#15: Hadeel Obaid's two lives, CEO of a cricket company, and owner of a women-run textile business
And a window into women's cricket in Pakistan
With India taking on Pakistan in the Women’s Cricket World Cup today, I thought it was a good opportunity to share a cross border chat I had recently.
I’d been meaning to speak to Hadeel Obaid for a while. Following her on social media, it was fascinating to see how she navigated multiple roles as an emotional Pakistan cricket fan, emotional cricket writer (her words, not mine), business owner and Founder-CEO of cricket platform Khelo Kricket.
Khelo Kricket is a Pakistani platform that connects, records, organises and provides various services to grass roots hard ball cricket matches in Pakistan. Hadeel manages Khelo Kricket alongside her other role as one of the owners of Pakistan’s only female-owned textile factory, which is run by her sisters and her. She lives two pathbreaking lives, in two male dominated worlds, where most people would find it hard enough to manage just one.
We talked about her choice to come back from her education in the USA to Pakistan, the origins and revenue models of Khelo Kricket, how Khelo organises cricket tournaments in Ramzan, and what the future holds for her and her companies.
Since helping the women’s cricket ecosystem is something I’m passionate about, I particularly wanted to chat to Hadeel about the challenges she’s faced and learning from organising women’s cricket tournaments. She shares stories of young girls going through her tournaments and then playing for Pakistan, and the challenges of creating a safe environment for women to play cricket during Ramzan’s traditional night long cricket matches. And she gave me some great advice on how to build the future for girls participating in these tournaments. We touched on the impact of the pandemic on women’s sport, and the opportunities for sponsors to support the women’s game.
It’s a conversation in which #ILearnedALot, and I’m so happy to share this with you. I hope both teams have a great tournament, and this tournament goes on to have a huge impact on women’s cricket in the subcontinent.
You can follow Hadeel Obaid on Twitter here.