Speaker Biography
Farah is a compelling storyteller and presenter who shares powerful stories of humanity and change from around the world. She has a relaxed presentation style which puts audiences instantly at ease with her down-to-earth pragmatism and relatable storytelling style. Through compelling personal experience and lessons-learned, Farah inspires audiences to cultivate a better future by showing passionate leadership, empowering young people, and seeing the value of a social profit entrepreneurship mindset. Her well-researched presentations frame data in a way that brings numbers to life as she connects the dots in a convincing manner and get your audience excited for the possibilities of change.
In her role as Malala Fund CEO, inspired by Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban for going to school and became the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, she’s involved in advocating for resources and policy change needed to give all girls a secondary education, investing in developing country educators and activists, and amplifying the voices of girls fighting for change. Her fund invests in the future of girls and women with more than $8.6 million towards girls’ education programmes.
Previously, as Founder of G(irls)20, Farah Mohamed designed the organization G20 style; a cool take on the G20, which puts girls and women at the very heart of the issues. This internationally active organization brings together one delegate girl from each G20 country concluding in a global Summit that generates ideas that are presented to the G20 Leaders, global mentorships and the creation of delegate led initiatives. G(irls)20 is a globally active social enterprise that cultivates a new generation of female leaders through education, entrepreneurship and global experiences and provides advice to G20 Leaders on how to increase female labour force participation as it is key to economic growth. The program involves skills building (entrepreneurship, business planning, communications, technology navigation, leadership, and more). G(irls)20 also provides advice to G20 Leaders on how to economically engage girls and women to reach growth targets.
Magna heiress and former Cabinet Minister, Belinda Stronach recruited Farah to establish The Belinda Stronach Foundation (TBSF). Under Farah’s leadership, TBSF created and launched the Foundation’s flagship programs including One Laptop Per Child for Aboriginal Youth. She also oversaw the Foundation’s work in Liberia with President Johnson Sirleaf and a $1M humanitarian relief effort in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.
Farah is passionate about working with young people to empower them at a crucial time in their development. She saw the need to change the way we engage both women and men and acted on it. She works tirelessly to engage the private sector and government leaders in a way that makes economic sense: to place girls and women at the heart of the economic decision making and yield the benefits in doing so.
Of Indian heritage, Farah was born and raised in Uganda before her family was uprooted and sought refuge in Canada. Her upbringing instilled her with a strong work ethic and keen sense of curiosity, which eventually culminated in her working in politics. For 10 years, Farah worked closely with some of Canada’s most senior politicians including Paddy Torsney and Anne McLellan. Post politics, Farah served as Vice President, Public Affairs and Community Engagement for VON Canada where she was successful in building government and private sector partnerships.
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