Karen Mascarenhas, BSc (Hons), MSc, Founder and Director of Mascarenhas PR LTD, has lived a global life. Her journey crosses continents – from a childhood in Uganda, to schooling in India, through to adult life in South East London. These experiences, deeply influenced by both people and politics, have sculpted her outlook on marketing, communications, and diversity.
Here, she reflects on how these early experiences and global events have shaped her work in technical public relations, and how diversity in marketing and life continues to evolve alongside geopolitical shifts.
Could you share a bit about where you grew up? Did that affect who you became?
Halcyon childhood days playing under African skies, convent schooling in Goa, and the traumatic exodus of Asians from Uganda culminated in teenage years living in Sidcup, Kent. This forged in me a great curiosity about life. This thirst for knowledge has never left me.
I had childhood freedom in Uganda – playing outdoors, climbing trees, etc. I enjoyed school and had a keen interest in mathematics and poetry, but also art and music. My love of reading started with Aunty Maggie and Uncle Peter. She gave me my first books, whilst he allowed me access to monthly science and knowledge publications.
When you began working in sectors like defence and electronics, did you find yourself facing any particular challenges as a woman in male-dominated environments? How did you navigate those situations?
Learning
I made two key decisions – to read and ask questions. ‘A’ level chemistry, biology, and mathematics offered technical basics whilst the transitional process – from complex medical terminology to electronic concepts – was swift. Females were expected to be intelligent but not given top positions. Finally, a female editor was appointed, and now they florish in electronics publishing.
Determination
Physical stamina was vital, long hours – driving up to 30,000 miles per annum for UK wide meetings and in the office, writing for all STC marketing including its entire manufacturing and distribution network. In 1991, STC was sold and its distribution acquired by Farnell. I resigned my agency Directorship, gained in my mid-twenties, assessed PR offers, but set up my own agency.
Can you tell me a little bit about Mascarenhas PR and the specialisms it covers?
Responsibility
My company needed a name. Mascarenhas PR LTD – after my grandfather, Peter Mascarenhas – a quiet, gentle, and affectionate man of principle, who was taken by the British to Tanzania to work and only allowed home to Goa once every four years to visit his family.
Weidmuller secured my future. Exciting work included writing their articles about the Channel Tunnel boring machine for Eurostar tunnels and new Emergency Shut Down systems for oil platforms.
FCI, a multi-billion-pound interconnection company, was gained and retained for 12 years.
Flexibility
Mascarenhas PR LTD secured Signature Industries with four divisions – relays and switches, traffic display signage, fire alarms, and SARBE Search and Rescue beacons. Good press coverage was gained for SARBE in Jane’s Defence publications against multi-billion-dollar companies like Boeing and General Dynamics. Focusing on the Paris and Farnborough Air Shows, a huge contract was secured with the Indian Air Force. In Paris, we were guests of the British ambassador.
Coverage in the Middle East and the US for the Fire Division enabled a large fire alarms contract at the Russian Sakalin Oil facility.
Other clients included Swiss-owned LEMO, Whitstable-based US-owned Amphenol, and for 14 years, Hypertac – which my agency helped to rebrand to Smiths connectors and Smiths Interconnect.
Integrity
A true credit to Mascarenhas PR LTD was that these clients competed against one another but were run, at times, concurrently by me – highlighting the integrity assigned to my agency.
Over the span of your career, have you noticed any shifts in diversity – especially gender diversity – within the technical teams or clients you’ve worked with?
Mascarenhas PR LTD’s website highlights diversity and inclusion. Associates are of wide ethnic backgrounds with diversity of age and gender yet are excellent within their specialities.
Changes in gender diversity were noticeable in Europe – the President of FCI in Paris was a woman, and later, Smiths Interconnect selected a woman President, Karen Bomba, who remains a friend.
Why are you passionate about what you do?
Through my work, I learn more all the time, and this highlights global injustice. Child slavery within conflict minerals. Some G7 and G12 nations massively exploit developing countries. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) exports tantalum vital for mobiles and laptops, so why is mineral-rich DRC desperately poor?
My first conflict minerals article was published in the 100-year anniversary issue of Electronics World in 2013. I continue to write and campaign.
President Obama instigated the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act in 2010 requiring firms like Apple, Google, HP, Intel, etc., to confirm purchase of vast quantities of cheap conflict minerals like tantalum from rebels who use slave children to extract the ore from makeshift mines. Many children die. The illegal trade has reduced but not eliminated, leaving the still DRC poverty-stricken.
The US announced a peace deal between Rwanda and the DRC in June 2025 but insists on ownership of lucrative mineral rights – so the 18th-century “Scramble for Africa” continues. Electronics must ensure Fair Trade – like Food & Drink.
Writing about gifted people is a delight – my Raspberry Pi interview with CCO Mike Buffham highlighted projects in Ghana and Kenya; award winner Debbie McDade of A.R.T. took over her father’s business, and the UK head of Thales, Vibishna Balagopal, inspires many.
What have you learned from being in this field that people should know, especially women?
Do not give up, be flexible, tolerant, and value friendships. Stand your ground yet try to view the other’s perspective to avoid conflict. Trust is vital for all – especially for women. It’s an intrinsic part of my work life and personal life.
What are the three most helpful books you would recommend to our readers, especially women, trying to navigate a path in the industry?
To Kill a Mockingbird – timeless heroes and heroines – with people from different races and genders, represented.
A Suitable Boy – a masterpiece about a young woman set in post-independence India.
A Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela’s iconic story about diversity, geopolitics and marketing – reconciliation.
Please watch the funeral of President Carter – a man for all seasons – from peanut businessman to the top job in the US, with dignity and integrity – a lesson for technical PR but also, life.
Heartfelt thanks to my grandfather and grandmothers, relatives, and great many friends, but most of all, I thank my best friend, my son, James Mascarenhas.
By Sheryl Miles, Associate Editor, and Karen Mascarenhas, Mascarenhas PR LTD
This article originally appeared in the November’25 magazine issue of Electronic Specifier Design – see ES’s Magazine Archives for more featured publications.
