honesty and fearless reframing of inclusion. What was the moment you realised you needed to build it yourself?

There came a point where I realised something horrifying:

Every organisation I worked with was comfortable consulting on Deaf people, but almost none were willing to confront the systems that were harming us.
They wanted awareness sessions, not accountability.
They wanted diversity statements, not structural redesign.
They wanted the glow of progress without the cost of change.

The moment I realised this was the moment I understood something even darker:

If I didn’t build a Deaf-led consultancy, the world would keep letting hearing people define Deaf reality forever.

I didn’t build DeafMetrix because it was a nice idea; I built it because I was tired of watching hearing-designed systems decide how much safety, access, dignity, and possibility Deaf people are “allowed” to have.

DeafMetrix was born the day I understood that survival is not enough; we deserve strategy, power, and design authority.

You challenge organisations to confront “the rules we never agreed to.” What is the most pervasive rule that still needs dismantling?

The most poisonous rule is this one:
“Hearing is the default, and everyone else must adapt.”

That single belief is responsible for almost every failure Deaf people face:

Safety systems that assume we hear alarms.
Hiring processes that assume we speak on phones.
Healthcare that assumes we can hear life-changing instructions.
Customer service that assumes communication only exists in sound.
Leadership pathways that assume Deaf people are “not ready.”
Cultures that assume access is optional, not foundational.

This rule is so embedded that most leaders don’t even know they’re enforcing it.
That’s why it’s dangerous; it hides in normality.

The real work is dragging that rule into the light and asking organisations the question they’ve avoided for decades:
Who decided hearing people get to be the template for humanity?
And why are you still enforcing it?

You operate at the intersection of strategy, culture, and lived experience. What does “Deaf-led systems redesign” look like in practice?

It looks like destroying the assumption that inclusion is an add-on rather than a design principle.

It looks like replacing:

retrofitting with re-engineering
accommodations with architecture
“we’ll try” with “this is mandatory”
guilt with metrics
charity with competence
silence with structure

Deaf-led systems redesign means this:

We rebuild the system from the perspective of the people it has historically silenced.

Not as an emotional exercise, not as awareness training, but as operational, commercial, and structural transformation.

It’s process mapping the places where Deaf people fall through the cracks…t hen redesigning the cracks out of existence.

It’s replacing performative accessibility with real accountability that sits in procurement, risk, design, and leadership….not in HR’s “nice to have” pile.

It’s uncomfortable, confrontational, and commercially essential.

And very few organisations are prepared for how revealing it becomes.

Many leaders talk about inclusion; you talk about power structures. Why is that distinction so important?

Because inclusion asks for permission.

Power refuses to.

Inclusion says:
“Let’s help you fit into what we already built.”

Power says:
“Why was it built without you in the first place?”

Inclusion focuses on feelings.

Power focuses on design.

Inclusion centres the comfort of the majority.

Power centres the truth of the minority.

Most leaders want inclusion because it’s safe; it lets them look progressive while preserving hierarchy.

But I’m not here to make leaders comfortable.

I’m here to expose the architecture that keeps Deaf people out; the design choices, the governance failures, the risk models, the decision-making processes that quietly reinforce who gets full participation and who gets tolerated access.

This is why DeafMetrix exists:
Not to help organisations look inclusive, but to force them to confront the power structures that make exclusion possible.
Because until you redesign power, you’re not redesigning anything.

Healthcare Inequality, Implant Safety & Speaking Truth to Power

Your recent series about MRI safety for CI users has ignited national and global conversation. What pushed you to publicly confront the medical sector?

Because I realised something horrifying and simple: The medical system knew more about the risks than the patients living with them.

For years, I was searching alone for explanations, evidence, answers about why something traumatic had happened to me and all I found was silence, confusion, and doors quietly closing.

The thing that pushed me wasn’t anger. It was betrayal.

Betrayal that the sector designed to protect life had built a system where Deaf patients are expected to trust blindly, while the system itself remains selectively mute about risks that shape our bodies, our futures, and our safety.

When you’ve lived through something that was dismissed, minimised, or explained away, you get two choices: shrink, or speak.

I chose to speak loudly because too many D/deaf people were walking into MRI rooms without knowing the full truth of what their devices could and couldn’t survive.

And because the silence was costing people health, dignity, and years of undiagnosed conditions.

This wasn’t advocacy.

This was self-defence, scaled.

