Priya S. Sundararaman, DTM

Priya has been speaking to audiences and winning accolades since her own middle school years, drawing on a diverse set of work and childhood experiences. She is a licensed finance professional in Corporate America — but she found her calling in December 2015, when she established DSI as a passion-turned sole proprietorship. She calls it her social entrepreneurship effort, her way of giving back to the community.

An involved youth leadership mentor since 2012, she has presented several hundred speech evaluations, and the number keeps climbing. The very first set of workshops ran out of her house. DSI now has its own space in Mercerville Hall in Hamilton Square, NJ, which gives children a properly formal experience — and the option to join live online.

Her programs have been received well enough that children return level after level, and parents have asked to attend themselves. More than 250 future leaders have been trained through 39 twelve-week workshops as of 2023 — a number that has since grown past 45 workshops and 22 DSITalks Grand Finale events.

She has been a Toastmaster since 2011 and was honoured with the organisation's highest educational award, Distinguished Toastmaster, in 2019, after progressing through the Competent and Advanced Bronze, Silver and Gold levels on both the communication and leadership tracks — the same four-rung shape DSI's own program takes.