The first Indian edition of Cannes Lions’ See It Be It programme, organised by Indian Creative Women and Manifest in association with Snowball Studios, unfolded in Mumbai on 14 November.

Felicity Fellows, TED global ambassador, co-founder and chief stratgey officer, Stan Group, and founder Stan Paris, was among the speakers, and during her keynote, she urged women to trust their bodies, honour their pace, and lead from a place that feels real.

Before she spoke about culture, creativity, or leadership, she turned the spotlight on the room. She opened with a simple instruction: stand if this feels true to you. People rose slowly, then in waves.

“Stand if you’ve ever felt something was off, a decision, an energy, the timing, but you pushed through anyway just to keep things moving or to keep the peace.”

More people stood.

“Stand if you’ve given your whole self to the work, yet felt unseen or undervalued in the process”, Fellows then continued.

Half the room rose.

“Stand if you’ve moved so fast you stopped seeing people clearly, including yourself.”

Then she paused. “Take a look around. You’re not alone. You’re never alone.”

“Here’s the thing. In a world obsessed with hustle and productivity, we lose sight of what actually matters: beauty, meaning, integrity,” she said.

Fellows made it clear she wasn’t anti-tech. “Like everyone else, I’m excited about AI and everything it unlocks. But I also believe it will make emotional intelligence, wisdom, and human connection even more valuable.”

She spoke about two decades spent building cultural movements of the kind that make people feel, not just click. “I’m at a point where I refuse to lead from a place of pure hustle. I can’t force, rush, or perform my way through leadership. It never works for me.”

When Fellows shifted to the challenges women face, she avoided numbers altogether. “They break my heart, especially now that I’m a mother", she said.

Instead, she spoke about what fuels leadership underneath everything else: boundaries, consciousness, and the balance between heart and hustle.

A film played, ‘Back Up Ukraine’, created by Henrik Grubak, co-founder, CD (culture and gaming), Stan and Tao Legene Thomsen, co-founder, creative director (innovation), Stan.

Grubak, now her co-founder, is one of the reasons she returned to agency life. The film set up the story she needed to share next.

Add the film: 

Earlier this year, a friend working in women’s health came to her in a state of shock.

“Funding cuts. Research at risk. Decades of work on the edge of disappearing. The way Henrik and his team backed up culture for Ukraine could help us back up women’s health,” said Fellows.

The team moved quickly, a non-profit was formed, a creative rolled out, and global scientists were brought in. “Within two weeks, we were launching at TED — which is, for me, the busiest week of the year,” Fellows shared.

She continued, “Hustle gave us momentum. I’m proud of what we achieved in those two weeks. But the heart reminded us what was true. Real leadership is knowing when to pause, reorient, and rebuild, even when the speed feels intoxicating.”

Two days ago, before the event, Fellows added, they received unexpected news. A major, untouched dataset, two terabytes of women’s health research, had been donated. The initiative will now launch on the eve of International Women’s Day 2026. And its AI character, Eve, “won’t be a young mascot. She’ll be a grounded older auntie, someone you can actually go to with questions," she shared.

Then she brought the room back into play. She asked everyone to grab a pen, find a partner, and draw their face without looking down, without lifting the pen. Thirty seconds. The room erupted.

“This exercise, created by Wendy MacNaughton, reminds us to be present, to really look at someone, and to drop the performance. Creativity lives there.”

She tied it together: “Heart sees what’s true. Hustle channels it into motion. Leadership is the movement between the two.”

Her takeaways were simple and lived-in. They were:

Know what regulates the nervous system.

“Learn what actually supports your nervous system, not what you think should calm you.” For her, it’s morning dancing to Lakshmi chants or Kali fire.

Protect  boundaries

She remarked, “Work only where there is respect, flow, and safety. If someone diminishes your value, the cost is too high.”

Trust your body

“Lie down, hand on heart, hand on belly, and imagine the two paths. Your body knows before your mind does.”

She moved into intuitive science, explaining Amy Charnley’s work, grounded in Dr Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory and Deb Dana’s research.

Fellows stated, “Your dorsal vagal system is 500 million years old, your ancient survival strategy. When it activates, your body whispers: survive by disappearing.” Calm, she added, can sometimes be shut down.

“But your ventral vagal system, your mammalian connection system, wants aliveness. Curiosity. Engagement,” she added.

True regulation, she said, isn’t stillness. It’s flexible. She shared, “It’s being furious and still clear. Heartbroken and still present. Terrified and still courageous.”

Women with this capacity, she said, “are hard to gaslight, hard to manipulate, hard to silence. These are dangerous women, in the best way.”

She added, “This week, make one decision through the lens of heart and hustle. Slow down enough to see. Speed up only when it’s aligned. Lead from presence, not performance.”

Fellows wrapped up her talk with a bold statement: “Women don’t just change rooms. They change the rhythm of the room. And the future here in Mumbai, across India, everywhere belongs to those who can move between heart and hustle without losing themselves. I want a future where our daughters aren’t called ‘female leaders’. I want a future where they’re simply powerful effing leaders.

Catch an in-depth chat with Fellows in the December issue of Manifest, which can be pre-ordered here: