Matriarch provides light in people’s lives. Some joy, some safety, some inclusivity, some humour etc. Whatever way you phrase it, Matriarch is our way of creating some light in the world.
At just twenty-two years old, Ria Kalsi created and founded her company Matriarch and Matriarch Ltd; a platform that challenges multiple social and cultural issues such as body image, patriarchy, class, race and colonialism. When founding the brand back in 2019, Kalsi said that she “wanted a space to explore these topics and my thoughts […] so I created a blog and an Instagram page and that was that.” After feeling for many years as if there wasn’t a space online fitted to what Matriarch stands for, she took her own initiative. Since then, Kalsi has created content and designed and delivered game-changing inclusion work for schools, businesses and other organisations.
With both Matriarch and MatriachLtd., Kalsi’s goal was to create a safer, more inclusive space in the world through her platform. Though it currently only exists online, the business has a goal to grow into in-person events where people will feel safe and connected to be their most authentic selves. Many people responded to Matriarch stating that they ‘felt heard,’ ‘represented’ or ‘seen’ – some of the things that resonated with Kalsi when creating the brand in the first place.
After 2020, Kalsi expressed how she was left in ‘frustration’ after not being able to see as much change as she had hoped for within school curriculums in regard to anti-racism. Kalsi’s passion for influencing and providing educational materials in relation to race stems from her own personal experiences with racism:
“My first experience of racism was when I was seven years old at school – it was my teacher. That’s an experience I have carried with me all my life and a duty of care was missed there by my school for not explaining it to me properly; how to deal with the impact of it or to simply tell me it wasn’t my fault. But if I reflect, it’s probably because they didn’t know they should, or they didn’t know how. So, using the motto ‘be who you needed when you were younger,’ I thought instead of getting frustrated, I’ll do that. I’ll go into schools and teach kids the knowledge and skills I so needed when I was younger. I didn’t want to wait around for someone else to maybe do it.”
Kalsi took something that deeply affected her and turned it into a major strength for herself. Because of this, she expanded this idea into a corporate business and other organisations – developing concepts, whilst gaining clients, designing and delivering inclusion work that covered a range of topics from privilege to inclusive language through workshops, panel events and roundtables.
Kalsi shares how Matriarch has “seen first-hand that by doing that in our small space online, it can make a real difference for people – their confidence, their mental health, their self-esteem. We want to continue to build a community for people to live authentically, safely and inclusively. In an ever-polarised world, we take a lot of responsibility in promoting more compassion as well.”
When it comes to progression, the business isn’t looking for growth in its following and popularity, but growth in the community. Their focus is to help others and they say that ‘if it’s helping at least one person, then it’s doing the job’ that Kalsi set out to create. The main priority at Matriarch is to keep their focus on what is key, their community, by valuing and helping those who support them. What once was just Kalsi working alone, has since grown into a team of nine people, all voluntarily working because they really believe in who they are and what they do. Despite the success they have found in creating Matriarch, Kalsi says that ‘there are always challenges’ to be faced:
“In the practical sense, we’ve really had to evolve our content to move with Instagram and how it works as an app, it’s changed a lot so embracing video content and moving away from our style of flat resources has been a challenge, but one we’re dealing with pretty well. There are also always going to be negative comments etc. Our key approach to that is always approaching them with compassion and the opportunity to learn. So instead of a passive-aggressive response, it’s about being curious and challenging them in a healthy way.”
Kalsi also acknowledges how difficult it can be to run a volunteer-based platform. She expresses that she and her team all have jobs and degrees, or both, whilst voluntarily working for the platform. She states: “I am so enamoured constantly by my team for their care and commitment […] we work really hard at what we do and I am so proud that it’s never compromised for more views or likes.”
She also reflects on some of the stand-out moments the company have encountered since launching, which includes The Heartbreak Editorial. With over fifteen authors writing and creating works about heartbreak, Kalsi expresses that she had the honour of culminating it all into one body of work for which she is incredibly proud of: “any time we get to work with the community is so special.” She shares how extremely ‘lucky’ she feels to have figures and mentors surrounding her who help and believe in her.
In relation to being a young female founder and CEO, Kalsi describes it to be a ‘privilidge’ that she acknowledges has come from her education, class privilege as well as financial comfortability and security –
“Any success I have no or in ten years will never be a single-handed, self-made achievement. I have taken as much advantage of opportunities that others have laid out for me as much as possible, as well as creating my own.”
Creating her business was a mixture of self-belief and getting other people to believe in her and what she was doing. The work with Matriarch is personal with the clients who are buying into Kalsi and her business. For her, one of the biggest challenges she has faced without a plethora of experience or qualifications has made her work harder to create space for herself. Kalsi recognises the difficulty in building a client-based business, particularly as a young person, whilst also acknowledging gender-related issues:
“I think there is also a challenge within a capitalist society to get people to buy into people. The key thing we sell is compassion and empathy for others. That’s a lot hard to get people interested in than something that will obviously make them more money. The funny thing is, a more inclusive business, for example, has proven to be a more profitable, successful business, but these softer, human skills are still undervalued. But that’s what the fight and challenge are – to get people to care about something outside of themselves. I am sure if I were a white man, people would be more inclined to listen to me, but this is nothing new. Ultimately, what I can offer will always be more impactful than what that white man can due to my lived experience.”
Matriarch will continue to do community work in the future. Kalsi establishes that they are always looking for writers and people to join the platform so that Matriarch can become a go-to place for certain things: “We will continue to grow into a powerhouse platform and business.”
You can follow Matriarch on Instagram: @mtrrch and @mtrrchltd. You can view their website at www.mtrrch.com.
Disgraceful Magazine 