Naema Ahmed

Naema Ahmed (born January 1991) is a Pakistani business woman. She works as a HR & Project Delivery Manager at the e-commerce startup . The company was founded in 2012 by CEO Ali Aziz,to bring online retail experience to Pakistanis. She is featured in the BBC's series 100 Women along with Karima Baloch who were the only two women chosen from Pakistan. Her story is relate-able to many women in Pakistan because she struggled for her career and independence.

Personal Life & Education

Family

Naema is a young Pakistani woman who was raised in a conservative family. She was born to Ahmed Masood and Nausheen Ahmed in Urdu Bazaar, Lahore. At the age of 2, her parents shifted to DHA (Defense Housing Authority), a posh area in Lahore. They stayed in the area until her sixth birthday after which owing to her grandfather's heart illness the family had to move back to Urdu Bazaar to care for him and her grandmother.

Childhood

Naema's relationship with her parents unlike that of many Pakistani women. When she was in school, her father highly encouraged education and self-improvement. He stated that education is always your first priority. Her mother was a housewife who also shared this point of view, however no girl in Naema's family had developed a career and this is something her parents didn't deem necessary as it broke tradition.

Her childhood was a very happy one, she was an only child until she was 8, after which her brother Sawaiz Ahmed was also born in Urdu Bazaar. She and her brother are very close and according to her video she is raising him to be a person who believes in gender equality. Her parents, despite pressure from the family supported her education and learning.

She had a troubled relationship with her grandmother who was very conservative and chose to stifle her ambitions and personality. She believed in raising "good daughters" who would be a blessing to their in laws once wed. She also had trouble with Naema's dressing habits asking her not to wear red lipstick until she was married, and policing what she wore. Up until her grandmother's death all clothes Naema wore had to be Shalwar Kameez that passed inspection by her grandmother.

Education

She was taught in one of the best private schools in Lahore; Lahore Grammar School and completed her high school education there. Her father and Naema both wanted her to get into Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore. After much hard work and support from her parents she was able to make it into the college. She stayed there for 8 years completing her college education, gaining an honors degree and an MPhil degree in English Literature. Her Bachelors thesis was on 'Splinter Psyche in Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie' and her MPhil thesis is on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, determining whether he was an amateur psychologist. She is a well educated individual with a thirst for learning.

She was the Literacy Club President for Kinnaird's Centennial Council, an honor bestowed to one student council team in a century. She was very ACTIVE in extra cirricular activities which led to her popularity and to her being elected as the Literacy Club President. Before that she served in the junior council for the English Club in the student council. At the end of her council year, Naema was awarded a shield and some souveniers by the Kinnaird administration for serving in the 2012-2013 centennial council.

Naema is also a self-learned individual in many departments. She has a degree in literature however has worked her way up her career ladder by learning things on her own and by taking online courses. She is also an astronomy whiz as this is a subject which interests her greatly alongside languages. She has taken numerous online courses on both. She is teaching herself French, after which she intends to learn either German or Dutch. She also taught herself to play the guitar, with help from her brother and bestfriend/colleague. She is also learning basics of coding to better understand her line of work as she is a Project Delivery Manager in an IT company and deals mainly in software projects.

Paradigm Shift

Naema's paradigm shift occurred when she was 20 years old and continued on to this day. When asked, she responded that "It was not something that happened overnight, instead it's a process that took years." The main shift occurred when her grandmother got cancer, and stopped her from getting married to SomeOne Naema was in love with by spreading false rumors AbOUT her. Up until then, Naema believed that a girl's purpose was to marry, take care of the house and have and raise kids. "It was what I was raised into" she stated, "I built my whole life around the guy I loved, and my entire personality around him too. I learnt to cook because he was a foodie. I wanted to learn German because he was in a country that spoke the language. I read all the books he liked. I was that sort of a person, someone who wasn't anything on her own."

After attending his wedding, Naema sat in her grandmother's room and contemplated her life choices. She then realised that her happiness did not need to revolve around a man and that she should become someone herself before she belonged to someone else. "It was the only thing that made me feel better, and I realized that's something I needed to pursue. It was the first time I felt happy about something in months, and I wasn't about to ignore that feeling."

Now Naema is an independent woman who makes good money, is in a good steady job, has quality education and drives her own car. "I went from a girl who wasn't confident enough to go to a department store alone and buy a soda, to a girl who works in an office and drives herself alone."

