Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How To Build Your Confidence - Amira Sajwani

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How To Build Your Confidence - Amira Sajwani · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

0:00
But if my mindset is always going to put me down, then how can I expect others to lift me up?
0:05
If you fail a few times, don't hold yourself to a higher standard than potentially a male counterparty would.
0:12
He would put us on the spot to give speeches in his launches from the age of 10, 11.
0:16
We are facilitating more than a billion dirhams of financing per month.
0:20
On Shark Tank, for me, the first 30 seconds is do I like the founder or not?
0:24
You'll have an overachieving mom who's working, building a company, you know, doing so much and she'll still be feeling guilty.
0:32
If you make a mistake, you make a mistake and that's fine.
0:40
Amira, welcome to the Imagine If With Dune podcast here at Davos On Air.
0:46
Thank you so much for having me.
0:47
Love this for us.
0:49
I'm excited to be chatting with you today.
0:50
I have about 700 million questions that I want to ask you.
0:55
we just had a guest Sarah Minkara in the studio here and she likes to introduce herself in a way that uses a method where you don't share your name, your background where you went to school, your education or what you do for a living it's focused on your hobbies and your interests so I was thinking maybe we could borrow her methodology and you could introduce yourself in the same way
1:20
Yeah, sure.
1:21
I'd be happy to.
1:23
I'm a mother of two for anything else.
1:27
I'm a daughter.
1:28
I'm a sister to three brothers.
1:31
And I am a passionate entrepreneur and adventure seeker.
1:37
I'm a traveler.
1:38
I love traveling.
1:40
And I think that, you know, I'm proud to be here and to be representing whatever I can in any capacity that I can contribute to.
1:48
and society and the young women leaders that are looking to grow in any field they can.
1:55
I love that.
1:56
I feel like this is going to be something I carry with me with every podcast guest now because it goes straight to the core of who you are and what you care about and what you're up to outside of the accolades and the dot point bio that we often lead with.
2:12
When you say adventure seeker,
2:14
tell me more please expand so interesting i i played so many sports growing up i was always into kind of outdoors and and adventure uh after becoming a mom i'm not gonna pretend like that continued much uh definitely become more weary uh more risk averse and and and much more tired to do anything um but i still love kind of exploring new things and then trying new things
2:41
I love that.
2:41
And I feel like when I look at your portfolio and the things that you're doing and the different avenues of investing in different companies and different founders and different businesses, I guess it's changed from sport and travel the way that you did when you were younger to kind of innovation and change in the world through the products and founders and people that you're supporting.
3:01
For sure.
3:03
It's the evolution of adventure seeking, I guess.
3:07
You have achieved a lot in your life.
3:09
You are a seasoned real estate empire builder.
3:13
You have multiple companies.
3:15
You're an investor.
3:16
You have done so many incredible things.
3:20
You're a very prominent voice in the women's empowerment space.
3:23
But I'd love to kind of rewind to you as a little girl and go back to that, you know, sport as a child to talk about what you were like when you were dreaming up your life in the future and what you were imagining as a kid.
3:39
Honestly, that's a very interesting question.
3:40
I don't think that I ever had a life dreamt up.
3:45
We grew up in a house where my father was always working hard.
3:48
He was always teaching us to push our limits, to go after our ambitions and what we believe we can achieve.
3:54
He also taught us that, you know, things change.
3:56
They don't turn out the way you plan.
3:57
So don't plan too far ahead.
3:59
You go with the rhythm.
4:00
You see where the opportunities are.
4:02
You take action quickly.
4:04
You have an appetite for risk and you will be successful.
4:07
And I think that's how we kind of move today.
4:09
If you would have asked me, forget childhood, if you would have asked me, I think, five, six years ago where I thought I'd be, let's say, in the pre-COVID era,
4:17
I don't think I would have answered in the manner of where I am today.
4:22
But definitely there was always an ambition and a dream of doing something and achieving something.
4:27
Now, what that was, I think, was quite fluid to understand more as we grew and as we evolved.
4:33
What was the answer five years ago pre-COVID?
4:35
You know, I think five years ago was more just to be able to follow in, obviously, my father's footsteps and to take on a bigger role in the company.
4:46
Fast forward five years, I've done that, but I'm doing a lot more in different directions.
4:50
I was a shark on Shark Tank, which really kind of ignited my love for investments and venture and entrepreneurship and incubation, etc.,
5:01
I became a mother, which changed my direction and thinking of, you know, looking at the new generation and the access that they have and what would be more appealing to the younger crowd that's now coming up.