You ask difficult questions organisations often avoid – what responsibility does the system hold in its long silence on this issue?

A profound one.

Healthcare has spent decades hiding behind the language of complications, rare risks, technical limitations, and best practice while quietly knowing:

MRI inaccessibility for CI users delays diagnoses.
Important scans are refused or downgraded.
Children are sedated unnecessarily.
Alternatives like CT expose people to avoidable radiation.
Magnet removal surgeries leave trauma and long-term consequences.
Lives are shaped by technological assumptions patients didn’t consent to.

This silence is not neutral.
This silence is structural.

And the responsibility sits with the entire system; not one doctor, not one manufacturer, not one hospital.

It sits with:

Manufacturers that prioritise marketing language over clarity.
Regulators that approve devices without real-world red flags.
Clinicians trained in hearing-centric textbooks that erase our risks.
Hospitals that treat Deaf patients as logistical disruptions.
Communication systems that collapse at the first sign of difference.

The system wasn’t silent because it didn’t know.

It was silent because acknowledging the truth would expose how deeply inaccessible its foundations really are.

How can healthcare leaders meaningfully rebuild trust with D/deaf patients?

Stop reassuring us. Start telling us the truth.

Trust is built on three things:

Transparency

Tell us the real risks not the softened versions.
Tell us what you don’t know.
Tell us where the data is missing.
Tell us the consequences of decisions we didn’t get to be part of.

Complicity Acknowledgement

Say the words that leaders avoid: “The system was not designed for you. We have benefitted from that. We are changing it.”
Until healthcare admits its Deaf bias, nothing changes.

Structural Commitment, Not Performance

Trust doesn’t rebuild through leaflets or campaigns. It rebuilds through procurement standards, access protocols, governance frameworks, and clinical accountability.
We don’t want promises. We want systems.

What systemic reforms do you believe would make the most immediate impact?

Not soft reforms, structural ones.

Mandatory MRI Access Pathways for CI Users
Standardised national protocols that remove clinician variability, guesswork, and dangerous improvisations.

Deaf-Led Oversight Panels in Device Approval
If a device will sit in our skulls for life, we deserve a seat at the table where its risks are approved.

Real-Time Access in Healthcare Communications

No more “we couldn’t get an interpreter.”
No more lip-reading emergencies.
No more WhatsApp groups to replace clinical clarity.

Audit Trails for Every Denied Scan, Delay, or Alternative Imaging Decision
If a diagnosis is delayed because of a device, create a record.
Patterns appear.
Data forces reform.

Redesign of Safety, Consent & Aftercare Processes
Every step from pre-surgery counselling to MRI protocols to emergency care must explicitly include Deaf access, not assume it.

Because the truth is simple and brutal:
Healthcare isn’t failing Deaf people because it’s malicious.
It’s failing us because it was built for someone else.

My work is about changing that; loudly, publicly, unapologetically until the system can no longer pretend it didn’t hear us.

Creativity as Rebellion – About 8 Inches

You revealed that you conceptualised About 8 Inches 14 years ago; long before advocacy took centre stage. What made now the right time to bring it into the world?

Because for 14 years I told myself there were “more serious” things I needed to fix first.

Because I let the world convince me that being Deaf meant I had to be worthy, responsible, respectable; all the time.

Because I thought creativity needed permission, or perfection, or the right conditions.

But the truth is this:

I built About 8 Inches now because I am finally done shrinking myself to make everyone else comfortable.

There comes a point where you stop apologising for wanting joy, humour, sensuality, mischief, beauty, and elegance.

A point where you realise: survival may have shaped me, advocacy may have sharpened me, but creativity is the part of me that stayed alive through everything.

About 8 Inches didn’t appear now because the world is ready.

It appeared because I am.

You describe the brand as “feminine, confident, self-aware, mischievous, and clever.” How does this creative identity complement (or challenge) your advocacy voice?

It challenges it, deliberately.

Advocacy is heavy.

It requires discipline, sharpness, seriousness, emotional exposure.

It puts you in rooms where you’re expected to be grateful for being heard, even when you’re bringing the truth no one wants to confront.

But About 8 Inches is the opposite.

It is rebellion wrapped in humour.

It is playfulness sharpened with intelligence.

It’s feminine power without apology.

It is me reclaiming the right to be more than my trauma, more than my Deafness, more than the systems I’m constantly dissecting.

