Miriam Silva is a trailblazer and then some.

She is Chief Operating Officer of Fleetpartners, an international leasing and fleet management company, responsible for more than 50,000 cars on the road across Australia and New Zealand.

But her journey to the position hasn’t been without its hurdles. Miriam has faced the challenge of being both a woman and a Muslim in the male-dominated non-Muslim corporate world.

“People are so willing to share what they’ve learned, even though they may not have seen or come across a Muslim woman before. Certainly, once you start talking with them, they’re very hospitable, very open and very warm,” she said.

“There is sort of an unconscious bias. What I would term an unconscious bias is when people view you as whatever they’ve managed to read in the media. Therefore, there are a lot of questions I get asked that would be very easy to take in a very negative way.

“But I choose to respond in a more positive way.”

“I figure, if somebody has the courage to ask me a question then I will always answer that question to the best of my ability in the spirit of the way the question has been asked.”

Prior to her current role at Fleetpartners, Miriam worked in a range of senior positions across banking and agribusiness.

She was born in London to Muslim immigrants from Guyana, a country on the Caribbean coast of South America. She moved to Australia at the age of six and went to secondary school at the elite Wilderness school in Adelaide.

For Miriam and her family, Australia is home.

“Everyone is so friendly, very accepting, very warm, very relaxed, always willing to learn, always willing to share, always willing to contribute and generally people want Australia as home to be fantastic and a really good place to live,” she said.

“You know when you have bush fires or a natural disaster or anything, everyone puts their hand in their pocket. When you have a charity day, everyone puts their hand in their pocket. At the Dawn Service, people turn up at 4.30am in
the morning to celebrate what people have contributed to the country.”

“Australia really is the lucky country,” she said.