5:12
And so I think that, you know, also I think, let's say the post-COVID era of the region and the energy and momentum and opportunities that came up opened the door for a lot more to be done.
5:25
And so it's been amazing.
5:26
It's been a great couple of years and we're very excited to take on the next couple of years and a leg up as well.
5:32
I mean, goodness, I bet.
5:34
Unstoppable.
5:36
I read that you as a kid would learn a lot of lessons and talk about business and negotiation and risk and things like that at the dinner table with your family.
5:45
your father raised you to be treated equally to your brothers and that he kind of gave you some principles and guiding beliefs in your life and i wanted to know if you could share those lessons and those principles that he gave you you know i think once my i said something to my father years ago and he brought it up in a an interview in a podcast a few years ago and it was something that went uh you know it went around and we always joke we tell my father
6:11
He only taught us the two Ds, which are Dhamak and Deen, and Deen in Arabic is religion.
6:16
So I think growing up, he was very focused on making sure we had a very solid foundation of religion.
6:21
And of course, religion comes with ethics and, you know, the manners and rhythms of how you should operate in life.
6:28
and business and so I think those were definitely the two focuses of our house and now that I have kids in hindsight I see that most of our life is built on those two foundations and and I would love to have that repeated in my own house with my own children getting into the family business if they like if they like if they like
6:49
I wanted to know, like, kind of staying on that track of you as a younger child or a younger girl, when was there or was there a moment that you kind of realized your family's situation and the way that they had built this company or the way that your father had built this company was different to other people?
7:07
Was there a memory or something where you realized, oh, we're doing something a little differently here.
7:12
We are innovative and we're changing the future and we're changing the world around us.
7:17
I don't think there was ever an aha moment for me.
7:20
We grew up in a house where even before, you know, Damak became one of the leaders in the property industry or now data centers or investing.
7:30
Before all that, my father was still, you know, across different industries.
7:34
We started in catering and then...
7:37
in development and then in venture.
7:39
He was always very passionate and hardworking, so there was never an aha moment for us.
7:44
It was we were used to going to the office from a young age to see what was going on, to attend launches.
7:50
He would put us on the spot to give speeches in his launches from the age of 10, 11.
7:53
Oh my gosh.
7:55
And so it was very natural for us.
7:57
Like we grew up and it was part of our identity, part of our DNA and part of what we observed at home.
8:03
So in hindsight, my aha moment was probably when I grew up and realized that this was not the norm of any childhood.
8:10
It was not the norm of any family.
8:13
And that I was given the opportunity to be bred in that kind of an environment which encouraged a lot of ambition and growth and opportunity in terms of going after big ideas.
8:25
So I would say it was the reverse.
8:26
It's not that I realized in childhood.
8:28
It's that I realized in adulthood that that existed because it was so natural for us.
8:33
Wow.
8:34
We, just with Sarah, we were talking a lot about assumptions and how people, it's just a human kind of behavior to assume or to judge.
8:43
And I guess coming from a family where your father had built this huge company, Demac, that people could assume things about you.
8:51
And so I'm wondering how you kind of differentiate your own identity and your own success and the things that you have achieved and kind of build that pathway for yourself.
9:01
separate to Dimac?
9:03
I mean, obviously, assumptions will always be there, you know.
9:05
People will always say things.
9:08
It's easy to say that, you know, kids who are grown in a house where there is a big, let's say, you know, opportunity there or established conglomerate, it's...
9:19
they've been fed a golden spoon or they've been given the opportunity to just stride through.
9:25
I don't think that's correct.
9:27
I think that you still have to work hard and you still have to have that ambition to follow through and fill in those big shoes that have been portrayed in that house.
9:36
But to be honest, for us, we don't pay attention to the noise.
9:39
We just see it as noise.
9:41
everyone will always have an opinion on everything in life.
9:43
And so if you pay too much attention to that, you get distracted from doing what you should be doing.
9:48
And I think that's how we usually see it.
9:51
You know, sometimes some of my friends send me funny comments that are on Instagram, on our own posts.
9:57
And I laugh and I'm like, I don't even read the comment section.
9:59
Like, it's just not my concern.
10:02
So I think we've just grown up in a house that, again, where my father was always blocking out the noise and saying that, you know, I focus on working hard.
10:09
Yeah.
