Mariam Ottimofiore

An author, writer, speaker, researcher and economist, Mariam Ottimofiore jokingly calls herself an ‘expat since birth’. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, she took her first steps in Manama, Bahrain, and attended her first school in New York City, in the United States.
By the time she was ten years old, her global childhood meant that she had grown up in three countries, in two languages and was constantly correcting the pronunciation of her name.
When she was 19 years old, Mariam left her home in Karachi with a blue suitcase and a one-way ticket to Boston’s Logan Airport. She has since lived in ten countries as both a Third Culture Kid (TCK) and an expat adult: The Kingdom of Bahrain, the United States (NY, MA, TX), Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Ghana and Portugal.
Ten countries and four continents later, Mariam’s life on the move is messy. A 40-foot container, an expat husband from another corner of the world and three children born in three different countries, 3,000 miles apart with three nationalities have added complexity, challenges and many joys to living a multicultural, multilingual and multi-mobile life.
Mariam currently lives in Cascais, Portugal, with her half-German, half-Italian husband and her German-Pakistani-Italian kids, who were born in Singapore, Dubai and Lisbon. Passionate about languages and cultures, Mariam speaks fluent Urdu, English, Hindi and German, along with some Italian, Danish, Arabic, Twi and Portuguese on the side.
Mariam holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts in the US, and specialised in Economic Development at the University of Sussex in the UK. Her corporate career saw her work in different roles, from investment banking in the US to an Economist in oil trading in Denmark. She made a huge career change to a full-time writer in 2012, when she moved to Singapore as an expat partner, five months pregnant and unemployed.
But it took Mariam yet another international move to Dubai in 2015 to start her blog ‘And Then We Moved To’; a way to support other expat individuals and families facing constant transition. Mariam is also the author of This Messy Mobile Life. Her debut novel The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye is out now.
Mariam has featured in various media over the past 15 years including Oprah Winfrey’s Network (OWN) Super Soul Sunday