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Zarah Shah has been working at City Football Group in Manchester, within finance, at what is currently one of the leading football clubs in the world – Manchester City, and now has taken on an important role in equality, diversity and inclusion as EDI executive. She's just begun a year-long stint on the board of directors at Women in Football, as part of a programme designed to nurture potential future leaders of the industry. Zarah has also worked in the film industry, and spent time living in Mumbai and Dubai after growing up in Dublin.

In short, Zarah has already packed a lot into a career that's still at a relatively early stage. You could add that she literally has the scars to prove it, but the scars date back to primary school – and the time when her love of football began.

"I fancied one guy and he let me come and play with the guys," she recalls, "and I'd be there in my skirt and heels, running around trying to chase the ball. I've still got scars to this day from falling around, you know, killing yourself on the concrete!"

Zarah absorbed a range of cultural influences in early life. Her dad had moved from Pakistan to study in London, where he met Zarah's mum, who was originally from Liverpool. Zarah was only about a year old when the family moved to Dublin, where she was able to attend a Muslim primary school. Her dad's entrepreneurial nature led him into the catering and hospitality industries, but the marriage ended when she was eight. After primary school, Zarah moved on to middle school, which was a multi-denominational set-up supported by the German government instead of one tied to the local Catholic church, which was the norm in Ireland. Her upbringing was heavily influenced by traditional Pakistani culture but also surrounded by westernised ideas, norms and values, both of which she attributes to her sense of “a lost or confused identity” in much of her life.

Before her time in school was over, and at times behind her family’s back, Zarah made the most of the sporting opportunities on offer, taking part in football, hockey and volleyball – "and a bit of tennis, because that was the one that Dad said was appropriate for me as the girls' one". Afterwards, though, the lack of a professional route for aspiring women footballers at the time meant her choices were limited. There was also a stark lack of representation of females or people from diverse races within the game, that discouraged her from pursuing a career off the pitch. "And so I was encouraged down the accountancy route by my dad. I was a bit of a nerd anyway and I liked it when the accounts would balance in the balance sheet and that type of thing, so I studied commerce with German for four years."

Despite the earlier concession to her dad on the tennis, Zarah was very much going her own way by now. She and her sister decided to move out of the family home while at college, which was not the done thing, she explains, as a Muslim.

"For women in our culture, it's not really allowed to move out until you're married. You don't leave the house. You stay with the parents at home. Mum was really supportive of it though. She's like, 'Look, you've got to learn to be independent. You can't always rely on your dad.' I wanted some freedom, I wanted to be able to make my own decisions, and also wanted to be a lot closer to college. My dad didn't talk to me for five months. Eventually he came around. In hindsight, I think he's happy now because it did actually teach me to be independent."

 

Turning point

During her masters degree in accountancy, Zarah again questioned whether her future lay on the beaten path or off it. "Coming up to Christmas, like the first round of exams, halfway through the year, I was freaking out. I started doing some modelling and took part in the Miss Ireland pageant, and was getting exposed to more of the showbiz and glamour side of life. I was like, 'Oh, I don't know if I want to be an accountant for the rest of my life any more.' I had a mini crisis going on in my head. I didn't know if I could sit at a desk for the rest of my life, the 9 to 5 type thing. It's kind of 'I have way more to give. I'm much more social and you know, I feel like I want to do other stuff too'."

After her dad persuaded her to finish the masters, Zarah left for Dubai in search of that other stuff, and met a Bollywood director who invited her to join his team as a producer. Her intention was to take that experience with her to the USA, but life had other plans. She fell in love with another member of the film crew: the pair married and moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in Bollywood. When the relationship didn't work out, Zarah returned to the UAE in 2014 and reconnected with her faith. The idea she had next proved to be a turning point in her life.

"I had this idea of making a global cricket league with my dad. It was basically our baby. We decided to bring back former players who had been masters and greats of the game, because there was no kind of masters tournament or league or anything such in cricket, where it existed in other sports. So why couldn't cricket have it, where there's such a huge fandom around these great legendary players?"

The next year and a half were a frenzy of organisation. As COO of what would become the Masters Champions League, Zarah was immersed in negotiations with broadcasters, PR and marketing agencies, events and ticketing organisations, sporting authorities, government agencies… and of course the players who would be at the centre of it all.

Although rights and funding proved problematic for many reasons and the league lasted only one season, the competition attracted some all-time greats among its 90 former internationals in the likes of Virender Sehwag, Brian Lara and Jacques Kallis. And for her part, Zarah was now set on working in sport – and football in particular.