10:09
on achieving what I want to achieve and God opens the doors for the rest.
10:13
We truly believe that.
10:15
I love that.
10:16
I want to talk about kind of what you've built and your leadership with Kripco and kind of the mission that you have with it.
10:23
Can you tell us about what the mission is and kind of how you've gone about, you know, tokenization and fractional ownership and...
10:31
what you're doing there.
10:32
No, amazing.
10:33
So while I was leading the Mac or while I still am leading the Mac, but in the journey that I took, took on a few years ago to kind of look at certain funnels and, and, and certain departments and sales marketing and opportunities, I,
10:48
I looked at the fact that real estate was still very inaccessible to a lot of people, both from a ticket size perspective, but also from an opportunity perspective.
10:58
You still need a minimum to enter into that sector.
11:01
And this generation of younger, let's say, Gen Zs and millennials are more keen on entering into that domain globally.
11:10
potentially quicker than our parents' generation.
11:14
And so it was very interesting for me to see, okay, how can we make real estate more accessible, whether it's through facilitating mortgages and financing or allowing accessibility from an investment perspective through lower ticket sizes.
11:26
And so that's how Pribco was kind of born.
11:29
Our two ideas were let's facilitate more in the mortgage and financing side, and let's allow accessibility from 500 dirhams, $135 into the domain of real estate.
11:40
So that's what we do today.
11:42
Those are two main hats that we play on.
11:45
We are facilitating more than a billion dirhams of financing per month for end users and investors.
11:52
So it's more than 250 million dollars a month.
11:55
And we allow accessibility into UAE real estate from 135 dollars.
12:01
And you can build up your exposure as you go and you can have that access and experience and learning curve of how to invest in real estate.
12:09
the best opportunities are and we curate a portfolio for you of the best opportunities based on our experience in the market.
12:16
And who is kind of your core customer base?
12:18
Like, is it who you kind of hypothesized it would be or is it a different subset of people?
12:23
Honestly, it's been everyone.
12:25
I mean, we don't have a, let's say, a skew of male to female or age range or nationality.
12:31
We have, you know, more than 60 nationalities.
12:33
We have our age range from 20...
12:35
two even less than few clients all the way to 75.
12:39
We've had a almost, you know, semi-balanced, let's say 65-35 male to female ratio.
12:46
And so it's been something that's appealed to a lot of people and a much broader audience than we anticipated.
12:53
And do you have like a goal or a vision that you're trying to hit of, you know, how many people you kind of help get into the property market or some kind of like transformation for future?
13:03
I think the problem with goals is every time we hit it, the goalpost moves.
13:07
Okay.
13:07
So we've always had goals.
13:09
Every time we've hit it, that goalpost has moved.
13:11
And I think that will continue to happen.
13:12
Our mission is to become the largest operator and investment platform for real estate globally.
13:21
And so we're still far off from that.
13:23
I still have a long way to go.
13:25
I want to know like for you, you know, we're talking about like the highlight reel at the moment and all the things that are going really well, but what are some of the things that have been challenging for you in leadership and building businesses and what have you kind of taken from DEMAC into your other ventures?
13:40
I think the challenges in building a business are challenges most entrepreneurs face.
13:46
One is attracting great talent that is as passionate and driven as you as an entrepreneur.
13:53
The second is being able to balance your ambition with putting the right systems, operations and protocols together.
14:00
to unlock that growth that you're going after.
14:04
And I think third is just accepting that there will be days where you're super successful in what you're doing.
14:09
There will be days you fail miserably at what you're doing.
14:11
And that's OK.
14:12
It's part of the journey.
14:13
And I think those who aren't OK with accepting the failures will never be able to hit the successful milestones because the highs are highs and the lows are low.
14:23
And you need to be able to be consistent throughout the highs and the lows.
14:28
And also, I think it's just, yeah, loving the journey versus the destination.
14:32
100%, you know.
14:33
I think it's very similar.
14:34
I have two young kids.
14:35
They're five and three.
14:36
And I think being a mother, it's very similar to parenthood, where you have to enjoy the daily little quirks.
14:41
It's not about the day you want to see your kid graduate or get married.
14:44
On the contrary, when that day comes, it's probably going to be one of the saddest and happiest, but also saddest days because, you know, the baby's grown and that journey is coming to a...
14:54
semi-end of as much involvement.
14:58
And so I think it's very important to be in a sector, in a space and doing something you really love where your biggest success is enjoying the journey on a daily basis.
