Introduction
Her Excellency (HE) Sara Al Madani is one of the brightest examples of the success of women in the entrepreneurial domain. She has started her career as a designer at the age of 15 and has since managed to garner recognition both in the native country and on a global scale. The current paper provides an overview of HE Sara Al Madani’s current activities and offers an in-depth insight into her views on the business domain as well as the key aspects of becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Current Activity
Her current areas of activity include running a successful creative consultancy, Social Fish, which offers assistance to young and aspiring entrepreneurs, and a British restaurant in Dubai. She is also a brand ambassador for several globally recognized brands, such as Natura Bisse and Nivea (Gulf Capital SME Awards). Interestingly, HE Al Madani argues that such a rate of success is not only possible but actually more probable to achieve for women. For instance, she points to the fact that women have a greater natural capacity for multitasking, which grants them additional leverage in the highly dynamic modern business world. She also argues in favor of creating clear sets of short-term goals and prioritizing tasks to increase daily productivity. However, she also cautions the newcomers from acting in accordance with a certain formula without acknowledging individual differences. While organizational aspects of entrepreneurship are important for performance and efficiency, the main driving force behind success is creativity and inspiration.
Inspiration as a Source of Success
Despite numerous improvements, the business segment in the UAE remains heavily populated with men. According to the most recent estimates, women comprise as little as 1.5 percent of the board members of publicly listed organizations in the country, which is an abysmal result by modern standards, especially in contrast to the average of nearly 20% worldwide (Deloitte). HE Al Madani actively addresses the issue by maintaining close contact with financial institutions and assisting in the development of more open and accessible corporate laws and regulations in the region. However, HE Sara Al Madani’s main focus is on providing inspiration to women and encouraging them to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Nowadays, she travels across the country in order to reach out to as many women as possible and directly participate in the empowerment movement. According to her statement, the modern business environment is already in the middle of major changes that may serve as an early indication of the shifts in the distribution of influence and power (Hashem). In such a setting, women get a perfect opportunity to enter the untapped field and extend the scope of the influence beyond the economic aspects of the transformation and into the social domain. HE Al Madani has also mentioned on numerous occasions that the situation in the UAE is already favorable for the cause. In other words, the women she is reaching out to are already empowered, as they have demonstrated sufficient capacity for change and formidable determination for excelling in entrepreneurship (Khatim). Thus she points to the lack of inspiration as the main reason for the lack of progress in the identified direction.
HE Al Madani points to several barriers to the successful entry of women into the global entrepreneurial picture. One of the major issues, according to her, is the scarcity of information available to women who wish to become entrepreneurs. According to her assessment, those who set out to analyze the current situation in the country are unable to arrive at meaningful conclusions by restricting their inquiry to the women-only audience (Healy). As an alternative, HE Al Madani suggests involving male financial experts and entrepreneurs in the discussion. Such a move will ensure that the conclusions are based on real data rather than speculative models and, more importantly, increase the applicability of the developed solutions by incorporating recent practical knowledge that is relevant to the cultural and socio-economic situation in the region.
HE Al Madani admits that the current business environment still poses numerous challenges to women who wish to start their career in business and cites her experience as an example. According to her testimony, the onset of her career was significantly slowed down by the proportion of male professionals, effectively rendering the sector inaccessible to women. However, she also points to the fact that the balance of power has since shifted significantly towards a fairer proportion (Jalal). Another aspect that needs to be considered is the emergence of numerous initiatives and organizations intended for aiding women on the matter. Since both trends are expected to persist in the long term, it becomes far easier for women to successfully start an entrepreneurial career.
HE Al Madani considers personal examples as one of the most viable sources of inspiration. In addition to her widely publicized story of success, she points to the stories of expatriate women who came to the UAE to start their businesses. Essentially, she argues that the ability of the expatriates to succeed in a largely unfamiliar environment serves as a warrant of the same success for locals, who have at their disposal the same array of opportunities but are not limited by the challenges of moving to another country.
Conclusion
The UAE has demonstrated outstanding performance in the development of its economic sector. However, in order to achieve recognition on a truly global scale, it is equally necessary to update the cultural and social aspects of entrepreneurship. In this perspective, the importance of Sara Al Madani’s activity becomes especially apparent.
Works Cited
Deloitte. “Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective.” Deloitte, 2017. Web.
Gulf Capital SME Awards. “Sara Al Madani.” Gulf Capital, n.d. Web.
Hashem, Heba. “Sara Al Madani, Emirati Entrepreneur.” Acca, 2017. Web.
Healy, Melinda. “My UAE: Fashion Forward with Rouge Couture Founder Sara Al Madani.” The National. 2016. Web.
Jalal, Maan. “Sara Al Madani: The Quintessential Sharjah Girl.” Khaleej Times, 2016. Web.
Khatim, Mira. “Her Excellency Sara Al Madani – Emirati Entrepreneur.” Arab Woman Platform, 2016. Web.