Lahore: The Multan Sultans are making headlines for the best possible reason — they’ve just appointed the first woman GM in PSL history. Twenty-eight-year-old Hijab Zahid is also the youngest GM in the franchise’s history and will become one of the only women to be appointed the head of a T20 franchise in the world. Zahid is currently the director of Grassroots Cricket, a position she has held since the start of the year. She is replacing outgoing GM Haider Azhar.

According to , Zahid has a master’s degree in Project Management from the University of Hertfordshire, and has previously served as media manager for Islamabad United.

The news was also announced on X by Ali Tareen, who co-owned the team alongside his uncle Alamgir Tareen until 2021. He will now take full control of the team after the death of his uncle in July.

Ali called Zahid “South Asia’s first woman GM in men’s cricket”. He told  that Zahid was “the most qualified general manager among all PSL sides”. He also committed to hiring three female coaches before the start of the PSL, and plans to institute gender parity at the franchise.

“It’s a lot harder to assert authority as a woman,” Zahid told the publication. “It’s culturally harder for men to take directions from a woman. We have people in this industry who haven’t interacted with women in their lives through no fault of their own, especially in this power dynamic.

“So I expect we’ll have a lot of conversations and workshops about having a woman in a management role here. While people are used to having women in such positions in the corporate world in Pakistan, that is less true of the sporting world. In the future, we want to train people as analysts, presenters, media managers. It will open doors for a lot of women.”

We love seeing women rise to the top and we’re sure we’re going to see amazing things from Hijab Zahid!

Published in The Daily National Courier, August, 30 2023

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