Freshta Karim — Leadership Speaker & Executive Advisor

TEDx Oxford

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"Not Making a Vase: Leading Through the Jagged Knots of Uncertainty"

What if the messiness of leadership isn't a problem to solve, but the thing that shapes you into the leader you need to become? Drawing on a decade of leading an Afghan organisation through war and exile, Freshta argues real leadership looks more like working with knots than throwing a perfect vase.

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TEDx Oxford · Video releasing soon

Work with Freshta

Three ways we can work together.

Share a few details about your event or team and Freshta will come back with a tailored proposal.

For conferences, summits & convenings

Keynote Talks

A story-led keynote on building under impossible constraints: what it actually takes to keep an organisation, a team, or a vision standing when the conditions refuse to cooperate.

What's included

Pre-event briefing call with you and your team
Fully tailored keynote (30, 45 or 60 min formats)
Optional Q&A or fireside-chat format
Speaker bio, headshot pack & promotional assets
Light pre-reading / journaling prompt for your audience

Investment from £7,500

Frequently booked by university leadership teams, business school programmes, and educational leadership conferences.

Request information →

Most booked

For senior leadership teams & cohorts

Leading Under Constraint

A facilitated working session for intact leadership teams. Frameworks and structured conversation on resourcefulness, endurance, and what the team is quietly absorbing on behalf of everyone else.

What's included

Discovery session to shape the brief around your team
Custom workshop design & materials
Half-day, full-day, or multi-session series
Live frameworks for resilience & resourceful leadership
Participant workbook with prompts & further reading
30-day follow-up call to review what stuck

Investment from £12,000

Frequently booked by heads of department, academic directors, and senior school leadership cohorts navigating institutional pressure and change.

Request information →

For summits, member events & convenings

Panel & Moderation

Hosting or moderating panels and fireside conversations on leadership, building under constraint, and the realities behind organisational resilience, for rooms where the conversation matters as much as the line-up.

What's included

30–75 minute session
Moderator or panellist role
Pre-event prep with panellists
Custom question architecture
On-stage hosting & audience facilitation
Fireside conversation format available: interviewer-led, no slides required

Investment from £5,000

Frequently booked by educational forums, university convenings, and leadership summits.

Request information →

✦

Tailored to your event. Every engagement is shaped around your audience, format, and goals. Share your brief and you'll receive a tailored proposal.

Watch

Featured videos.

Recent talks and a glimpse of where it began.

Freshta Karim at the World Economic Forum, Davos 2022

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Watch on YouTube ↗

World Economic Forum · Davos 2022

"Prioritise education for girls"

At Davos, on why girls' education, and particularly for Afghan girls, must be a non-negotiable priority.

BBC World Service

Freshta at the BBC World Service

On leadership, education and the realities behind building through conflict, in a conversation for the BBC World Service.

Where it began

A young Freshta on Afghan television

At 12, Freshta presented a children's TV programme in Afghanistan, where her love of storytelling began.

Speaking engagements

Stages, schools and global rooms.

From the UN Security Council to a sixth-form hall in Somerset. A selection of recent engagements.

Freshta Karim delivering the opening keynote at the Education World Forum, London

Education World Forum · London 2023

"Let Afghan Girls Learn": opening keynote

Opening the world's largest gathering of education ministers, with delegates from over 120 countries.

BBC World Service

On journalism, conflict, and the girls left behind

A panel on journalism as a lifeline for children, particularly girls, trapped in conflict zones.

A decade of leading under pressure: what it really took, and what it cost.

Freshta built Charmaghz from nothing: a mobile library network that became one of Afghanistan's most recognised education organisations, raised international backing, and earned a Library of Congress Literacy Award. She led it for a decade: through funding gaps, political instability, Taliban takeover, and exile. She addressed the UN Security Council. She spoke at Davos. She kept building.

What she learned in that decade isn't about Afghanistan. It's about what it actually takes to lead an organisation through sustained pressure: the decisions nobody prepares you for, the cost to the people carrying the weight, and what it means to keep going when the conditions have stopped cooperating.

Today she works with founders, executives, and women in senior leadership who are navigating their own version of that. She is particularly sought by universities, business schools, and educational leadership teams navigating change, constraint, and the pressure of building institutions that outlast difficult conditions.

Founder, Charmaghz Mobile Libraries , Kabul

Master's in Public Policy , University of Oxford, Somerville College

Former Senior Advisor , Malala Fund

Young Global Leader , World Economic Forum

Impact Hero 2025 , Earth Company

Speaker : UN Security Council, Davos, TEDx Oxford

Get in touch

Want to invite Freshta to a stage, a team, or a conversation?

Share a few details about your event or team. Freshta reads every enquiry personally and comes back with a tailored proposal, usually within five business days.

Or email directly: hello@freshtakarim.com

Nobody teaches you to lead
when everything falls apart.
Freshta figured it out anyway.