Barjis Chohan

Barjis Chohan

Trailblazing Design Leader and Speaker

Originally expected to pursue a career in medicine, Barjis Chohan instead forged her own path, becoming an internationally recognised entrepreneur and an icon in luxury modest fashion. She built her bespoke luxury carpet business from her kitchen into an award-winning international brand, delivering projects for clients including Marriott, IHG Hotels & Resorts, and Emirates.

Barjis Chohan has been a keynote speaker and panellist speaking in more than 20 keynotes, talk shows, podcasts, and panels presented, as well as over 15 years of experience encouraging and empowering audiences on stages all over the world.

Her keynote topics help organisations build cultures where employees are encouraged to create new ideas and collaborative spaces using creative techniques and have the confidence to share their identity and embrace the feeling of belonging and have the resilience to thrive through change and uncertainty.

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Keynotes

About Barjis Chohan

An Innovative Entrepreneur championing belonging in the Design Industry

Barjis founded her luxury design brand in 1999, initially creating bespoke carpets for large hospitality clients and brands like Marriott and IHG before expanding into fashion in 2011 and has kept it thriving with the same values and ethos she started with. These years of experience are difficult to replicate and give a unique perspective on business, stakeholder management, resilience, courage, ownership, and accountability, which are critical personal and people skills in today’s AI-dominated world.

Born and raised in the UK, with Pakistani roots, Barjis is also a very well-travelled and seasoned business leader. With her brands in London and Dubai and projects across Europe, she has navigated complex, culturally diverse clientele and teams, embodying cultural fluency and speaking with authority on identity and belonging, all without dividing rooms into opposing camps. Her approach to gender equity and cultural inclusion is one of the most practically useful on the circuit.

Barjis is a strong advocate of nurturing identities and helping people go back to their roots and find themselves when the path is unclear and when individuals feel lost. She has, through her different talks, collections and exhibitions, invited people to find out who they are and find their voice and helped people feel a sense of belonging in their work life as well as within themselves.

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Key Highlights

Founder & CEO, BARJIS London – luxury bespoke carpets, Fashion and Design, Est. 1999
Trained at the London College of Fashion; interned with Vivienne Westwood
Featured in Vogue, The Guardian, and many major UK press and Magazines
Winner: Entrepreneur of the Year, London (Shell Livewire), Business of the Year, (Islaam Channel, 2019 and Global MSME Champion Award, Global Council for Promotion of International Trade and many more

London Film Academy and BBC documentary subject
10+ Fashion exhibitions and fashion runways across the US, Europe, and the UAE
Speaks on a range of topics – from resilience and creativity to embracing uncertainty and identity

Keynotes

Leading Keynote Speaker on Embracing Failure, Uncertainty, and Creative Exploration

Barjis Chohan walks onto the stage carrying 27 years of building a business from scratch – the failures, the reinventions, the moments she nearly gave up, and the ones she's most proud of. And she hands all of it to the audience to learn and build their stories.

Corporate teams take away more than insights from her sessions; they leave with a new perspective on challenge, identity, creativity, and what is actually possible for them.

The Power of Belonging

When people feel they belong, they contribute more confidently, perform better, and stay longer, reducing attrition and increasing employee satisfaction.

Actionable Takeaways

Practical behaviours to build trust and psychological safety in everyday conversations and meetings
Identify small changes that make colleagues feel seen, valued and included, regardless of role or background.
Create a personal action plan to strengthen collaboration and build a culture where people contribute with confidence

Use creativity as the fuel for growth

Most innovative organisations need to build creative cultures in a world where every business has access to the same tools, technology, data, and an increasingly similar talent pool. Creative thinking is the last remaining source of genuine competitive advantage.

This keynote will explore:

Use effective and creative tools to generate ideas and solve challenges creatively.
A practical framework for creative thinking in business
Strategies to build team cultures that generate and sustain innovation
A renewed belief in the individual's own creative capacity

Authentic Leadership

In an era of rapid change, increasing complexity, and constant performance demands, employees are looking for leaders they can trust. Organisations that invest in authentic leadership cultivate higher trust, stronger collaboration, and more sustainable performance.

This keynote will explore:

Define your personal leadership values and use them as a practical framework for making confident decisions under pressure.
Learn communication techniques that builds trust, encourage openness and strengthens relationships across teams

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Testimonials

What Audiences and organisations say about their Speaker Booking experience with Barjis

"A great character and a brilliant mind, but above all a very generous and special human being, with a story that deserves to be shared with audiences all over the world."

Eugenio Chahin De Gamboa

-Minister of Culture, Columbia

"We really enjoyed having Barjis speak at our D&I Day. She added a really refreshing twist and complemented the whole day perfectly. Her courage is honestly really amazing."

Kambi Group

"The first reactions in the Q&A chat for Barjis’ talk were very positive, and the audience felt really inspired. She is a great, emphatic speaker. The content of the presentation really provided tools and strategies that help the designers at JPMC to act more inclusively. This was also seen in the number of participants, as almost all of them stayed till the end of the event."

JP Morgan Chase

"A lovely speaker who spoke frankly about a lovely range of topics. Everyone responded really well."

Gemma Paine

University of Surrey Students Union

"Barjis was a pleasure to work with. Extremely knowledgeable, clear, and concise. Her story was inspiring."

Stanmore College

"Unfiltered, unapologetic, uncompromising. Barjis was the perfect choice to shake us out of autopilot and challenge the way we see courage, conformity, and the act of carving our own paths. No fluff, no polished soundbites – just real talk about risk, resilience, and refusing to be boxed in. If you were looking for a session that was safe and predictable, this wasn't it. And that's exactly why it hit home."

Fonterra

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contact us

To book Barjis for your next event, keynote, summit, panel or podcast, kindly fill out this quick query form. Our team will get back to you shortly.

For any collaboration requests, kindly email us at: barjis@barjislondon.com