Forget Wall Street wolves - meet the equity-restructuring banker who swapped power suits for star charts. Intrigued by the hidden patterns of the universe, she traded million-dollar deals for the mysteries of planetary alignments.
What cosmic forces led this financial expert to become a Western astrologer, and how do her unique skills blend the two worlds? Here’s the story of a woman who dared to chart a new course, harnessing both logic and maths to empower herself and others…
From Al Ain to the World Bank
Born into a British family of Pashtun and Indian heritage, Nadia, who goes by her first name, was always in love with numbers – it was a world filled with answers. The daughter of a banker, it was but natural for her to gravitate to a world she grew up in.
“I was born in Al Ain. We left the UAE when I was 6 years old, and went to UK.” Her grandparents always had a base in the UK and a large part of the family was there too. Initially the move to central London felt a bit strange.
“… because of the difference in culture and weather. I missed hearing the Arabic language. Primary school was in the UK. As years went by … I was always very good at maths and science. I enjoyed languages, but the best subjects were always maths and science. With my father’s connect to banking, it was only natural that I would be interested in finance and economics as well, which is what I ended up studying at university.” She went on to graduate in 1992 from the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington D.C., US. From there she worked with the World Bank and then on Wall Street, eventually returning to the financial district of London to be closer to her family. This was 1995.
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Private equity is the cold face of creating value, creating wealth – much more appealing after so many years of working with just numbers to see how that translates into the material world, and how one can understand the effects of one’s choices. Sitting there working with just numbers on a screen, it is very different from when you are standing on a factory floor and trying to see how cutting down would affect the livelihoods of the people you are talking to.
After a decade in the UK, her family relocated to the UAE, again. “It was difficult to leave while working within a major financial centre like London.” However, she decided to take the leap and look for a job in Dubai, which was becoming a financial hub in the region. This was 2006. She ended up working in private equity, a completely new direction.
“Private equity is the cold face of creating value, creating wealth – much more appealing after so many years of working with just numbers to see how that translates into the material world, and how one can understand the effects of one’s choices. Sitting there working with just numbers on a screen, it is very different from when you are standing on a factory floor and trying to see how cutting down would affect the livelihoods of the people you are talking to.”
The journey begins…
As an equity-restructuring specialist, Nadia started seeing the human face of financial decisions and how people’s lives were getting impacted.
“I felt that I could contribute to a lot more and was quite lucky I could change my career trajectory. I could use the knowledge of the maths and science, economics and finance to help people.
“I was sitting in my Mum’s living room 2018, in London, and one of my best friends was saying, ‘You seem deflated, don’t seem very excited.’ My mum asked if I could do anything in the world, what would it be. Without hesitation, I said astrology.” She expected serious fall-out from family and friends, instead was pleasantly surprised.
“Everywhere I went; friends and colleagues were excited about it. To a great degree, I am Pashtun, many medieval astrologers are from Khorasan, and they served in the Abbasid court (750 to 1258 AD), which is where we get many of the astrology techniques.
“You have to understand astrology, astronomy and medicine used to be counted as one subject until a few hundred years ago. That joint focus started to end around the Renaissance period.”
What is astrology?
“No matter what’s happening around you, there’s a layer that’s hidden, behind a veil - there’s a certain type of personality that can read it, like the way you read a room. Some people will be busy doing analysis, others will try to understand the mood of the room – astrology is a way of getting all of that together and getting a feel or flavour for a physical or emotional situation or just to understand events.
“When you are a banker, you do see ups and downs of individuals, institutions, entire societies and astrology also follows that mapping in a certain way.
“If you likes analysis, graphs, and maps, you would be naturally attracted to what astrology is. These days’ people think that it is about the supernatural or something to do about intuition or feelings. In fact it is very much about measurements, facts, numbers and science.”
The astrology chart or horoscope itself is a map of what features were prominent in the sky at the moment of your birth. The meaning of horoscope is hour marker.
“It will tell you how the sky looked, in terms of signs, rising in the East, when you were born. When you have that mapped and place all the planets, you get a map of which topics of life or houses will affect you and how. How those energies will affect. I even do financial astrology – the birth chart of a company based on what time it was registered and how their investments, sales, or income may be affected. It helps them make financial decisions.”
No matter what’s happening around you, there’s a layer that’s hidden, behind a veil - there’s a certain type of personality that can read it, like the way you read a room. Some people will be busy doing analysis, others will try to understand the mood of the room – astrology is a way of getting all of that together and getting a feel or flavour for a physical or emotional situation or just to understand events.
How has it changed her interaction with people?
“When you are a banker, everything comes down to numbers. People fit in there somewhere! Whereas when studying astrology about the 12 houses, 12 signs, seven planets … put all of that together and people are a myriad mix of different combinations – you get to see the flavour of the person and see how people are unique.
“The famed American investment banker and financier said, ‘Millionaires don’t have astrologers, billionaires do’.
“There’s a lot to this world beyond the layer that we see and assign certain qualities to - a lot more goes into steering the world. The universe is infinite. There are infinite ways of putting things together – what is happening in any given moment. Western astrology is more about the seasons therefore the movement of the sun, Eastern astrology is looking at more of the fixed stars that were first understood and calculated.”
Cycles of time
Nadia believes that exposure to the science of astrology changes your perception of life. “You really do appreciate that you have agency, and it makes you understand the balance between free will and determinism – an interesting evolution. Your place in life. Where do you fit in … what suits you, how can you best navigate the world you are in today. It has given me understanding and validation of life to date….
“You learn that not everything is about control … taught me to be a lot more fluid, especially with time. Time is cycles within cycles, so you cannot say you have succeeded or failed within a time period. You are on a path.”
Helping others along
“Most of the time people will come to you for help with a problem – astrology can help with managing a process, saying goodbye to someone or something, or opening a door to finding a purpose or exploring … helping people let go of something they have invested a lot in.”
She finds it most rewarding when helping people get past personal difficulties, be it in relationships or other decisions. “There’s nothing nicer than helping people come back together.”
Nadia did the chart for a husband and wife, helping the woman understand that letting her husband give up his fixed income job for entrepreneurship would be better in the long term. It saved their marriage from the brink of disaster, and today he is a successful businessperson.
“My past job doesn’t seem real anymore. I still do restructuring projects, help companies improve cash flow and organisational setup, and find a way for them to stay solvent.” However, her heart is astrology.
“I recommend people give it a chance – it is a different understanding of where we are in the universe.”
