I’m a corporate project professional, beyond blue mental health ambassador, and small business owner. I am the middle child of 6, I grew up in a migrant family with strict Lebanese Muslim parents in the northern suburbs. Based on my community’s expectations, I should have been married with children before reaching my 20’s. I was different. Since I was little, I have always been willing to take risks and be proactive in trying to make my dreams a reality.
Outside work, I am a beyond blue ambassador volunteer, I joined in 2014 after my own personal battle with Anxiety, despite my battle with Anxiety I feel that sharing my story will inspire hope in others. During the time I have overcome my battles, I have undertaken over 30 volunteer engagements, influencing others in the community to help reduce the stigma and educate them on mental health.
Since 2012, I have been enthusiastically pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities and am a passionate foodie. With little education or money, my parents were unable to guide me, so I worked hard at high school and won the best all-rounder award but failed to achieve the right score to enter university. I opted for a TAFE education to bridge the gap, then took on a traineeship. At 17, I worked 3 jobs and tried to learn everything I could within these roles before moving on.
During my early career, I underwent as much learning and development I could and started to build networks that would later serve me in my career. Through engagements with mentors, I was able to build my skillset and my experience and move up the corporate ladder, albeit with many challenges along the way. Over 15 years, I worked my way up, taking on challenges, when I was told ‘No’, it pushed me further.
Then I took the plunge into my own business but I failed at first. In 2015, I was a LinkedIn Power Profile 2015, Top 100 most viewed professionals on LinkedIn in Australia. In 2016, after experimenting in my first business for a few years, I took the lessons I learned and established Agile Management Office.
Ever since then I’ve been helping organisations on their transformation journeys, providing governance solutions to manage and govern projects in the agile era. My passion in this space has helped me successfully transform how businesses govern change across portfolios up to $1B and over 16+ industries globally. I also established my PROVEN AMO method to show how businesses can not only align but enhance agile delivery methodologies by putting the agile into governance. This was the key theme of my first global white paper series ‘Is the Project Management Office Still Fit for Purpose?’. In 2020, I was awarded Australia’s first PMO Influencer of the Year.
Some would say I am a risk-taker, or that I have too many ideas, but these ideas are what makes life more interesting. Every day is a new challenge for me and I love it. I win some, I lose some (a lot actually), as long as I am learning along the way and staying on top of my mental health, then it’s ok.
I hope that sharing my stories and experiences will inspire hope in others, that regardless of being a Muslim, Lebanese female, who grew up in the northern suburbs, with mental health challenges, and set up a business with no knowledge of business or investment that you can do anything you set your mind to. You just have to try.
Sincerely yours,
Fatimah Abbouchi
The only limits in life are the ones you set for yourself
Organisations I Have Supported Include
A Few of My Favourite Things
Cooking
I love it so much. I do it every day, and I love talking about it (and I’m pretty good at it too, let’s be honest)
Shopping
A little shoe-obsessed. Shoes are the exclamation point at the end of a fashion statement
Travelling
From a fear of flying to 16 countries and counting! I’ve been to so many amazing places already.
Tyson
It’s the little things in life that are the most important. This little guy is Tyson and he’s a ball of energy!