It complements my advocacy because it contains what advocacy cannot hold:

Joy. Desire. Play. Disruption.

A Deaf woman taking up space not through pain, but through pleasure and audacity.

People expect Deaf stories to be tragic or inspiring.

They never expect us to be cheeky, provocative, luxurious, and clever.

That’s why this brand matters

About 8 Inches sits boldly between elegance and provocation. What do you hope this brand gives to women – especially Deaf women?

I hope it gives them permission.

Permission to be soft and sharp at the same time.
Permission to be bold without explanation.
Permission to want things without wrapping it in palatable language.
Permission to take up aesthetic, sensual, emotional, and intellectual space.
Permission to laugh at the world and still outsmart it.

Deaf women, especially, have been raised to be grateful for crumbs.

Grateful for access.
Grateful for tolerance.
Grateful for being “included.”

I want About 8 Inches to tell them:

You don’t have to be grateful.
You can be powerful.
You can be iconic.
You can be desired, disruptive, stunning, and unstoppable, all at once.

Elegance + provocation is the combination society least expects from us.
Which is exactly why we should claim it.

You’ve said: “Both sides of me exist – the strategist and the creator.” How do those identities coexist, conflict, and strengthen one another?

They coexist in tension; a tension I’ve finally learned to honour.
The strategist dissects systems.
The creator disrupts them.
The strategist holds the truth.
The creator plays with it.
The strategist exposes inequality.
The creator refuses to be defined by it.

The conflict is real:

One part of me is constantly fighting the world’s failures.

The other part is building a world that delights, provokes, and seduces.

But together?

Together they make me dangerous in a way no single identity could.

Because I can move between power and play, between truth and mischief, between structural analysis and creative rebellion.

I don’t choose between the two. I refuse to split myself anymore.

DeafMetrix is the part of me that changes systems.
About 8 Inches is the part of me that changes narratives.

Together, they tell the full story:
I am not just surviving the world; I am rewriting it, redesigning it, and sometimes, when it needs it most, I’m laughing right in its face.

Global Perspective: A World Not Designed for Deaf People

You’ve lived and worked across multiple sectors, systems, and cultures. Which countries or environments have given you the deepest insight into accessibility, equity, and belonging?

Every country teaches you something different and none of it is comfortable.

The UK taught me how access is packaged as kindness instead of rights.

It showed me a system that considers Deaf inclusion “progressive,” even in 2025 as though equality is a favour, not a foundation.

Europe taught me how policy can be strong on paper but fragile in practice.

You can have world-class legislation and still walk into a hospital where no one knows how to communicate with you.

The US taught me about extremes; brilliant accessibility in some spaces, and absolute collapse in others.

It showed me that innovation can coexist with deep ignorance if Deaf people aren’t at the table.

But the real insight came from this: No country is designed for Deaf people.

Some just hide it better.

Travel forces you to realise that Deafness doesn’t become a barrier until systems do.

Borders change, languages change, cultures change; the underlying assumptions do not.

The assumption that hearing is normal.
The assumption that communication is oral.
The assumption that Deaf people must adapt.

The global lesson is brutally simple:

The world isn’t inaccessible because Deaf people travel.
It’s inaccessible because hearing people designed everything without us.

What’s the biggest misconception the world still has about Deaf identity?

That Deafness is a lack.

A lack of hearing.
A lack of ability.
A lack of understanding.
A lack of intelligence.
A lack of capability.

This misconception is so deeply embedded that even well-meaning people fall into it.

But the truth is the opposite:

Deaf identity is not about what we lack; it’s about what society refuses to imagine.

The world thinks being Deaf is a medical issue.
We know it’s a cultural, linguistic, cognitive, and creative identity.

The world thinks Deaf people are limited.
We know our limitations are engineered by systems built on sound.

The world thinks inclusion is about helping us “catch up.”
We know inclusion is actually about dismantling the structures that keep us out.

The biggest misconception?

That Deaf people are here to be pitied, helped, or “brought in.” No.
We’re here to lead, redesign, innovate, and redefine what communication can be.
The only thing broken is the world’s imagination.

How do you personally navigate a world where communication barriers are still normalised?

With precision. With boundaries.

And with the understanding that my access is not optional; their systems are failing.

I navigate by:

Refusing to apologise for needing access
I don’t say “sorry” for asking.
I say: “This is your responsibility, not my inconvenience.”

