E06 Building Pakistan with Ms. Sultana Siddiqui (HUM Network, Founder/President)

Building Pakistan with Benje Williams

Ms. Sultana Siddiqui is the Founder and President of HUM Network and Moomal Productions. She started HUM in 2004 with a 24-hour entertainment channel, HUM TV and has grown it into one of Pakistan’s fastest-growing entertainment companies, adding channels like HUM Masala, HUM Sitaray, eventually HUM Films, several magazine productions, and are now working to launch HUM News. In 2016 alone they brought in over $34 million in revenue, and are one of the only entertainment companies publicly listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange. Her career is fascinating for many reasons, and of them is how she has found a way to marry her artistic and creative passions with her entrepreneurial skill. She initially started as a producer for PTV in 1974 and eventually realized a need and opportunity to create quality content or shows for the channel. So she launched Moomal Productions, where she produces and often directs award-winning shows like Yeh Zindagi and Doosri Dunya and more recently Zindagi Gulzar Hai One of the secrets to her success seems to be a skill of both identifying and then bringing out the best in people, and she used this to introduce some of the country’s most talented actors, such as Mahira Khan, Fawad Khan, and Kubra Khan. What’s fascinating is how she has done all of this this initially as a single parent, how she has used her platform to help stir the conscience and actions of a nation through the messages in her shows, and how she has become a shining role model for women and men, kids and adults, entrepreneurs and artists, and so much more. *Building Pakistan is brought to you by the team at Amal Academy (amalacademy.org), with support from +Acumen (plusacumen.org) as our distribution partner. Illustrations and production editing are by Awais Farooq (Amal Academy). Music is provided by Danny Roberts (dannyroberts.com), Lydia Cole and Ryan Baxley.