15:08
And...
15:09
Success on enjoying the daily basis is one thing, but what is your vision for success in your lifetime?
15:15
And what is your success that you're like, I want to achieve this or I want to feel like this or something else, like fill in the blank.
15:23
You know, it depends on what specifically you'd refer to.
15:27
So I think across the different businesses, there's always going to be different milestones to judge that success.
15:33
On a personal level, I think that I have my two daughters when they're older.
15:41
And if they genuinely and honestly see me as a role model and that we want to be like our mother and achieve as much across the different pillars.
15:53
That is family first and being a mother and a sister and a daughter and other roles that you are in.
16:02
part of as an ecosystem of society.
16:05
And then as being able to say, you know, I want to be like my mother in terms of career, but more in terms of ambition and achievement and setting an example for other young women and leaders.
16:17
I think that would be a measure of success for me personally.
16:21
Yeah, absolutely.
16:22
And being remembered for your spirit and the soul and the core of who you are.
16:25
Yeah, 100%.
16:26
And what you've given back as well, because I think that life is short and it will pass by in the blink of an eye.
16:31
And, you know, when you are at an age where you're looking back and you can genuinely say that you contributed and...
16:38
in some significant manner to make some kind of an impact on the world that you're going to leave behind.
16:43
And I think that is a big measure of success that should be taken into account for all, for everyone, but mostly for entrepreneurs that are also looking to, you know, change the world.
16:53
And I think being a parent, that kicked in a lot more because you realize suddenly that this is the world my kids need to grow up in and I might be around and I might not be around.
17:02
So I hope it's a world that's cultivated to where I hope they would be comfortable living in.
17:07
I was just having a conversation this morning with Shokai, who is a Buddhist monk, and we were talking about his principles in life and how he's thinking about the world.
17:15
And his kind of core thought is around creating, you know, being an ancestor for the next generation.
17:23
And I think it overlaps a lot with, you know, your values in family and how your family thinks about legacy.
17:30
And now what you're saying about your contribution to the world, it kind of overlaps directly that you're...
17:36
thinking about how you can be a good ancestor for the next generation and the next generation of young people.
17:42
For sure.
17:42
I mean, I think that the world changes every 10 to 20 years at a rapid pace.
17:48
And if we're not very careful as humanity, then we could end up...
17:53
with, you know, a generation, maybe not my children, but maybe their children being, suffering the wrath of our decisions today, or reaping the rewards of our decisions today.
18:03
And I think that that is a responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly.
18:08
I mean, I agree.
18:09
I feel like we're on this weird trajectory at the moment.
18:12
I feel like phones are like...
18:15
a really big part of like a day-to-day problem that in like a hundred years time, we might look back and be like, I can't believe we were just able to like doom scroll for like hours on end or our kids were allowed to be on the internet with no guardrails and be able to consume and have these external inputs that change the way that we think and shape the narratives and what we believe in our head.
18:35
I find like the phone super weird.
18:38
I'm like,
18:39
We're in a weird moment.
18:40
We're in a crossroads.
18:41
I want to talk about your contributions and what you're passionate about contributing to the world outside of the business lens and the business landscape.
18:49
I know that you are a prominent voice for women's empowerment and you're very passionate about your daughters and the future for them.
18:57
So can you tell us more about what you're working on outside of business?
19:02
So I try as much as I can to work, be very active in the community outside of business, whether it is participating in things like Shark Tank that encourage the entrepreneurship ecosystem, or being on advisory boards wherever I can contribute.
19:17
I'm on the advisory board of Every Pregnancy, which is a great initiative, and I'm on the advisory board of AUS, which is a phenomenal university.
19:27
And so I try as much as I can to be part of these things and not just on the contribution but on the decision making side of being able to assist or help in any capacity that I can.
19:41
But I think it's definitely something that's growing and the region is taking off in a way.
19:45
big way in terms of even focusing that mindset on these kinds of initiatives and on growing that female empowerment mindset and you know I don't even like to refer to it as female empowerment because it's just the equality in its own should not be taken away but it's been amazing and I've been learning on my journey as well as I've been, I think I've learned more and taken more from my experiences than I've been able to give and I'm
20:14
And I'm eager to continue on that path and do as much as I can.
20:19
What do you want to see change in your lifetime?
20:23
Or if you had a wish for what changes in the world in your lifetime, what would it be?