Choosing clarity over comfort
If something isn’t accessible, I say it.
If someone’s communication is poor, I name it.
I stopped protecting feelings that come at the cost of my safety.

Expecting systems to work, not improvising my survival
I do not lip-read emergencies. I do not accept “We couldn’t find someone.” I do not let people outsource my access to chance.

Treating communication as a two-way obligation
Not “I must adapt.”
But: “We both must meet in the middle, that’s respect.”

Using silence as a diagnostic tool
When a system collapses because I’m Deaf, it tells me everything about its design maturity.
I don’t navigate quietly. I navigate with intention because I grew tired of shrinking myself to make broken systems look functional.

The world may not be designed for Deaf people yet.

But I’m not here to fit into it.

I’m here to expose it, redesign it, and make sure the next Deaf traveller, patient, employee, customer, or leader never has to navigate these barriers alone.

Leadership, Identity & Cultural Influence

Your voice is reshaping how companies understand culture. What, in your opinion, makes a leader truly inclusive.. beyond policies and statements?

A truly inclusive leader is someone willing to lose comfort, power, and ego for the sake of someone else’s dignity.

Inclusion isn’t a value. It’s a sacrifice.

Anyone can publish statements.
Anyone can write policies.
Anyone can tick a box and claim progress.

But a real leader does the thing no one else wants to do: they confront themselves.

A truly inclusive leader:

Questions their own privilege without needing applause.
Challenges harmful norms even when the room goes quiet.
Designs systems where power is shared, not protected.
Listens to the people their organisation has historically failed and believes them.
Makes inclusion non-negotiable, even when budgets, timelines, or egos resist.
Understands that accessibility is not kindness; it’s competence.
Redesigns the system so the next generation doesn’t inherit the same barriers.

The world is full of leaders who say the right things. Very few are willing to reshape the architecture of their organisation to match those words.

That is the difference.

You often talk about the courage it takes to take up creative and personal space.

Your life will change the moment you realise the box was never yours; it was built around you.

Here is what I want every Deaf or disabled woman to hear:

You don’t need permission to exist fully.
People expect us to be grateful, quiet, cooperative, and predictable.
Break that expectation.
Shatter it.

The world benefits when you shrink. You benefit when you don’t.

Everything they told you to tone down is exactly what makes you powerful.

Your creativity is not a luxury; it’s rebellion.
It’s your way of refusing to be defined only by survival.

Take up space even when it feels uncomfortable.
Especially then.
That discomfort is the sound of a system adjusting to your presence.

You are not too much. You have just been surrounded by people who expect too little.

Your voice doesn’t just matter; it shifts culture.
And culture shifts everything else.
You don’t owe the world smallness.
You owe yourself truth, expression, audacity, and room to breathe.

What does authentic allyship; not performative, look like to you?

Authentic allyship is action, not affection.

It looks like someone who:

Does the work when no Deaf or disabled person is in the room.
Performers do it when people are watching.
Allies do it when no one sees.

Gives up power, not just gives support.

Real allyship redistributes decision-making; not compliments.

Calls out injustice even when it costs them reputation, comfort, or approval.
If you’re only brave when it’s safe, you’re not brave.

Designs systems that work for us without waiting for us to remind them.
Access embedded, not requested.

Knows they will get things wrong and chooses accountability over defensiveness.
Mistakes don’t break allyship.
Ego does.

Makes sure exclusion is impossible, not just unlikely.
That’s the difference between intention and infrastructure.

Understands that allyship isn’t about “helping us” it’s about dismantling the structures that harm us.
Authentic allies don’t centre themselves.
They centre the work.
And they understand this truth:
If your advocacy isn’t inconvenient, it probably isn’t real.

The 1% Shift: Micro-Actions, Macro Impact

Your framework focuses on Learn. Listen. Lift. What inspired this approach?

Because I realised something uncomfortable:
Systems don’t change when people understand; they change when people unlearn.

I built this framework after years of watching leaders complicate what is, at its core, a very simple truth:
Culture does not transform through strategy decks.
It transforms through behaviour.

LISTEN because most people hear us, but very few receive us. Listening is not passive; it’s choosing someone else’s reality over your assumptions.
LEARN because information without reflection is just noise. Learning is the humility to realise that lived experience is expertise and that your worldview isn’t the universal one.
ACT because awareness is meaningless without consequence.

Lifting others is structural; it’s redistributing space, authority, and voice.

