Hi, I’m Dia.

Like most I am multifaceted but unlike most my facets are a collection paradoxes. I am a poet and a tax strategist, a playwright and a corporate educator, a social advocate and

I’ve always belonged to the margins, the divide—whether it’s language, culture, or career. Life has been like this as far as I’ve known.

I was born in Istanbul, bred in London. East of the Bosphorus. North of the Thames.

Born to Kurdish parents with roots stretching across Iran, Armenia, and the Caucasus. Raised with Western influences and British humour. The paradox of speaking the language of my ancestors colonisers fluently (British & Ottoman) and whilst trying to connect to my history, cultural richness without their language.

But the term Caucasian has shifted over the years so much so that it no longer refers to the complex history I carry in my bones, or to describe the colour of the skin that wrapped around those bones.

So the paradox of being historically Caucasian of old and culturally Caucasian of new, and yet still not Caucasian.

This has impacted all areas of my life.

For instance at school, I was the only student taking both Further Maths and English Literature—two subjects housed at opposite ends of a long corridor, as if the building and its architecture mirrored the distance within me. I spent years running those halls.

At work, I was working as a tax adviser whilst training as an actor, and discovering my voice as a writer.
For a long time, I described as:

a tax adviser and a poet/playwright—one for the pocket, the other for the soul.

It wasn’t until I stepped away from the white collar and toward the white page that I made space to feed my soul. That’s when I understood:

I am the corridor. I am the bridge. Across cultures, disciplines, and divides.

And it’s runs through all the work I do.

• Through tax strategy, I connect technical expertise with commercial pragmatism.
• ⁠Through advocacy, I bring together lived experience and strategic voice; and
• With my writing, I find the language that binds both head and heart.

Whether through numbers, stories, or policy, I build bridges where others see binaries. Because I’ve lived them all.

Kurdish, Turkish, and British.

Further Maths and English Literature

North of the Thames, West of the Bosphorus

Now, I use all of my paradox of facets to I aid people, organisations, and communities connect what’s often kept apart—from law and leadership, to values and creative advocacy.