20:28
I wouldn't say I would have a wish for anything specific.
20:30
I think that the world is a complex place and that there's a lot of different things entangled in different areas of life.
20:41
different issues.
20:43
I would hope that we were able to live in a peaceful world where people are focused on the well-being of humanity and creating a great landscape for the future generations to come.
20:59
And I guess the reality of that is that you're part of that, you know, with your what you're building with Pripco and being able to give everyone the opportunity to enter a property market as the world gets harder and more challenging to potentially enter those types of things.
21:12
And I think we're also on the brink.
21:13
of another let's say industrial revolution, right?
21:16
With the introduction and growth of AI, robotics, and a lot of these kind of automations and principles that are coming in.
21:24
And so I think more so than anything, it's very important for everybody to have that moral, ethical, and guardrails of what should be done and not done.
21:35
And I'm not the right person to be putting those guardrails.
21:37
And I hope that people much smarter than me and much more influential,
21:41
will be able to make the right decisions for our future generations.
21:45
Me too.
21:47
Yeah.
21:49
You touched on something robotics that I'm like, oh, this could be interesting to talk about.
21:54
You've got a huge portfolio, you've invested in many tech companies, lots of funds,
22:00
You are on Shark Tank, you've invested in a lot of consumer brands.
22:04
What are you excited about at the moment in terms of emerging technology or emerging businesses that you're just personally interested in?
22:11
No, amazing.
22:12
I'm super interested and passionate about the physical world of AI over the next five years.
22:18
I think that AI has come so far along the last three years.
22:21
and is now starting to translate into the physical world of whether it's robotics, whether it's automations, whether it's construction tech, or every industry that follows.
22:31
But I think that seeing how that, let's say,
22:34
Today's software layer of AI and innovation translates into that hardware layer of output.
22:41
I think I'm super excited and passionate about that.
22:44
Is that something that you're like on the bigger picture looking to bring into DEMAC and into Pripco in like a in that robotics kind of space?
22:54
I think honestly it depends.
22:55
So with our investor hat on, it's definitely a space that's of interest.
22:59
A lot of very cool companies doing interesting things in the space.
23:04
The likes of, you know, physical intelligence and figure and, you know, Jeff Bezos' newly launched Prometheus was announced and,
23:14
to try to unlock more of the space.
23:17
I think it's still very early days and we'll see a lot of the space developing over the next two to three years based on what can and can't be done.
23:25
But I think that because it's so early and there's so much potential and promise across every industry, that's what makes it super interesting.
23:33
So very interesting to see how that translates.
23:35
When you think about that and with your investor hat on, do you have kind of a personal thesis
23:41
on how you deploy capital or the businesses or the founders you're choosing to back?
23:45
I think for me and for the family, it's very opportunistic rather than sector focus or so.
23:53
We look at three things.
23:54
I personally am very focused on these three factors.
23:57
One is the founder.
23:58
What is their capability of building a phenomenal company?
24:02
The second is obviously what the company does and what they're looking to achieve and where their growth would be, etc.
24:07
And the third is the market size and how big this company can become.
24:11
And I think those three factors are a foundation.
24:13
And then everything else comes on secondary as in, okay, do they have revenues?
24:18
How are they growing?
24:19
How are they...
24:20
You know, what are they targeting?
24:21
How are they doing?
24:22
What's their quarter on quarter?
24:24
What's their valuation and their metrics?
24:26
But I think the first three to answer always founder, business and market, and then everything else follows.
24:32
Is there an example you can point to where you're like, okay, yeah, I invested in this company and the signals around the founder that made me interested were X, Y, and Z, or it was the numbers that were doing X, Y, and Z, and that was the signal that piqued my interest?
24:47
I think it depends.
24:48
So, okay, a company that I was interested in recently is AeroBoer.
24:52
It's a digital bank.
24:53
It's a US digital bank.
24:56
Part of the founding team is Palmer Luckey.
24:59
He's a successful, more than two-time founder.
25:03
Great concept.
25:04
It's a growing space.
25:06
Real revenues.
25:08
Global opportunity.
25:10
And still an early investment.
25:13
So that would be an example of an investment theory.
25:16
Then you have more, let's say, companies that you look at and think, OK, this could be a big future opportunity, even if today maybe they don't have the revenues or stats of where they should be.
25:28
And I think there's a lot of that right now, given the age of AI and where we are today.
25:32
There's a lot of companies coming up on a daily basis.