I built this model not to make change easier, but to make it impossible to ignore.

What’s one everyday action anyone can start doing tomorrow to shift culture toward true inclusion?

Ask yourself, “Who is missing from this conversation and why?”
In a meeting.
In a process.
In a decision.
In a policy.
In a room where culture is shaped.

That one question changes everything because:
It exposes bias.
It reveals who is routinely excluded.
It forces accountability.
It shifts the power dynamic immediately.
It reframes inclusion from a favour into a responsibility.

The biggest cultural transformation doesn’t come from huge actions; it comes from refusing to participate in silence.
If every leader asked this question daily, large-scale exclusion wouldn’t survive another quarter.

Why do micro-shifts succeed where large-scale corporate initiatives often fail?

Because micro-shifts change behaviour, not branding.
Big corporate initiatives fail because they’re designed for optics; reporting, press releases, glossy commitments, performative statements.
Micro-shifts succeed because they expose the truth:
Inclusion collapses or succeeds in the smallest interactions.

A system breaks down through:

One inaccessible email.
One assumption.
One design flaw.
One meeting where the Deaf, disabled or marginalised person is talked about, not included

And it rebuilds the same way

One habit changed.
One perspective challenged.
One conversation shifted.
One power imbalance corrected.

Micro-shifts succeed because:
They bypass bureaucracy.
No committee. No approval chain.
Just action.
They scale through imitation.
People copy behaviours far faster than they follow policies.
They reveal the leaders who are truly committed.
You can’t hide behind a micro-action.
It’s too honest.
They create cultural pressure from the inside out.
Real change doesn’t trickle down; it multiplies sideways.
They make inclusion unavoidable, not optional.
One action becomes a norm.
The norm becomes culture.
Culture becomes expectation.
The 1% shift is powerful because it works in the places organisations ignore, the everyday moments where inequality is created.
Big initiatives talk about change.
Micro-shifts cause it.

Beyond the Box: The Personal Journey

What identity boxes have you had to break out of – professionally and personally?

I had to break out of the boxes the world built before I was even old enough to speak for myself.

I broke out of the “Deaf but grateful” box – the one that says I should take whatever access I’m given, say thank you, and pretend it’s enough.

I broke out of the “professional but palatable” box – the idea that Deaf women can be competent, but only if we soften our edges, dilute our power, and smile through exclusion.

I broke out of the “advocate but not ambitious” box – the belief that if you fight for your community, you’re not allowed to have joy, creativity, or a brand like About 8 Inches that is bold, feminine, mischievous, and intelligent.

I broke out of the “survivor but not visionary” box because the world loves our trauma but fears our leadership.

Professionally, I broke out of rooms that tolerated me instead of valuing me.

Personally, I broke out of the internalised silence I was conditioned to carry.

Every box had the same message:
Stay small so others can stay comfortable.

Breaking out of them wasn’t liberation; it was self-rescue.

When did you stop asking for permission to take up space?

The moment I realised no one was ever going to give it to me.
For years I waited for access, understanding, encouragement, validation.
I waited for someone to say,
“You belong here.”
“Your voice matters here.”
“You can be more than your limitations.”

And then I understood the truth:
Waiting for permission is just another form of silence.

I stopped asking when I got tired of walking into rooms where people saw my Deafness before they saw my intelligence.

I stopped asking when professionals thought speaking loudly at me was the same as communicating with me.

I stopped asking when companies invited me to “share perspective” but not to redesign the system.

I stopped asking when I realised the world never intended to give me space, it expected me to survive without it.

So, I stopped shrinking.

I stopped translating myself into what people could handle.

I stopped making myself small so their assumptions could feel big.

I didn’t take space politely.

I took it because I deserved it and because the next Deaf woman deserves a world where she won’t have to fight for it.

What has vulnerability taught you about leadership?

That strength without vulnerability is just armour and armour doesn’t lead, it protects.
Vulnerability taught me that:

Telling the truth is risk.
Owning your fear is courage.
Letting people see the pain behind your purpose makes your leadership real, not performative.
Admitting uncertainty creates trust.
Sharing lived experience gives others permission to speak theirs.
People think vulnerability is weakness.
But the leaders who change the world aren’t the ones who look invincible; they’re the ones who let others see the hidden rooms inside them.

Vulnerability taught me this:

Leadership is not about being untouchable.
It’s about being undeniable.
Undeniably human.
Undeniably honest.
Undeniably present.
Undeniably committed to building a world that doesn’t require anyone else to hide who they are to survive in it.

