Making Decisions
Due to her father being an army officer, she grew up in a bit of a guided and tight environment. Once finishing her school education from Shahid Anwar, there was quite a debate about what she was going to pursue further. During a time when women were being recruited in the army for the first time, her father wanted her to be a part of it while her mother wanted her to be a doctor. Even with the hope of joining the army herself, she eventually ended up studying Economics at NSU.

Living with Social Constructs
Being the third of four sisters, she was always aware of the negative connotation at the fact that there were no sons in the family. Her mother fell victim to people constantly telling her there wasn’t much to expect from a family of daughters because of social constructs. All of that however shaped Farhana up to be the person that she is today. What she finds funny is the fact that this exists even today. As upsetting as it is, she genuinely feels that there will always be some people who won’t support equality, no matter how many women’s day are celebrated. Being the self-dependent woman that she is, she believes however that this can be minimized. She is determined to teach her son that whatever his sister would be learning, he would have to learn as well. They will both do things equally and together. She believes it’s a mother’s duty to teach both men and women about being equal. If a mother is teaching her daughter to make the bed, it’s her duty to teach her son too.

She heartily acknowledges how growing up her father was the source of her strength. He’s the one that taught her to make the best of any situation which helped her cope up with everything she achieved so far.

The Start of the Best Professional Journey
She started her professional career with an internship at Bank – Alfalah and then worked at Banglalink for a year. And about 10 years ago, she joined Unilever in the Marketing department. Even without a Marketing background, it worked out for her quite well because she had experience in relationship management and they were looking for someone for consumer contact management. Joining as a brand executive, she eventually got into looking after the Consumer Engagement Center (CEC) where she had to deal with data regarding consumer engagement via various mediums. Since 2009, it has expanded thrice as much as of now and she’s serving as the Country Lead. She says that as an organization, Unilever is incredible. They don’t confine employees within the hours because it’s a performance driven company. It doesn’t matter where the employees work from, as long as the work is delivered no one questions anyone. Which is why she was able to work remotely after her first child and she felt what a privilege that was as a mother and woman.

Moments of Pride
Growing up, she never really had to do actively participate in household tasks. And so, she never thought she’d be able to do it all but now that she can, she’s genuinely really proud of herself for getting there. It’s the same for her with kids and marriage. She was never the type who liked or wanted to take responsibility. However, now she’s at that place where she takes more and more responsibilities and happily takes care of it all.

To the Young Professionals
She’s a firm believer that work-life balance is up to each person. People have to have their own cut off time. They need to be able to prioritize as well as be able to move things around. They need to be firm in their position and also deliver all of their work with finesse.

What the Future Holds
Farhana is now at a stage where she feels that she should start something of her own but doesn’t know what it is yet. As of now, she has no solid plans of leaving Unilever.

As for herself, Farhana plans on traveling the world and tick risky adventure sports off her bucket list. She has parasailed and gone scuba diving up until now. And Hopes to go Sky diving, Bungee jumping, rafting, flyboarding and trekking in the future!

We urge you to wish her all the best!