"I started playing football again. I started making friends and just figuring myself out again, who I was," she says. With the arrival of Covid-19, it was time to take stock of her situation and consider her next move. Zarah recollects her thought process: "Now, why am I still here in Dubai? Yes, I've lived my best life, I've loved it here, but I'm not fulfilled. There's something missing. I want to follow my heart."

Her decision was to head for the UK and take a masters degree in sports management. The Football Business Academy (FBA) offered an ideal course, but Zarah was unsure how she'd pay for it – until she realised she could join Women in Football and apply for a WIF scholarship. The course took her to Belgium and Portugal and, while the networks she was beginning to build were helping, her own determination carried the day.

The failure of her marriage had left her confidence "completely shattered", Zarah says, but she was resolved to make a success of the masters degree. "I wanted to be top of the class, just to help my confidence and build that back up again – to prove to myself that I could do it. I knew I'd been a top performer before and I wanted to prove it again."

And she did. After becoming the valedictorian in her degree class, at the end of August 2021 Zarah set herself another target – to get a job by the end of the year. Again, being a Women in Football member helped, but again it was her talent and grit that meant she could make the most of the opportunity.

Joining the WIF Leadership Course in partnership with Barclays, taking place in Manchester in December, brought her into contact with members who were working for City Football Group, which piqued her interest. After discovering that there were roles available in finance, she applied for a role and was offered the job at City in the week before Christmas, once again achieving the target that she’d set.

 

Board-ready

A year after she began, a chance arose to take on a secondment in equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Zarah had previously undertaken a project on EDI as part of her masters degree, where, she says: "I became very intrigued and it helped me try to reflect as to why I didn't start my journey sooner. I realised that a lack of representation was the real reason behind all of that. So it resonated a lot with me."

In her first year, Zarah had seemingly prepared by getting in touch with City's EDI lead for a close look at the organisation's policies and position. "I asked him, you know, what's going on here? What does it look like? What do we do at the club? Can I help in any way? Just let me watch you." She went on to set up CFG’s BAME staff network called EthniCity and was offered the secondment position on an ongoing basis in July, becoming a permanent member of City's EDI set-up.

Earlier in 2023, she was announced as the successful applicant for the latest iteration of Women in Football's Vikki Orvice Memorial Director Development Scheme – a programme which should stand Zarah in good stead for the next phase of her career.

The role includes attending WIF board meetings and contributing fully to the items under discussion, as well as administrative support and input to a wider review of governance. WIF will provide Zarah with skills development to become board-ready, mentoring from directors, and a free place to complete the Leadership Course.

"I've got a goal to be running a club some day," she says, "or some kind of a football organisation. I want to be a CEO and I want to be able to have that seat at the table and to be on a board. Being familiar with Women in Football, this is something so close to my heart – as they’ve been indirectly linked with a lot of my success stories so far. And then for me to actually get this position… when I got it, I was just in full shock!"

The overriding impression Zarah gives is of a driven and adventurous woman with an enviable ability to emerge stronger from setbacks. Are these qualities that she hopes will help her realise those career goals?

"Being resilient is something that someone with those kind of ambitions would really need," she reflects. "Someone who's able to face those knockdowns and get back up again and keep on going and have the confidence within themselves and, you know, rebuilding that confidence, having faith in their own self and being comfortable taking risks. Basically, self-belief is huge. And I've definitely learned to bounce back.

"I'm lucky that I've had faith and I've had people around me who support me, and my family play a big part in all of this. Sometimes they were the obstacles, but they've also been there to pick me up and be the kind of pillars that I've needed. At times I feel like I'm ten years late on my journey, but having gone through all those experiences, it's made me the person that I am and probably more ready to be able to deal with those situations."

The whole team at Women in Football is looking forward to seeing how Zarah benefits from her time with the WIF board and, by the same token, how those experiences and insights she brings to the table will assist the directors. It's a win-win situation and Zarah is happy to be in it with WIF. It's the mutually supportive aspect of the organisation, she concludes, that makes it so special.

"I've been able to call on lots of different people within that network to say, 'OK, I need your advice for this' or 'What would you do here?' The women here understand the struggles and they've all been collectively breaking down those barriers and smashing those ceilings. And now they're sharing that knowledge and wisdom to help the others around them to do the same and to make sure that it's not just, you know, something that seems impossible. I really appreciate that, and I've always felt that solidarity as part of the Women in Football network."

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