My background has always been in business. I did my MBA in Marketing from the University of London. My father was my early inspiration; he was an entrepreneur with his own international removal and freight forwarding business. When I was very young; at six or seven, I started accompanying him on business trips. He attended business conferences annually, each hosted in a different country. They lasted five days and he would take us in a big family group.

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My background has always been in business. I did my MBA in Marketing from the University of London. My father was
my early inspiration; he was an entrepreneur with his own international removal and freight forwarding business. When I
was very young; at six or seven, I started accompanying him on business trips. He attended business conferences annually,
each hosted in a different country. They lasted five days and he would take us in a big family group.
I genuinely think it was the best decision he ever made. My father passed away when I was only 16. I had amassed so much
experience in the short period of time when he was a part of our lives. At the conferences there would be no young people
just adults, and he would say – “now go and make friends”. It was quite daunting; there were businesses from all over the
world – Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, to name a few – so we met people from different nationalities. When we started to
talk to them our confidence grew, and we started to see a different side to the world – as children it was a big deal. I think
the business gene was passed on to me by my father. I wanted a degree in business but was always very interested in the
creative side of things as well. I loved doing sculpture and art. I was also interested in modelling and dramatics; I began to
enter all Pakistan intercollegiate modelling competitions through my school and university. I always returned home with
prizes for either drama or modelling! When I took over the marketing department of my father’s business – I was also left
with the responsibility of running the business too. When you don’t have anyone to help, guide or supervise, and you are left
on your own, you learn a lot.
When I got married I had great ambition for my father’s company and I really wanted to stay in Pakistan and continue to
grow the business. It was my father’s legacy and I wanted to continue it, I felt very passionately about it. However after
marriage I moved to England. My son was born here and after his first birthday I realised that the bug was back in me and I
wanted to do something interesting and work again.
I considered working for an international removal business here in England – having met several through the conventions I
attended as a child and teenager but decided I wanted flexibility in my working life. I wanted to remain a significant part of
my child’s upbringing and to do something that interests me at the same time. I had been modelling off and on and realised
that there were not many opportunities for Asian girls to model in the UK. So with that interest I thought it would be a good
idea to have a platform to promote Asian models in the UK. I opened Caramel Management Ltd with a business partner, as
an events and model management agency.
The early days were challenging. Thankfully, we managed to secure investment from entrepreneur James Caan, and with
him as a mentor it presented an interesting business model. Contrary to common perceptions, the fashion industry was
tough. People consider it to be glamorous and fun – the euphoria and the fun comes when you create an event and you see
your creation on the catwalk. That’s when you really feel overjoyed – but working in the fashion industry and working with
the people who are involved in the fashion industry is difficult.
As time went on we expanded Caramel and developed it into an events agency. We were doing lots of events, but in the
eight years I was with Caramel, I realised that the business was quite seasonal. I wanted to crack into the mainstream rather
than just Asian fashion, but we found that this wasn’t easy.
Adventures Of Sadia Siddiqui
Producer, talk show host and
Founder of Mustang Productions

2. Over the years I realized that I had the potential to grow further than fashion. I wanted to broaden our horizons and work
both ends of the spectrum – the corporate world and the fashion and the media world. I decided to leave the business. In
2010 my daughter was born. It’s surprising; sometimes having a child can completely change your perspective on life.
In many ways; I changed so much after having my little girl. I had been realizing for some time that I am not reaching my
full potential.
I started to explore other options. I used to present a programme called Talking Divas with my three friends and it was great.
The show was about social issues in Pakistan like homosexuality, child sex abuse – serious issues. I really enjoyed doing it
but after a year we stopped filming and I went back to being busy with Caramel.
Enter Achievers. I hired one of my own models who is also an events manager to be my guest coordinator and researcher for
the show, I also got an amazing guy to do the styling and make-up. I was very particular about what the background set
should look like. I didn’t want it to look low budget; I wanted the image to be very mainstream. It was the sponsor of the
series, Danmirr Consultants, who I owe a big debt to because they had faith in me. They trusted me with the show and
believed in the concept. It is really very difficult to attract a, sponsor for a completely new concept, with a new presenter
and producer, so they were very brave! I researched all my guests – we interviewed
Mark Ramprakash the cricketer, Saeed Jaffrey the actor, James Caan the entrepreneur, the former President of Pakistan
(Gen.) Pervez Musharraf and renowned author and winner of Costa Book Prize Kishwar Desai. So we had people from
different backgrounds and in different fields who have done amazingly well.
From the concept to execution the show took around six months. This included developing the concept, getting a sponsor
for the show, getting the studio, finding the right time to film, getting the guests to agree to come on a certain date, and
filming. We finished shooting the first series of Achievers in just six days – the shooting wasn’t the tough part, the
preparation was.
When the filming ended and went on air, people were surprised that I had my own talk show! Achievers was big news and I
felt I had finally made my mark. The response was so amazing, I knew that I had to run with this programme and make it
bigger and better. I opened my own production and event agency called Mustang Productions and decided to produce the
second series under Mustang.
I have learnt so much from producing this programme – it is a huge learning curve, I have always kept a critical eye on the
editing, and would write instructions to the editors about how they had to re-edit the programme, never quite happy with
some technical aspect of the filming, I always had something or the other that I wanted to fix. I learnt so much during the
filming that I thought that, although I have not been to film school, I have an eye for it! I could hire the right people with the
right technical expertise but actually tell them what I want to produce. This was when I thought it would be a great idea if I
had my own production company. Then, maybe I could host my own talk show that my own production company had
produced. The Achiever’s show was an idea generated with a dear friend Kevin Rego who is also the marketing head of the
network that produces my show; I thought it will be great to have Mustang involved in the production of the show.
Mustang Productions is a young company, with some big ideas! Mustang has not only produced Achievers season 2, but is
currently working on the 3rd season of Achievers. Mustang also celebrated its launch in April 2013 with a spectacular
ghazal evening it hosted at The Taj hotel in London. Mustang also event managed the 100 year century celebrations of
Kinnaird College and Mustang Junior has created two fabulous kids parties. Mustang has had to face it share of challenges,
but that is part and parcel of success, it is an uphill struggle and I am still climbing. My advice to budding entrepreneurs is,
business partnerships can be very tricky, its best to try it on your own.
I have been asked to be a guest speaker at the Women Empowerment event on the 17th of May, my career journey continues
to be exciting and challenging, and I hope you have enjoyed reading about it as much as I have enjoyed sharing it with you.
Sadia Siddiqui
Producer, Talk Show Host and
Founder of Mustang Productions