Saba Siddiqui has been walking her own path for as long as she can remember—a path that has taken her from Karachi, one of Pakistan’s biggest cities, to Hervey Bay; a path that has drawn petals as it loops from her Australian homebase to countries on the other side of the world and back again; a path marked with sure-footed tracks that don’t let up even through the twists and turns.
Saba has been an accountant with our Hervey Bay team for two years. She’s achieved a bachelor’s of Business Administration (Honours), a master’s of Professional Accounting, and is on her way to becoming a chartered accountant. Her decision to pursue a career in accounting has been entirely self-driven.
“Like many families in Pakistan, there is an intense focus on education and “becoming something,” Saba says.
“So if you’re not a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer—that height of professional—then the perception is that you’re not doing anything,” she says.
Coming from a family of doctors and engineers, Saba’s dad was enchanted by the idea that she would one day become a dentist or a doctor. But she had other plans.
“When people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d always just say that I wanted to be a boss,” Saba says with a laugh.
Her boss-pirations took her to uni to study business, where her interest in accounting became much more pronounced. As the end of her bachelor’s loomed closer, Saba set her sights on a new goal—taking on postgraduate studies overseas. She applied to universities in Australia, UK, and Canada. After being offered a place at all three locations, she ended up choosing Brisbane, Australia—a decision her parents helped steer.
“My Dad was adamant that he knows a guy who knows a guy whose son lives in Brisbane and that this would mean I’d have a familiar face around who could help me settle into life here,” says Saba.
“The funny part is, I only ever saw that guy once,” she laughs.
Settling into her life in Australia turned out to be a steep learning curve. Up until that point, her sole focus was education—life skills? Not so much.
“Growing up, my parents only wanted me to focus on studying. I didn’t need to cook or clean or develop any of those other life skills. So, when I got to Australia at 21 and suddenly needed to do everything on my own… that was overwhelming at first,” she says.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Saba took decisive action to shift gears in her mind.
“I just thought to myself: I need to do this. No one else is going to do it for me,” she says.
“I’ve always been hyper-independent. I want to rely on myself and do things on my own, but the experience of moving here really kicked it up to the extreme. You’ve got to do things in life and you’ve only got yourself to do those things,” she says.
Saba’s sense of independence, coupled with her innate curiosity, has taken her all over the world.
Over the summer holidays, Saba took a solo trip to Europe, stopping in to see her sisters in Ireland and Germany along the way.
“I love trying new things and visiting new places—just seeing what the people and culture is like in different parts of the world,” she says.
Already planning her next holiday—a trip to Japan, South Korea, and Thailand—Saba is an advocate for travelling abroad. As she says: travelling makes you grow in ways you don’t realise at the time. However, Saba also notes that there’s plenty to be gained from seeking out new experiences closer to home, too.
“Even if I’m just going to another city in Australia, I try to make it a whole experience and use it as an opportunity to try all new things,” says Saba.
“Just recently I went to Brisbane and decided I wanted to try more Asian food, so I had my friends take me along to different Filipino and Korean places. Getting to taste street food from my friends’ home cities—it’s so good and just so different,” she says.
“I love learning how people operate in different places and how they bring their little part of their culture into this big melting pot. It’s really intriguing,” Saba says.
Passionately curious about the lives and experiences of others, Saba’s keenness to understand and embrace others’ cultures can make the quieter moments in regional Queensland more noticeable—like not sharing iftar (a meal eaten at sunset during Ramadan to break the fast), or greeting Eid morning without family around the table. Eid, Saba explains, is her equivalent of Christmas Day. It’s a time of joy, celebration, and coming together with friends and family.
“It can feel isolating when you have no one to celebrate with,” says Saba.
Yet she’s quick to add that it only takes a small gesture to close that gap: a curious colleague asking about Ramadan, a neighbour wishing her a happy Eid, an office notice that sparks a question or two.
These little signs of interest invite conversation, and conversation builds understanding and appreciation.
Saba would love to see that same eagerness—to learn and understand—to catch on in every workplace and street. Visibility of different cultural moments, she believes, isn’t a favour to any one individual. It has an effect that enriches the whole community.
Our paths, after all, rarely run in tidy, linear lines. They cross and weave, giving us chances to walk beside others and glimpse at the world from a different angle. As evidenced in Saba’s travels to all corners, when you open your mind to new things—new flavours, new people, new cultures—the whole world opens up too.
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