The Journey from Academia to Impact | Neri Karra Sillaman

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What Immigrants Can Teach Us About Business Longevity

Today, Neri Karra Sillaman shares how her story of childhood hardship led to a life of academia and entrepreneurship.

What happens when your toughest challenges become your biggest opportunities?

On this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, host Bill Sherman dives deep with Neri Karra Sillaman—an Entrepreneurship Expert, TEDx Speaker, and Professor at ESCP Business School—about how her early life as a refugee set her on a path to becoming a thought leader and entrepreneur.

Neri shares the story of her childhood, growing up as part of a Turkish minority in Bulgaria during the 1980s, facing forced assimilation, and eventually being expelled from the country. With only two suitcases, her family fled to Turkey. From those humble beginnings in refugee camps, Neri realized education was her key to changing her life. This powerful experience laid the foundation for her future work in entrepreneurship and academia. But how does a life of survival translate into thought leadership?

Neri discusses how her research took her on a journey to understand why immigrants create businesses—and more importantly, why some of those businesses endure. Her “ah-ha” moment came when she found that many studies focused on the why of immigrant entrepreneurship, but few explored how these businesses achieve longevity. This insight sparked her upcoming book, which distills the strategies of immigrant founders that any entrepreneur can apply. Her message is clear: business longevity isn’t just for immigrant entrepreneurs. It’s for anyone who wants to build something that lasts. Neri is working to bridge the gap between startup challenges and the principles that help businesses thrive over the long term.

When asked how she moved beyond academia to practice thought leadership, Neri explains how she transitioned from writing academic papers to producing content for HBR, Fast Company, and other platforms that directly impact business leaders. She challenges thought leaders to think about how they can make their work accessible and actionable.

Three Key Takeaways

Adversity can shape success – Neri’s experience as a refugee shaped her drive and resilience, which became the foundation for her entrepreneurial journey and thought leadership.

Immigrant entrepreneurship holds key lessons for all – The principles that help immigrant businesses endure are applicable to any entrepreneur looking to achieve long-term success.

Practical thought leadership matters – Moving beyond academic research, Neri emphasizes the importance of creating accessible, actionable content that resonates with business owners and drives real impact

Neri has spent her life seeking success in academia and entrepreneurship. If you want to find that same success in Thought Leadership, take a moment to watch this short video from Thought Leadership Leverage COO Bill Sherman on successfully launching a thought leadership team.

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Transcript

Bill Sherman Refugees often become necessity entrepreneurs in their new country. Over my career, I’ve also seen refugees who have become practicing thought leaders. There’s an interesting connection there. Why? Well, maybe it’s because an education is something you can always carry with you across a border, even when you have to leave everything else behind. My guest today is Doctor Neri Karra Sillaman. Her family fled Bulgaria for Turkey and they founded a leather goods business there. Neri worked in the family business, but she knew her path forward led through education. She’s now an entrepreneurship expert at the University of Oxford, focusing on business longevity and fashion. She runs a consulting business with the fashion industry, and she’s the author of an award-winning book titled Fashion Entrepreneurship.

Bill Sherman I’m Bill Sherman. This is Leveraging Thought leadership. Ready? Let’s begin. Welcome to the show, Neri.

Neri Karra Sillaman Thank you. We’re very, very happy to be here.

Bill Sherman So I want to talk with you today about your journey into thought leadership. And it begins in an unexpected direction in that I don’t think you would say you planned ever as a young child to get into leadership. Can you give us a little glimpse into your childhood and how that both set the stage and made it unlikely at the same time?

Neri Karra Sillaman It’s quite a good question. So it is quite unlikely. I didn’t set out to being either ship or to be a professor one day. But I was born in Bulgaria to a Turkish ethnic minority, and that meant in during 1980s, the communist Bulgarian government decided to carry out an ethnic assimilation process against Turkish minorities. Our names were changed. We were forbidden to practice our religion or just express our culture in any kind of way. This lasted until 1989, when the Bulgarian government forced us to leave the country, and we took suitcases to our name. My parents and my nine-year-old brother. We found ourselves escaping Bulgaria and at the border of Turkey. In among 360,000 other Bulgarians. Church recently had to leave the country, and it was mayhem. I remember. Getting to the border after having walked her base from our town until the Turkish border. My father with suitcases in his sense, just running and throwing them and just these screams that will come from an animal. But how I can describe it and the confusion in my mother’s eyes. We were set up to live in immigrant camps, in tents, and food was given to us. And I remember looking around me as an 11-year-old and thinking if one day. I will build a good life for myself and my family. I have to get a good education, and I really believe this is the reason I am sitting here today and talking to you because. It’s the foundation of everything that I do. Everything that I have read, the education I got has allowed me to create the life I have today. And I believe I ever dedicated my life to education. And even though later I would start a business and become an entrepreneur, I have always thought as an academic. So I believe my journey starts there.

