Monawar is an experienced entrepreneur and social innovator. He is Imam at Eton College and founded The Oxford Foundation, a charity that promotes religious and racial harmony through (mainly) educational and arts-based programmes. He has devised, pioneered and successfully piloted a unique educational programme confronting violent extremist ideology, aspects of which have been published and the programme has also been utilised to train RE teachers in the UK.

Monawar sits on a number of advisory boards including the Department for Communities & Local Government Review of Muslim Faith Leader Training; the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education and the Religious Education Council Resilience Advisory Board.  In addition, he is a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) of Oxfordshire.