Fatima Mazhar

Early life and background

Mazhar's family is from Lahore and originally from Kashmir. Her father served in the army, and she lived in a new city every two years. She has lived in many parts of Pakistan, and the longest she has stayed in one place is Lahore, for the last two years. At one point her father was in the ISI. She says her parents raised the children in her family very equally. [1]

At school athletics events she won gold medals in long jump, high jump, 400 metres, 100 metres and relay. She had access to horse riding and liked it from the first day. She has won national ribbons in show jumping and dressage. [1]

Education

Mazhar did her childhood schooling at Beaconhouse. Her parents moved her to Convent of Jesus and Mary for three years. She received three Ds and a C in her A-levels. [1]

She enrolled at Kinnaird and spent one semester there. She got into NUST and did a year there before transferring to the US. Her GPA when she left NUST was 3.96, and she was in the second batch of the NUST Business School. [1]

Mazhar completed her undergraduate degree at Washington College in the US. She added International Relations as another major and took a minor in finance. She studied for a semester at Boğaziçi University in Turkey, and she did a programme at the London School of Economics through Washington College. She joined the equestrian team at both her undergraduate and graduate schools. [1]

She did not get into any MBA programme but got into the University of Pittsburgh. She finished her master's degree in 2006. Mazhar later went to MIT to do an MBA, a goal she had held for a long time. She completed the MBA, going in 2018 and graduating in 2019. [1]

Career

After her master's, Mazhar could not get a job in the field she wanted. She found a job at E-Trade, a large bank, but never received an H1B visa. By then her father had retired from the army and moved to Dubai. [1]

She joined a boutique investment bank started by a group of former BNP Paribas bankers. She joined the firm in 2007, after she had graduated. She worked as a financial analyst, building models, presentations and decks. Her bank took part in a bidding process and lost the bid; the work took her six months of intense effort. [1]

Mazhar says she was one of the top performers in her company. She was made redundant in 2009. She joined a firm that was supposed to be a private equity company but had three people, and she worked there for a while without being paid. [1]

She was brought in as a trainee. She was told she was not a finance person but an operations person. She stood in parking lots and manually dispatched cars for guests. Her company's largest contract was for the Dubai World Cup, a race held in Dubai. She says a portion of Formula 1 transportation was with her. [1]

Mazhar also reached the position of chief operating officer. After three years in the role, issues began between her and the CEO. She was told that Uber was coming and was looking for people, and that she had done a lot of transport work. [1]

Careem

Mazhar left her apartment and her job, and three days later joined Careem. She worked at Careem from 2013 to 2018. She started in a call centre taking captain calls, then became a fleet manager. As fleet manager she was responsible for the payroll, hiring and training of the drivers in that city. [1]

She believes she was one of the few female fleet managers, even long afterwards. She also took on product management for an internal system that had no product manager. She moved into an assistant general manager role for the GCC region. After Doha showed the strongest growth, she was sent to Kuwait. [1]

Kuwait stopped letting Pakistanis in. She was then told to go to Pakistan. That was the start of her role as head of expansion. She spent nine months in Pakistan and launched the cities of Lahore and Karachi. She had been out of Pakistan for 17 years before she returned. [1]

Mazhar then went to Turkey, then Egypt, then Morocco, where she launched cities. She says expansion had become documented, with its processes unified, so that anyone could do it. She was offered a sabbatical instead of leaving. Uber acquired Careem, and she resigned two days after the acquisition. [1]

KeepTruckin

Mazhar was told that KeepTruckin was looking for a head of Pakistan and was asked whether she was interested. She became head of KeepTruckin Pakistan, which included the technology and customer service teams. She joined KeepTruckin on 1 July. She relocated to Islamabad, and it was the first time she worked at night. [1]

She found the two-boss reporting structure at KeepTruckin hard to work in. She asked that KeepTruckin's Pakistan operations be called the front office. She says 70% of KeepTruckin's revenue is generated out of Pakistan. [1]

The Pakistan R&D team worked on AI cameras that predict accidents from driving patterns. Mazhar expanded the Lahore office, which was very small when she arrived. She reasoned that if there was not much to do in Pakistan for her as head of Pakistan, it was better for her to leave. [1]

COLABS

Mazhar joined COLABS in July. Her position was co-founder and chief operating officer. She says she has a lot of people in her co-working space in Lahore at the moment. She says they had 1,000 seats at the time and aimed for 3,000 by the end of the year. [1]

She says they lease on long-term, 10-year leases with minimal rental payments. She gives the example of 150 rupees per square foot, against 50 rupees per square foot with COLABS. Her vision is for COLABS to be present in the top 10 cities, and she says about seven fintechs sit with them. [1]

Views

Mazhar says she cannot imagine doing anything other than operations. She says it pains her greatly when employees are not treated properly or when someone wants to cut their pay. She says her biggest mistake was jumping into something that her gut did not tell her to do. [1]

She says WeWork went wrong by buying assets. She says infrastructure in Pakistan is not that good and people live with multiple people. She thinks the momentum of startup funding coming in might slow down a bit. She says she does not understand last mile, and she says she loves Pakistan and wants it to do well. [1]

Timeline

2006

Finished her master's degree.[1]

2007

Joined a boutique investment bank started by former BNP Paribas bankers.[1]

2009

Made redundant.[1]

2013

Began working at Careem.[1]

2018

Finished at Careem and went for her MBA.[1]

2019

Graduated with an MBA.[1]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. The COO who took a 85% pay cut to join Careem . Thought Behind Things , 2022-03-23.