Bill Sherman Thank you for sharing that. Neary. And it’s a powerful story. And image of that 11-year-old child saying, what do I need to do to get control of a world that seems like it has no control right now? So. You mentioned your role. And as an entrepreneur, you’ve also told us your story on immigrants, See Right. And forced migrants see in this case. I know you have an interest and a deep interest in immigrant entrepreneurship. How did that come to be on the academic side? Right. Because it was lived experience. Let’s cross the stream into now your research.

Neri Karra Sillaman Absolutely. Sure. When I graduated from University of Miami in two and a half years, returned back to Turkey, where my family was living in the working in selling extra t shirts, leather products. We started our own business. Then when we started our own business, it very much employed our own family members, other immigrants. And two years later, I decided to pursue my Ph.D. at University of Cambridge when restarts took my Ph.D. Originally, it was going to be foreign direct investment. It was economics. Nothing to do with entrepreneurship. However, because I was an immigrant, building a business with immigrants, you could say that. I was very intrigued by the concept of immigrant entrepreneurship. At the time, I didn’t even know I’m a 24-year-old kid and just got Cambridge. I didn’t even know such a concept existed. And this is what started the foundation of my PhD thesis. I went to my supervisor, and I said, I’m very curious about this topic and also the connection between international entrepreneurship and immigrant ethnic entrepreneurship. And I’m sorry, go that I have to change my thesis. So this is how I started as a PhD student, really trying to understand how immigrants create businesses, how immigrants and why they create businesses. You know, the necessity intrapreneur ship concept. Eventually I finished my PhD thesis, but in the meantime, I am actually studying my own company because they are building this business with we are the if the cancer pioneers or immigrant and entrepreneurialism ourselves and I will get into the concept of Homophily Ties, which was published in the Journal of Business Venturing. And. At university. Of course I teach strategy, but now that I am in proprietorship, I work with Dorie Clark, and she encourages you to find your breakthrough idea of something that you are known for. So for me, I almost. I thought, well, we want to know. Applicants for promotion. Immigrant entrepreneurship. I really don’t think that’s going to be a topic that I can have impact with in. Then I decided, okay, let me let me go a little bit deeper into this. And I discovered that probably 5% of Fortune 500 companies are started by immigrants. 80% of unicorns are founded by immigrants or their children. She’s a huge number. So that’s this was my moment because I look at the literature and almost everyone has looked at why immigrants start businesses. Nobody has looked at why immigrants create businesses that rust in. I was just for me, this was an eye-opening discovery. And from there, I wrote a book proposal. It was accepted by Wiley for I’m in the process of writing a book on business longevity and immigrant entrepreneurship.

Bill Sherman So thank you. It’s an interesting journey. And you point out a couple times where you either found in your Ph.D. studies a difference between your passion and where you thought you were going to research FTI versus the immigrant entrepreneurship. And then finding that gap in the scholarship. Finding that gap that leads to the that allows you to ask the questions. No one’s focused yet. And. To be able to have passion. And then the insight is a powerful combination because you’re coming from a place of lived experience. You talked about, Hey, when I was studying, I was using my own company as a laboratory writer.

Neri Karra Sillaman Yes. Absolutely. My thesis at my thesis consists of three different articles. We are going back many years now. Almost 20 years ago I brought. I use my company is a case study for including one of my papers talks about auto graphic research where I study, where the researchers study is his or her own company or background or culture. And again, everything is in my thesis was very much personal. And I think even today, what I write about and for those of us or for those who listen to us in our careers, how they can find their breakthrough idea. It of course, always comes from our personal experience, passion. And this is what I would say, not misled me, but when I was trying to figure out where can I make impact? I was thinking. I don’t I don’t know if I want to I don’t know if people will want to read about immigrant entrepreneurship. And this was a this was a mistake in some sense because. I was saying it has to come from a person from your lived experience, as you mentioned. And if I wanted Bryce, it would be that to focus on what you know, focus on what you are passionate about.