My vulnerability isn’t a flaw; it’s the map that brought me here.
And it’s the map I now hand to others so they don’t have to walk alone.

Looking Forward

What’s your boldest vision for DeafMetrix over the next two years?

My boldest vision is simple and radical:
To make it impossible for any organisation to say they didn’t know.
And unacceptable for them to do nothing.

Over the next two years, I want DeafMetrix to become:
The global benchmark for Deaf-led systems redesign.
Not a consultancy.
Not a training provider.
A standard.
A model that governments, Fortune 100 companies, airports, banks, hospitals, sports clubs, and tech giants adopt because it exposes the failures no one else sees.
The first Deaf-led authority embedded into corporate and public governance.
Advising on risk, design, communications, culture, and safety; not as a “diversity initiative,”but as a strategic function.
The organisation that shifts the world from disability thinking to design accountability.
From “accommodate them”
to
“why wasn’t this built for them in the first place?”

The voice that forces globally recognised industries to confront the truth.
Aviation.
Healthcare.
Banking.
Education.
Tech.
Policy.
Entertainment.

Every system that has quietly outsourced our exclusion to inconvenience.
The vision is not growth.
The vision is irreversibility.

I want DeafMetrix to reach a point where society can no longer fall back into old habits because the blueprint has already changed.

What impact do you hope About 8 Inches will have on culture, creativity, and confidence?

I want About 8 Inches to do what society never expects from Deaf women:
Shift the cultural temperature.
Not politely.
Not safely.
But boldly, elegantly, provocatively.

I want it to give women their bodies, confidence, and humour back.
Without shame.
Without apology.
Without asking permission to be playful, desirable, daring, or outrageous.
I want Deaf women to see themselves in a brand that isn’t built on pity or inspiration.
A brand where Deafness is not the “story”….power is.
I want to redefine sensuality and confidence as intelligence.
Because the world still separates “sexy” from “smart,”
“creative” from “strategic,”
“Deaf” from “desirable.”
About 8 Inches breaks every one of those false binaries.
I want it to show that a Deaf woman can own both the boardroom and the brand aesthetic.

Can design accessibility frameworks in the morning and launch a mischievous, iconic lifestyle product in the evening and neither diminishes the other.
I want this brand to feel like a wink, a spark, a reclaiming.
A reminder that confidence is not given; it is taken.

When people look back on your work decades from now, what do you hope your legacy stands for?

I hope my legacy is this:

She refused to accept the world as it was.
And she gave others the courage to do the same.
I want people to say:
She told the truth even when it was inconvenient.
She exposed the structures everyone else tiptoed around.
She made Deaf leadership impossible to ignore.
She shifted culture, not by asking nicely, but by speaking boldly.
She built systems where Deaf people didn’t have to fight to survive.
She created beauty, power, and rebellion in a world that told her to be quiet.
She made space and then widened it so no one after her had to beg for it.

Legacy isn’t about applause.
It’s about architecture.
If my work survives me,
I want it to survive because it changed how the world thinks,
how it designs,
how it listens,
how it sees Deaf people,
how it treats power,
and how it measures humanity.

I want my legacy to stand for one truth:
Silence was never a limitation.
It was the beginning of redesigning everything

Quick Fire:

A word you live by: Unapologetic.
Because apology is the tax society expects from people who don’t fit its template.

A rule you love breaking: “Stay in your lane.” I don’t stay in lanes…I redesign the roads.

A sound you love (or a vibration you feel deeply): Thunder.
I don’t hear it, but I feel its certainty; the kind of vibration that says,
“I’m here. Move.”
It reminds me of my own power.

A creative icon who shaped you: Alexander McQueen.
For proving that beauty can be rebellious, disturbing, emotional, and intelligent all at once.
He didn’t create fashion; he created truth.

A system you’d redesign tomorrow:
Healthcare from the ground up.
Not the treatments.
Not the hospitals.
The assumptions baked into every decision that make Deaf safety optional.
The most misunderstood thing about Deaf people:
That Deafness is a deficit.
It isn’t.
The deficit is in the world’s design, not in our bodies.
Your superpower:
Seeing the cracks in systems before anyone else notices the damage.
Turning pain into precision.
Turning silence into strategy.
Turning lived experience into blueprints that make the world impossible to look at the same way again.