25:35
Some are undervalued, some are overvalued, some are fairly valued.
25:46
Mmm.
25:47
I'm seeing a lot of really cool, like interesting women's health tech, like health tech and how we develop, for example, Claire health in, um, Silicon Valley is developing kind of like 24 hour, like cycle testing, like cycle, um, measurement so that you can measure your hormones at every point in the day, instead of just going to like,
26:08
the doctor and getting a blood test and it's that window of time in that moment that you took the blood it's like monitoring your whole cycle non-stop so that you can have better precision health and better kind of like tailored supplements doctor treatments whatever it might be to where you are in your
26:26
hormonal journey and I think that kind of thing to me sounds so exciting and so revolutionary for women specifically.
26:33
No 100% in fact I read recently if I'm not mistaken less than 10% of global research funding goes towards women specific health issues and that was shocking for me but I guess I mean it's just maybe hasn't been a uh a
26:49
a massive priority, unfortunately, and probably since I'm making an assumption here, but probably since the biggest donors in the world are probably male today.
26:57
And so their focus has never been that side.
27:00
But again, I think with the development of AI and the ease of which drug research and discovery is going to become hopefully over the next few years,
27:07
It's a space that's very interesting and still untapped.
27:10
And I think being a woman, you know, you always have that feeling where if your husband or your brother or your father or whoever asks you, you know, but what's wrong?
27:19
And you say, you just don't understand.
27:21
And I think that's just biology.
27:23
Yeah, literally.
27:25
My husband will be like, wait a minute.
27:27
What day is it?
27:29
We know why you're upset at the world.
27:31
Yeah.
27:32
And I'm like, no, it's not.
27:33
You don't understand me.
27:36
When you're thinking about the consumer businesses that you invest in and the founders that you're kind of meeting through opportunities like Shark Tank, what are the things that you're like?
27:44
What's your strategy there?
27:45
Is it like this again, similar signals or it's like I like that.
27:50
On Shark Tank, for me, the first 30 seconds is do I like the founder or not?
27:54
Because if the founder is not a founder that you believe in, then even if the business is great and the market is great, the idea is phenomenal, the opportunity is there, if the founder you don't think can execute, the company will fail.
28:07
I truly believe that.
28:09
And I don't believe in the founders that say, oh, maybe I'm not capable, but I'll hire somebody.
28:13
If you can hire somebody, that person is going to set up his own shop.
28:17
So you as a founder have to be capable of driving the idea of what you want to execute.
28:23
Now, you don't have to have every expertise.
28:24
You can always find, you know, you're weak in a certain place.
28:27
You want to hire a head of marketing or head of sales or development, whatever it is.
28:31
That's fine.
28:33
But the founder has to be capable.
28:34
So for me, on Shark Tank, when you have 30 minutes to make a decision, founder comes first.
28:39
If I like the founder, then I'm keen to understand more about the business.
28:42
If I like the business, then I want to understand the market size.
28:46
How big can this business become?
28:47
What's the opportunity?
28:49
And there's been instances where I've loved the founder, interesting business.
28:52
Maybe I don't think it's a market for it, but I'll still bet on the company because I know that the founder is phenomenal.
28:57
He's had a good idea.
28:58
We can ideate together and pivot that idea to potentially something that has a bigger market size for it.
29:04
But if you're my first bet is a founder, if I don't like a founder, there's very, very low chances I would invest in a company.
29:11
Yeah.
29:11
What's the saying?
29:12
It's like if you can't like hang out for an hour or two, like or an afternoon together, like you're not going to love doing that for a long time, 10 years, 15 years, whatever it might be.
29:23
What are the types of businesses that you're seeing at the moment entering the space?
29:27
What is the patterns or the threads or the commonalities in this new wave of businesses that are kind of led with AI and technology, but they're still in the consumer space?
29:36
So I think services as a software, that's exactly what you've just described, where you're not building, let's say, a software layer, you're not building necessarily a
29:48
LLM or a very sophisticated model of AI, but rather you're using AI to automate service business or service industry kind of a company and really be able to grow as well as minimize your costs using AI.
30:04
And I think those are the companies that now in the next wave of companies that will do very well are the ones that will be able to benefit.
30:11
So if you're a service company and you're using AI and integrating that in order to really improve.
30:16
streamline your growth and 10x your growth while maintaining the same, let's say, overheads or even shrinking your capacity of people required to do the same job.
