Dilshad Master - Kumar - Speaker profile

Dilshad is an adventurer and explorer, Dilshad has led several treks in Nepal and India including Everest Base Camp, tackled Grade 5 rapids on the wild Zanskar river in Ladakh, and is the first and only female to ever lead a civilian trek to the Siachen Glacier – all of this after surviving cancer. 

Dilshad is an motivational speaker and is invited by corporates and institutions to speaks on topics closest to her heart. Being a cancer survivor, her talks focus on doing what you always thought was "impossible" and turning that into "I'm possible" (with due credit to the great Audrey Hepburn!)

She often  urges young people and senior level professionals to step out of their comfort zones and into the wilderness to understand success and failure, leadership and responsibility, teamwork and personal growth, aspirations and ambitions.

Dilshad's talks often center around one of her favourite quotes: "I understand you've never done this before, but heck...life is too short not to try out new things."

​"The worst possible thing that I feel I'd have to live with is regret. And so, I ski down that darn mountain even if it scares the hell out of me; cross that Grade 5 rapid, with a prayer on my lips, hoping She can hear me over the roar of the waters; continue to plod on to reach the highest point of that pass mumbling under my breath...I can do it, I can do it, I can do it dammit!"

​Dilshad has worked in the media and entertainment space for over 22 years and has several television channel launches to her credit. Her multi-channel broadcasting career stared with STAR Movies, where she was assigned to STAR’s partners Zee TV to launch Zee Cinema in 1996 after which there was no looking back. As Head of Operations, she went on to launch STAR Plus Hindi and STAR News and as Senior Vice President of STAR TV, she was responsible for the launch of the STAR brand in UK.

As Senior Vice President of National Geographic Channel heading Programming and Marketing, she was responsible for introducing Indian content on the international channel. Under Dilshad’s leadership, The History Channel was also launched in India and she guided it’s Indianization to ensure its appeal to Indian audiences.

Dilshad’s last held responsibility in the broadcasting space was as Chief Operating Officer of UTV Entertainment where she launched two more television channels – bringing it to a total of seven television channels in India – an incomparable feat that has probably remained unmatched till date. Until 2012 Dilshad worked as a consultant to train Indian and foreign professionals in television programming and production.

Dilshad moved out of the broadcasting space soon after to explore her next big passion – adventure travel. Today, she sits on the board of Outward Bound India-Himalaya, an international organization that works with children, young people and professionals empowering them with life skills by giving them experiential training in the outdoors. The main aim of the Program is to get people to step out of their comfort zones and into the wilderness to explore their true potential.