13th July 2023, Pearland, Texas: In May 2023, Monily, a subsidiary of Arthur Lawrence, reached the landmark milestone of having a team of 50 accountants onboard. This means that 50 Pakistani families are being provided with a means of living while working remotely!
Monily came into being in 2020 when two working mothers realized that there was an opportunity to tap into the fintech market, while also championing the work-from-home era.
Wajiha Danish, Director of Accounting, and Farwah Jafri, Product Owner, have vast experience of working in the finance and accounting fields, before their association with Arthur Lawrence. Wajiha worked with PwC and Pakistan Petroleum before her move to Canada, where she also pursued her local credentials and worked with a German construction giant, HOCHTIEF, working her way up for 8 years to the position of Controller for North American Operations. Farwah, the first employee of Arthur Lawrence outside of the US, started her accounting career after completing her undergrad from FAST (now NUCES), and her MBA from Manchester Business School. While initially, her career revolved around software development, she has been involved with Arthur Lawrence in the accounting, marketing, and software development functions before getting started on Monily.
Under the umbrella of Arthur Lawrence’s Digital Transformation efforts, the idea of bringing about a technological transformation to business accounting was not a new one. And with the rise of fintech, the timing was just right for these two super moms to pitch the idea to Arthur Lawrence’s Managing Partner, Wajid Mirza.
At the onset of the pandemic, when almost everyone was already working from home, Wajiha and Farwah set out on their journey to start Monily, creating remote employment opportunities for the immensely talented & qualified workforce in Pakistan. Monily was thus born, matching the needs of businesses that could use timely financial information and business intelligence to make informed decisions for growth, and the Pakistani workforce, especially mothers, who were looking to get the best of both worlds: flexibility of working from home, in the hours that suited them, while providing and caring for their families as well.
“I think becoming a mother and appreciating the convenience of working from home were the key motivators for me to extend this flexibility to other mothers who wanted and were able to contribute to their families’ livelihood,” shares Wajiha Danish.
Monily is an equal-opportunity employer with a balanced workforce in their teams.
“I always felt that although women are as equally talented as their male counterparts, if not more, we often have to prioritize kids and family needs over our professional careers. With the advancements in tech and ease of working from home, however, we felt we could create a unique opportunity here for people, especially women, to work from home according to their availability and convenience, without compromising on either their career or family needs,” detailed Farwah Jafri.
While both the mothers feel that it’s a huge responsibility, they agree that it fills them with a great sense of pride to see Monily grow and develop into a sustainable brand. Every new client, and every positive feedback, is massively encouraging to the small but rapidly growing team at Monily. In just 2 years, the company has onboarded over 300 clients, with an equally rapidly growing team of men and women from Pakistan catering to their business needs!
Wajiha and Farwah plan to take Monily a step further and evolve into a unicorn – a leading name in small- to medium-sized business accounting with its own tech platforms and outstanding customer services.
In a little over two years, Monily has grown from consisting of two working mothers to a team of fifty highly talented individuals pursuing their careers without disturbing the balance of their personal and professional life.
“We value the culture we have built and maintained at Monily, and whether 2-5 years down the line or 10-20 years from now, I’d like to see the team grow as well as maintain its culture of friendly, open and fun work environment and be a great place to work at,” said Farwah.
“In 20 years, I’d want to see Monily as the most popular bookkeeping service,” said Wajiha. “Just like QuickBooks has made its mark in being the go-to name when it comes to accounting platforms for most price-conscious small businesses, I’d want them to think of Monily as soon as they need bookkeeping or tax services.”
About Arthur Lawrence
Arthur Lawrence is a management and technology consulting firm with expertise in talent acquisition, business process management, and digital transformation solutions.
Every client deserves exceptional resources to help transform their business. With that at the forefront, we are driven by the idea of “improving lives for every employee, client, and partner” and that helps us to continue to create a lasting impact. Our partnerships with organizations among the Fortune 500 and Global 2000 lists, and our alliance with the Big Four firms and leading technology giants are a result of our commitment to delivering exceptional results.
Our people are consultants, strategists, designers, innovators, engineers, and technologists. We operate globally from offices across the US, the UK, Canada, the Middle East, and South Asia.
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