Introduction
Marvi Memon (Urdu: ماروی میمن; born c. 1972) is a Pakistani politician who is the current Chairperson of the Benazir Income Support Programme with the status of Minister of State. A member of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), Memon has been a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan since 2008. She has served as a member of the National Assembly from 2008 to 2012 as a member of PML-Q.
Early life and education
Memon was born in July 1972 in Karachi, Sindh, to Nisar Memon.
Memon studied in Karachi, Kuwait City and Paris, She then enrolled in the London School of Economics from where she completed her B.Sc (Econ.) Honors in International Relations in 1993.
Professional career
Prior to joining politics, Memon worked as an intern at DAWN, Newsline, Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, International Union for Conservation of Nature and the United States embassy in Islamabad.
Memon worked as a banker at Citibank where she specialized in Marketing and Quality Management and later with Pakistan Television Corporation, before moving to launch Trakker, one of Pakistan’s largest vehicle tracking service provider which established her as an entrepreneur. Memon joined the Inter-Services Public Relations in 2004 and served in its media monitoring and analysis wing until 2007. However, a dispute with the then Director General of the ISPR Major-General Shaukat Sultan saw her departing from ISPR. She also worked as advisor to President of Pakistan on Media Management and on Investments.
Political career
Memon joined Pakistan Muslim League (Q) in 2007, was elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan in Pakistani general election, 2008 on reserved seat for women and sat on opposition benches. Memon resigned from the National Assembly seat in 2011 and left the party after the PML-Q joined the Peoples Party led-coalition government.
She is author of the memoir My Parliamentary Diaries, an account of everyday life of Memon as a parliamentarian which she launched in 2012.
According to the Free and Fair Election Network, she was the amongst the parliamentarians in the 13th National Assembly of Pakistan who introduced the third highest number of private members' bill.
Memon joined PML(N) in 2012,, after months long rumours that she might join Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
In Pakistani general election, 2013, she contested the NA-237 (Thatta-I) for National Assembly, however lost the polls. However, she was elected as the member of the National Assembly for the second time on a reserved seat for women from Sindh. Memon initially served as Prime minister’s youth wing coordinator before she was appointed Chairperson of Benazir Income Support Programme with status of Minister of State in February 2015.
In March 2017, Memon received the Speaker's Democracy Award by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. In April 2017, she was appointed as the member of the Advisory Council on Gender and Development at World Bank.