Love Life

Naema has always been single, as she believes she is not the type of person who is capable of sharing her life and decisions with another person. She has been single by choice, and is the first girl in her family to be that at her age. Girls and even boys in her family are married off before 24, something she has fought against. She believes that until she can find someone she loves she won't be coerced into a marriage she does not want or is not comfortable with.

Philanthropy

Kinnaird Fashionista '12

During her time at Kinnaird, Naema was very active in extra cirricular activities. She took part in debates, theatre and other events which led her to making it to Kinnaird's centennial student council. She was the Literacy Society President who organised The Famous Kinnaird Fashionista '12 - a fashion show for charity. The event raised a record of PKR 200,000 in donations in one night - something never accomplished in Kinnaird history before. The charity went to a foundation that works towards child literacy in Pakistan.

Childrens Mela 2013

She also organized the Children's Mela which is a carnival organised for Special Children in Pakistan and raises funds for them.

Raising Funds Drive 2012-2013

She along with a team of her Literacy Club visited the Teach A Child (TAC) Foundation and Rukhsana Foundation schools and asked them what the schools needed. She then went back to Kinnaird and raised sufficient funds for these two schools according to what they needed at the time. She also WISHES to one day be able to afford enough to sponsor a child's education in the Teach A Child Foundation.

Writing & Love for Reading

Naema's love for reading stems from the fact that her mother used to read to her and read with her from a very young age. Her father encouraged her reading habits and every year used to take her to the book fairs that happened around the city. Every year, Naema and her father also had a fixed day before summer vacations started where they would visit several old book shops around the city, along with Radio City (to buy some Disney VHS tapes) and an annual trip to Pizza Hut. This was the start to every summer vacation in Naema's life when she was in school.

When she was 18, upon insistence from her mother, she started working on a novel of her own. Her first work she believes was highly inspired by Harry Potter, so much so that it seemed like a carbon copy to her. However she was proud of finishing a novel of her own and looked forward to creating a more original storyline one day. Right now, Naema is working on two books. She is working on a semi-autobiographical novel and plans on releasing it after she turns 35. At the moment her focus is on a social sattire which she looks forward to completing by 2018.

Naema also has a tumblr blog where she usually vents about social injustice, gender inequality and many obstacles she FACES in her life. It goes by her nickname, The Neemster. She dreams of shifting to London one day which she calls 'The Literary Hub of the World' and of writing her books. She also wants to work in the entertainment industry where she can write fiction for a living and create stories and characters for a reputable channel.

As a child two of her short stories "Beyond the Galaxy" and "The Room" appeared in a magazine from Dubai called Young times.

Career

During the time she was doing her MPhil, Naema decided she needed to save money for her car and for her trip to London which she had been planning for years. She mentioned this to a friend who happened to tell her about Nexicle. After a test and phone interview Naema was hired to be a Content Writer in the UK Based Company. She has been working online in this company as a full timer since March 2014.

After graduating, Naema taught in Lahore Grammar School (Landmark Project) for a month. Her family insisted that if she should do a job it should be teaching as it is a "good girl profession" and doesn't involve interaction with males. A few weeks into the job Naema realized this is not what she wanted to do with her life and that she wanted a different career for herself. She thought of sticking a year with this, and then resigning to find a better job that suited her needs. As fate would have it, a friend of Naema's had applied as a Product Content & Merchandising Associate at Shopistan. Since he didn't fit the job description as well, he suggested Naema try out for it.

After applying for the position on a whim, Naema was called for an interview immediately and offered a job the same day. She convinced her father, resigned from the school immediately and went on to work at Shopistan. In her first year at the company she was promoted thrice from a Product Content and Merchandising Associate to Content and Merchandising Specialist to Project Delivery Manager and then finally to an HR & Project Delivery Manager.

She became the CEO's right hand man and was deeply involved in day to day affairs at the company. Later on she was also given additional responsibility to deal with Shopistan's own marketplace Woop and to handle finance matters of the company including payroll and taxes. She plans on making the jump to the entertainment industry soon, in a country abroad preferably London where she can write and edit for a living.

Her Car aka "Tardis" or "Firebolt"

As mentioned in her BBC video, Naema's car was scratched by one of her uncles at her cousin's wedding. It was a sign of protest as they believe women should not drive. Her car was keyed back to front, pictures of which she posted on her tumblr account. She now drives her cars saying it has not stopped her from driving and hasn't dimmed her courage at all. She calls her car "The Firebolt" or her "Tardis". When asked about her car she stated "I worked for this car for 7 years and the person who scratched it took 2 minutes to bring it all down."