Bill Sherman Well, and I’ve said many times here that your audience, for your ideas, will never be more engaged than you are in the topic. Right. And so. If you find questions that cause you to say, Why is that? Why do immigrant formed companies survive longer than average? Or why are immigrant founded or children of immigrant companies overrepresented in the Fortune 500 or in unicorns? That’s a question that’s intriguing and say what can we learn from them? And really a deep question. And there are plenty of reasons and variables and possibilities and study design to try and figure out what’s going on. But it’s easy. What I like about what you’ve done there is you’ve taken complexity and drilled it down to a question that someone can listen and say, I didn’t know that. That’s interesting. Tell me more and more importantly, what’s going on. I don’t have to have the same lived experience as you do as a migrant monster per nor to say, what can I learn? Right.

Neri Karra Sillaman Very true. So, in fact, my book, the Audience is not about is not immigrant entrepreneurs. Is there anyone? And years ago, again, when I was writing and researching on this topic. I had an idea to write a paper about build your own sanity. Because when I look at immigrant entrepreneurs, they build businesses based on homophily, crows, which is, you know, these the heroes share the experience. We have this shared history that binds us together and makes us work towards a common goal. And I thought, how can anyone else. Copy. And do the very same thing in their own company, in their own workforce. They don’t have to be immigrants, but what are the principles that you can take from immigrants and apply them to your own company? And that’s what the book is about.

Bill Sherman And I think of that even from the perspective of a founder and trying to create a vision and an origin story for a startup company, whether you’re selling that vision to investors or early employees coming on board, that you’re trying to create that sense of, we can do this.

Neri Karra Sillaman Yes, very true. Now, another thing about the course of my research, I’m very intrigued by another topic, which is business longevity. When we were starting our own company, I always wanted to emulate what other businesses have done that are successful, that have stood the test of time. So another lived experience. Where? Every entrepreneur, every startup. Today I work with startups. Every single person wants to create a successful business. Nobody starts a business saying, I want it to be successful for a little while.

Bill Sherman Three years tops, and I’m out the factory.

Neri Karra Sillaman So even as a as a university student, I want to know what are the principles of success? What did they do correctly? What did they do right that I can innovate? I’ve always been fascinated by this topic and of course I’ve read a lot on it. However, there is one. I don’t know. It’s not the get, but there is one major, in my opinion, faulting this type of literature because they will look at very large companies like Google or Amazon and so on, very large Procter and Gamble and distill the principles that have allowed them to become Centennial State. They’ve allowed them to become big, strong, long lasting companies. However, as a smaller sized startup that is today trying to managing this highly complex external environment, business environment, those principles are not and do not apply to me. So this is again, I think we should be careful. I would say what I’m doing differently is that I am talking not only to businesses that have stood the test of time, but I’m simultaneously talking to startups. And to understand what is it that they are doing, what is it that they are being challenged with?

Bill Sherman Well, and couple of thoughts here. One, you talk about companies that have been around for a long time. There are smaller and mid-sized companies that have family often owned that are for centuries, if not longer, in Europe and Asia. Right. In the US and North America, we don’t have that deep sense of history. But it’s not uncommon to find a company that, yeah, we’ve been around for 500 years, family owned. And their challenge is very different than what you would see with a P&G or a Unilever. And how do you handle the generational sort of translation cycle after cycle.

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Bill Sherman I want to come to something that. We’ve touched on but haven’t explored, which is you view yourself as academic. Approaching entrepreneurship. Or at least that’s how I took that. But there’s another thread of you practicing thoughtful leadership, and you mentioned Dorie Clark. So my question is, when did you start thinking about practicing thought leadership as a separate thread from academia or entrepreneurship, and how did that come to be?

Neri Karra Sillaman I didn’t set out to be folk, neither folk leaders or to talk leadership. I to be honest with you, I didn’t even know this concept existed. I’m being very transparent and honest with you. However, when I was an academic, writing and research change your behavior, you have to publish certain number of articles, certain number of books, just traditional professor role.

Bill Sherman But often those are academics talking to other and remix.

