Change maker: Elham Fardad is helping migrants to boost the UK economy

Elham Fardad’s journey as a teenage migrant to the UK is marked by resilience and determination. She arrived in Birmingham in 1986 after her family fled the war-torn chaos of Iran. Life in the UK wasn’t easy. Though they escaped bombings, her education was disrupted, as she changed schools three times in three years, making it hard to settle academically.

Shortly after arriving, her parents separated, and Elham, as the eldest child, took on significant responsibilities: to excel in education, secure a job, and support her family. Despite her hard work, her dream of attending university seemed unreachable. Without 10 years of UK residency, she was denied home student status and faced unaffordable international fees.

Determined not to give up, Elham camped outside Birmingham City Council offices for three days, waiting for someone to listen. “I would have stayed a month—it was the only chance I had,” she recalls. Her persistence paid off when an employee took pity on her. Using the economics she had learned at A-level, she explained how her education would benefit the UK. Her argument worked, allowing her to study accountancy and finance.

Her academic success soon led to professional achievement. Within three years of graduating, Elham became a financial controller at GE, the US conglomerate. Yet her ambition didn’t stop there. At 25, she applied for an Executive MBA at Warwick Business School but was rejected for being too young and inexperienced. Undeterred, she requested a meeting with the admissions team. After a 90-minute conversation, Elham became the youngest student ever admitted to the programme, where the average age was 33. “I wanted to hug him,” she says of the admissions officer, “but I knew that wasn’t appropriate.”

Elham’s experiences inspired her to help others. In 2017, she read the Parker Review, which highlighted the lack of ethnic diversity in senior roles in UK businesses. This motivated her to create the charity Migrant Leaders, offering long-term mentoring, training, and work experience to young migrants and disadvantaged youth.

Migrant Leaders supports young people through university or apprenticeships and into their first job. The programme has helped nearly 3,000 young people with the guidance of over 1,600 mentors from major organisations, including 95 FTSE 100 firms. Around 14% of participants are from disadvantaged white British backgrounds, reflecting the charity’s broad reach.

In the current climate of anti-immigration rhetoric, Elham remains an advocate for the contributions of migrants. “Migrants are net contributors to the UK economy,” she says. She believes the country’s challenges—like the cost-of-living crisis and reliance on low-wage jobs—are the real issues. “The country is disenchanted,” she says, “and it’s easy to point the finger at migrants.”