Mahreen Munir

Founder & Host, Karak with Mahreen

Mahreen Munir is the founder and host of Karak with Mahreen, a podcast that's grown to over 210,000 followers exploring how culture shapes identity across the UAE and South Asia. Before podcasting, she came from a background in computational systems - an unconventional and uncomfortable starting point that she's since built into a platform sitting down with everyone from Pakistani musicians like Ali Zafar and Farhan Saeed to everyday voices across the region. On Decoding Wisdom, Mahreen goes deep on one of South Asian culture's most uncomfortable truths: colourism, and her own personal experience of being told she was "too dark," and how that shaped her identity as a woman, creator, and South Asian voice in the UAE. The conversation moves through her father's vision for her career, minimizing regret in life's big decisions, the power of living alone and truly listening, navigating family expectations around independence and marriage, and what it actually takes to unlearn harmful beauty standards passed down through generations.