Neri Karra Sillaman Yeah, exactly. Spot on. So this is where I just was. I became a professor, I was assistant then associate professor, and I didn’t I’m not, I don’t want to say I didn’t like it. I like I love teaching, I love being a professor, but I really believe in thought. There is a disconnect between the research and the real world. It takes such a long time for a paper to come out, and it’s being read and evaluated by other professors. What is the impact of my research to. Executives to people who are intrapreneur. How does this work in your life? How is it that what I’m writing apply to someone who’s doing business in Turkey, in London, or in Paris where I work? So I was a professor here at. Yes. Search at the university in Paris. And again, the number of hours that you teach, the pressure that you have to publish yet. What is the impact of that published publication? I really started to ask these questions and I became a mother. And this is, I would say when I really started to ask the question of what do I want to do with my career? What impact do I want to make? And the answer was, I’m going to quit my job and write. Papers and articles that I believe are right, that I believe I want to convey to business owners and Intrapreneur there I start. The thing is, should be writing birdwatching, fashion and luxury or business and in this particular industry, because that’s my expertise as well. About sustainable creating a sustainable business, sustainable fashion. Again, that’s my expertise. For over 20 years, I worked and created the company that is B Corp Certified Sustainable Family Ireland, where we employ more than 90% of women from disadvantaged backgrounds. So there was I already had a lot of practical knowledge there. So that was one leg of my thought leadership, I would say. And another one was just writing about resilience to H, B, R and Fast Company and just seeing the impact that my research and my writing ranks. And that’s basically how my thought leadership evolved. And it wasn’t I don’t want to say it was an accident. Of course, it was a long accident, but it was just being invited to give to Ted Talks because they wanted to hear my views on create on sustainable fashion. Being asked to write an article on resilient leadership or examples.

Bill Sherman And so you talk about a journey which is an evolution, perhaps a bit of a stumble into. But one thing that I want to underline is the speed of the idea, the velocity of the idea. How do you take the insight from research and get it into the hands of people who can use it? And like you said, publishing a journal article, you could be two, three, four years going through reviewer comments and that nuance that’s being debated. Isn’t central to the insight that is going to be for the person who might apply it as an entrepreneur, right? It might be something in the literature review or a detail on methodology, you know, where they’re like, No, just tell me what I should be thinking about and what the priority is. And so those are two very different audiences, often for valuing different information. And so I think of the small business owner who says, what can you tell me in five minutes that I can apply today? That’s an entirely different audience. And how to simplify an idea and make it so powerful, compelling and direct. So how do you reach. That business owner. What skills from your toolbox have you used? Because the academic set, you know, and the academic persuasion, that’s the way. How are you sharing your ideas and persuading?

Neri Karra Sillaman For me, I always think of the what can they apply immediately? That’s always and I think because I in myself, I consider myself not just an academic but also a practitioner and then to partner. So I always put myself in the shoes of the person who is going to be reading the article, whether the article I written or an entrepreneur should produce or are an employee at a company. I put myself in the shoes of the person and. Always think about the practicality. This for me is number one. So that’s how I am able to reach it, of course. Now, nowadays, you don’t only have to be in this high profile publications. You can write a book. You can write something on LinkedIn and almost give an immediate feedback, whether the audience or your, you know, target agrees with what you are saying. Or they can have a different view. So it’s always incredibly helpful when I think the way everything is changing in at the speed, the velocity. You mentioned so remarkables.

Bill Sherman Well. And even if we take that a step further, you can post something on social media, have a public discussion and actually a good conversation. Not all comments are good and thoughtful, but someone can say, Hey, I see it this way and you can have this discussion that helps sharpen both perspectives. And that is something where. In traditional publication, you would have to wait months or after you wrote the article before anyone else would see it. And so having this real time feedback, I think really brings a vitality to conversations.

Neri Karra Sillaman I agree. And, you know, I want to make another point. I think both, you know, the traditional academic draft and the traditional academic research will be easier. And so, you know, the articles that we are writing when they are for whether they are for LinkedIn or for PR or for first company, they have a very strong research component to them. That’s for sure. I think the difference is the speed at which you reach your target audience and focusing much more on the practical aspect rather than the research. You know, whether how which research did you advance, how you see. Right. Right. Completely different. So when I write an article, I still publish, by the way, in traditional research articles. It’s where you can get the academic author needs in me. I still get it.

