Mariam Mohammed is an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and facilitator celebrated for her transformative impact in financial education, leadership, and community empowerment.
As the co-founder of MoneyGirl, Australia’s first evidence-based financial education program for women, Mariam has empowered over 1,000 women to achieve financial independence. Recognized as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence, she has been featured in Grazia, VOGUE, ABC, and more.
A sought-after coach and facilitator, Mariam guides changemakers and leaders to create impact without sacrificing their values or well-being. She leads programs like Ignite the Leader Within, helping people lead with authenticity, inclusivity, and intuition, and mentors aspiring entrepreneurs through global accelerators and university programs.
Mariam has a unique ability to tackle difficult topics - like male violence and systemic change - with love, openness, and evidence-based insights. Her TED talk showcases her masterful blend of storytelling, humour, and lived experience, sparking just enough fire to inspire action without alienating her audience.
Hailing from Pakistan, Mariam’s journey of surviving violence and rebuilding her life in Gadigal country is a testament to her resilience. She is a powerful force for good, leading with heart, wisdom, and a vision for a more equitable world - leaving audiences inspired, empowered, and ready to create meaningful change.
Honoured in the Marie Claire Next 25 List, 40 Under 40 Most Influential Asian-Australians, and the 7News Community Service Award, Mariam continues to use her platform to amplify voices and drive systemic change.
Talking Points
Social Enterprise: Why Impact is Good Business
In an era of global challenges, community-centred social entrepreneurship stands out as the solution for sustainable growth and long-term impact.Social Enterprise: Why Impact is Good Business
Drawing from her own experience as an award-winning social entrepreneur, Mariam shares why placing community at the heart of business is not only good ethics but also good strategy for business and our planet. With real-world examples and actionable insights, this talk will inspire audiences to embrace impact-driven business models that create meaningful change and address the root causes of societal issues.
Key Takeaways:
- A clear understanding of what community-centred social entrepreneurship is and why it’s critical for future success.
- Insight into proven strategies for designing businesses that prioritise impact alongside profitability.
- Inspiration from real-world examples of community-first solutions that have driven measurable change.
- Practical steps for embedding community and sustainability into the core of business models.
- A renewed sense of purpose and motivation to lead with empathy, innovation, and long-term vision.
Unlearning Bad Entrepreneurship
In this keynote, Mariam shares her journey of co-founding MoneyGirl, a pioneering social enterprise that revolutionized financial education for young women in Australia.Unlearning Bad Entrepreneurship
Through personal anecdotes, she takes the audience on a journey from her recognition as one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence to her disillusionment with traditional leadership paradigms—even within social entrepreneurship. Mariam inspires leaders to embrace equity-in-action and champion heart-centred leadership, blending storytelling with practical guidance to ignite a passion for change. This talk challenges audiences to rethink their leadership approaches and commit to inclusive, impactful business practices.
Key Takeaways:
- Insights into how the Leader of the Future approaches business and social enterprise.
- Practical strategies for practicing equity-in-action and embedding inclusion into leadership.
- A framework for transitioning from traditional leadership paradigms to heart-centred, impact-driven leadership.
- Inspiration to challenge the status quo and become advocates for equity and systemic change in their communities.
- Tangible examples of how social enterprises like MoneyGirl align with global goals (UN SDGs 4, 5, 8, 10, and 17) and deliver measurable impact.
Why Most Financial Education Doesn't Work
Financial education is the foundation for empowerment, yet many solutions fail to deliver lasting change.Why Most Financial Education Doesn't Work
In this talk, Mariam draws on her experience designing Australia’s first evidence-based financial education program to explore what truly works. From identifying financial education needs to designing effective curriculums and evaluating impact, Mariam offers a comprehensive roadmap for success. This talk dives into the challenges of implementation, highlights common pitfalls, and provides actionable strategies for creating programs that drive meaningful, measurable change.
Key Takeaways:
- A deep understanding of the critical components of evidence-based financial education programs.
- Insights into the common challenges and pitfalls in implementing financial education initiatives—and how to overcome them.
- Practical guidance on designing curriculums and evaluating program impact.
- Tangible strategies for fostering financial inclusion and delivering long-term empowerment.
- A clear vision for how financial education can drive systemic change and equity.
This topic can be tailored to focus on related themes such as the psychology behind our relationship with money, superannuation, financial inclusion, money and relationships, financial abuse, and its connection to domestic violence, or other specific areas within financial education.
March Forward: Beyond Cupcakes
Thirty years after the Beijing Declaration’s bold commitment to gender equality, the world still falls short of its promises.March Forward: Beyond Cupcakes
In this empowering and thought-provoking keynote, Mariam Mohammed explores how we can move beyond rhetoric to action. Drawing from her academic background in policy for women’s empowerment and her lived experience, Mariam Mohammed explores the systemic challenges women face and the transformative solutions that drive real change. With an intersectional lens, she inspires audiences to rethink policies, reshape priorities, and reignite their commitment to a world where every woman can thrive.
