Meet the Founder

Shanaz grew up being told that her place was at home. That building a business was not for women like her. That she should be grateful for what she had and stop reaching for more. That as a working class Asian woman from Birmingham she did not belong in the world of technology and entrepreneurship. The people who said those things did not know Shanaz Begum.

Every evening after the children are in bed, while most people are watching television, Shanaz is building. Every weekend while juggling three kids and a demanding teaching career, she is creating. Every day she proves that where you come from does not determine where you are going.

AEO-REX was born from a simple observation — AI search was changing how customers find businesses forever, and nobody in the UK was helping small businesses navigate that change. The big London agencies were charging £2,000 to £5,000 a month. The small businesses that needed help the most could not afford it.

So Shanaz built the solution herself.

She taught herself the technology. She built the website. She coded the tools. She wrote every word of content. She appeared on the Islam Channel to talk about AI visibility when most people had never heard of Answer Engine Optimisation. She spoke at business expos across the UK including the Redbridge Chamber of Commerce. She built a live SaaS product in a single day using AI. She filed a registered trademark to protect everything she had created.

She did all of it alone. On one salary. Around three children. On a council estate in Birmingham.

This is not a story about having the right connections or the right background or the right postcode. This is a story about what happens when a woman who has been told no her entire life decides to say yes to herself.

AEO-REX exists because Shanaz refused to be invisible. And now she is making sure your business refuses to be invisible too.

AEO-REX® is a registered trademark in the United Kingdom covering consultancy, training, software and SaaS services — filed April 2026.

Before founding AEO-REX, Shanaz spent over a decade as an international Les Mills certified fitness instructor and Beachbody instructor delivering the legendary Insanity programmes. She was told that Asian women do not do fitness. That a woman like her had no place in that world either.

She ignored them and built an international fitness career instead.

The same discipline, determination and refusal to accept limitations that defined her fitness career now drives every decision at AEO-REX. When you work with Shanaz, you get a decade of hard won mental toughness applied directly to your business visibility strategy.

Shanaz Begum has spent her entire life being underestimated. She has spent her entire life proving every single doubter wrong.

AEO-REX is what happens when you stop listening to the people who say you cannot and start listening to the voice inside that says you already are.