Bill Sherman But even if you think about the format and structure of an academic article, look, you’ll have the abstract, the top. But if you can even compare an abstract to the first few sentences of a social media post, for example, you know, you expect your reader to actually read through the abstract, whereas in social media they may read a sentence or two and scroll past. And so you’re trying to catch their attention and go, Hey, this is I’m speaking to you, this is worth your attention and time and you’re trying to catch the audience. You’re trying to catch in a very different way. So the attention span as well as the decision process. So do I read this? Do I give this my time? Very different.

Neri Karra Sillaman Absolutely. Think very true.

Bill Sherman So I want to look a little bit forward into the future with you. Neary. And you’ve been on a journey. Quite literally. We started out with you in childhood at the start of this all. But my question is. Where is your curiosity taking you next? What are you investigating and what has you excited?

Neri Karra Sillaman I am incredibly excited about immigrant entrepreneurship and business longevity. I’m writing the book at the moment about this and that. The more I read, the more right write. The more I talk to and do my interviews, the more intrigued by it and excited I am. It’s fascinating to me.

Bill Sherman So can you give us an example of a watch URL, why that sparks that recently? And had you say, That’s amazing, I need to know more.

Neri Karra Sillaman It’s every day. It’s not just that. It’s hard to give one example only, but I have been interviewing many people. At the moment I’m still interviewing them. And as I’m coding the interviews and I also do a lot of research and you read interviews from immigrant entrepreneurs who are the founders of Duolingo and more. They’re now Google, WhatsApp, eBay. These are all founded by immigrants too, just to mention very few. And. For me, it’s just I distilled the principles of business longevity. However, at the same time, each time I hear someone. Talk to me about their own journey. I get very excited because of how it all seems to come together. That’s right. And some of these principles, of course, come from my research ever since I was a Ph.D. student. So the cross-cultural competence, the cross-cultural, bridging, the cultural feedback ties, and it’s just the importance of vision and having all of this come together. Herman Lopez, the founder of Wondery, she was just talking about how at the same time where I went to the mindful to tell you my findings, but I will she was talking about recognizing inflection points and the very same thing was about a part of it that things to culture cultural change, which I’m investigating in my own research. And of course, as you know, it’s Andrew Grove, who was who came to the United States as a refugee. Owens, whose aunt who survived Auschwitz, told him to leave Hungary, and she was able to escape first Austria, then to the United States. And I am investigating. She’s very and she findings are very much prevalent in the book, but she talks about the inflection points. And then in the for her knowing full well simply never met the part that Andrew Grove is talking about that and how he was able to. How it guided him in creating wandering. So all of this is and having X being exposed to different cultures, the importance of that. So it all is coming together. And for me, it’s just like putting a puzzle together. It’s very exciting.

Bill Sherman I can hear that excitement and I look forward to seeing the BOP as it comes together. One thread that I also hear is the differences, and you may already be investigating this between people who choose to emigrate and people who are displaced or forced migrants see as well. Because the story you just gave as an example, was much closer to forced migrants. See you get out rather than. Yeah. And so one of the beauties of a research topic and the one of the beauties is thought leadership is the deeper you go, the more questions there are to ask.

Neri Karra Sillaman The richer your spiritual.

Bill Sherman So. One last question for you, Mary, as we wrap up. I want to take you back to that moment. The young 11-year-old girl standing there saying, I need a good education on that. Imagine you had the chance to give her some advice based on what you know now in your journey in academia, your journey and thought leadership. What advice would you give her?

Neri Karra Sillaman The word that comes to my mind is keep going and trust.

Bill Sherman That’s beautiful. I want to thank you very much, Neri, very much for joining us today for a conversation of not only your research, but also your journey and thought leadership. Thank you, Mary.

Neri Karra Sillaman Thank you.

Bill Sherman Okay. You’ve made it to the end of the episode, and that means you’re probably someone deeply interested in thought leadership. Want to learn even more? Here are three recommendations. First, check out the back catalog of our podcast episodes. There are a lot of great conversations with people at the top of their game, and thought leadership, as well as just starting out. Second, subscribe to our newsletter that talks about the business of thought leadership. And finally, feel free to reach out to me. My day job is helping people with big insights. Take them to scale through the practice of thought leadership. Maybe you’re looking for strategy, or maybe you want to polish up your ideas or even create new products and offerings. I’d love to chat with you. Thanks for listening.