Key Takeaways:
- A deep understanding of why progress on gender equality has stalled and how to accelerate change.
- Strategies for addressing systemic barriers and fostering economic inclusion for women.
Insights into how inclusive leadership can drive meaningful and measurable impact.
- Practical tools for transforming promises into tangible progress within communities and organisations.
- Renewed inspiration and a clear call to action for championing gender equality.
Why Your DEI Initiatives Keep Failing
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) must go beyond surface-level initiatives to create meaningful, systemic change.Why Your DEI Initiatives Keep Failing
In this talk, Mariam brings an intersectional lens and lived experience to examine DEI not just in workplaces, but in the policies shaping our lives—like housing, migration, and economic systems. With a deep understanding of systemic inequities, Mariam provides insights into building truly inclusive environments and drive lasting impact.
Key Takeaways:
- A nuanced understanding of DEI through an intersectional lens, addressing systemic barriers.
- Insights into how DEI is a way of BEING. Beyond workplaces, in policy, economics, politics and beyond.
- Strategies for embedding equity into decision-making processes for organisations and policymakers.
- Tools to move beyond performative inclusion toward systemic and measurable change.
- Empowerment to become advocates for equity and inclusion in both professional and policy spaces
Leadership of the Future
The leadership of the future is rooted in heart and land-centred practices that draw from age-old knowledge systems.Leadership of the Future
Mariam explores how a new, more balanced paradigm of leadership can reshape the way we live, work, and create change. This talk weaves together the best lessons from centuries of masculine and colonial leadership with the transformative power of feminine and community-centred approaches, offering a new paradigm for leaders ready to embrace equity, authenticity, and true sustainability.
Key Takeaways:
- A deeper understanding of decolonial leadership principles and their relevance to modern leadership.
- Insights into balancing traditional leadership practices with collaborative and inclusive approaches.
- Strategies for integrating heart-centred, sustainable practices into leadership styles.
- Practical tools for fostering equity, empathy, and collaboration in leadership.
- Inspiration to lead with authenticity and a focus on long-term impact.
Why I Love Failure
Failure isn’t the end—it’s the ultimate accelerator for growth, wisdom, and alignment.Why I Love Failure
In this inspiring talk, Mariam shares pivotal failures from her own journey, illustrating how each one shaped her path and deepened her understanding of resilience, leadership, and purpose. Mariam reframes failure as a gift: a powerful teacher that provides the lived experience and wisdom we can’t gain from success alone. Through stories, lessons, and practical insights, she empowers audiences to lean into their true nature, embrace mistakes, and see failure as the gateway to transformation and authenticity.
Key Takeaways:
- A reframed perspective on failure as a critical element of leadership, growth, and resilience.
- Empowerment to take risks, play more, and embrace mistakes as opportunities for wisdom.
- Inspiration to stop being hard on yourself and view failures as gifts that shape your journey.
Practical insights into turning failures into valuable lessons and success stories.
- A renewed sense of courage to lead with authenticity and alignment, even in the face of setbacks.
Video
Financial literacy and empowering the future generation | Vogue Codes 2022
Mariam Mohammed, co-founder of MoneyGirl sits down with Vogue Australia's editor-in-chief, Edwina McCann, at the 2022 Vogue Codes Summit, to discuss her experiences of coming to Australia as a migrant, what exactly financial literacy is, the gender pay gap, and how to advocate for yourself financially.Spotlight on Women in Super | Episode 1: Mariam Mohammed
Introducing our new video 'keynote' series, shining a spotlight on the women transforming superannuation in Australia. From entrepreneurs to CEOs and changemakers, these women are dedicated to creating a more equitable super system, leveraging the more than $3.5 trillion in super in Australia for positive impact. This series, in partnership with Grant Thornton Australia, follows our recent podcast series of the same name, and features some of Australia’s leading women in the super industry, as they share their key tips on how women can manage their superannuation and prepare for retirement. In our first episode, co-founder of MoneyGirl, Mariam Mohammed shares her key tips on how to manage your retirement savings and financially empower your future self.Every now and then a speaker comes along who is not only able to cut it with any audience, but also validate a profound message based on her own lived experience. Mariam is such a prominent ... keep reading Lendlease
Mariam was a keynote speaker at our recent Sydney awards night and she held the audience in the palm of her hand. The stories she shared to highlight her key messages were presented with grace, poise and elegance, but more than this, her ability to hold tension in her topic, before delivering perfectly executed, empathetic relief to us all whilst making her point was remarkable. In fact, everyone who provided feedback from that evening mentioned Mariam’s address, with particular emphasis on her content and delivery that swooped and soared across the room. [...] I thoroughly recommend Mariam for her brilliant and stimulating contribution as a speaker.