30:26
I think those are the wave of companies that will do well as the next step.
30:31
And I guess that's like so relevant for especially the property market and the kind of technology that can be brought into business.
30:37
you know, these big physical kind of businesses, especially here in the UAE.
30:41
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
30:43
I want to talk about something that I was reading on your website about female wealth.
30:48
It was saying that female wealth here is growing faster than the products are built for it.
30:53
And you know, your work is reflecting that next phase of wealth for women.
30:57
You're building your own empire.
30:58
You're building the, you know, the generational change for your daughters and other young women.
31:05
while also funding innovation and ideas.
31:08
How do you think about the gender challenges and the problems that are to solve here in the UAE?
31:14
And what are they?
31:15
To be honest, I don't think, I genuinely don't believe that the UAE has gender problems.
31:19
I think that on the contrary, there was a big push years ago from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid
31:24
for that integration of more female thought leadership and leadership into the community.
31:30
And that's done phenomenally well.
31:31
So I don't see it as a fundamental problem that needs to be solved, including more women in daily decisions.
31:37
There's always going to be something that, you know, the whole community will push for.
31:42
But I think that that's already happening.
31:44
I don't see it as a hurdle that needs to be overcome.
31:46
I see it as something that's already happening.
31:48
It's great to see.
31:49
It's great to really be part of.
31:54
to do so.
31:55
And I think like what the overall article was saying more like, you know, female wealth is growing so fast and it is so exciting, but the products haven't been able to keep up in the financial system.
32:05
I think products in terms of, you know, we've seen based on...
32:09
based on sample size and analytics, that females are not as necessarily financially educated as males.
32:18
And I think that's pretty normal because it's just a different role and a different take on investments or other aspects.
32:26
But I think, again, that's also growing.
32:28
I don't think it's a point of contention, but something that's naturally growing and happening and needs to definitely be flourished a bit more.
32:38
When you think about like the young women of today who are wanting to carve out their own path, build businesses, create the kind of success that they want to have in the world.
32:48
What is the advice that you give those young women?
32:53
My advice would be to go after what you're passionate about, go after your ambition and block out the noise.
33:00
And you know what?
33:00
If you fail a few times, don't hold yourself to a higher standard than potentially a male counterparty would.
33:08
And I said this at a conference once, and the room was full of women, and they all started laughing and nodding.
33:13
And I said that, you know, you meet a man, and he's so...
33:18
The baseline is so confident and this natural ability to actually discount mistakes because of the confidence.
33:28
And generally, when I come across females, it's the opposite.
33:31
You'll have an overachieving mom who's working.
33:35
building a company, doing so much, and she'll still be feeling guilty, self-questioning her abilities, potentially not seeing the value that she's adding in every aspect.
33:47
And so I think that the biggest advice I can give to young female entrepreneurs or young female entrepreneurs,
33:53
So want to enter into the work, industry, etc.
33:56
is to have confidence, have confidence in yourself.
33:59
Don't beat yourself up.
34:00
And you don't need to hold yourself to a higher standard than potentially a counter male party would.
34:06
If you make a mistake, you make a mistake.
34:08
And that's fine.
34:08
That's part of life.
34:10
So I think we hold ourselves to much higher standards because of the difference in self-esteem.
34:16
And then to go one step deeper on that, say someone's listening here who's like, that's me, like I'm absolutely that person.
34:22
Even for me, I'm someone who has naturally been like less confident, less self-esteem, and I've had to really work hard to build my confidence and build my ability to do things like this, for example.
34:33
How do you do that?
34:36
practically, how do you cultivate confidence if you struggle with it?
34:39
And how do you change it, in your opinion?
34:41
I think that just comes step by step.
34:43
I think firstly, it's internal.
34:46
So it starts by being aware of the fact that it exists.
34:50
And you know, that thought that creeps into your mind when
34:54
oh, I messed up.
34:54
You need to rephrase that yourself before the world can rephrase it to, I didn't mess up.
34:59
It was a mistake and it's fine and I need to shake it off.
35:02
Because I think that that energy is very different when you approach it in a different mindset.
35:08
And by you, I mean the generic public male or female for that matter.
35:12
But if my mindset is always going to put me down, then how can I expect others to lift me up?
35:17
And so I think it's a lot of internal mindset and confidence that just needs to be worked on.
35:23
And that comes in small things and big things.
35:26
Yeah.
35:26
So it's how you shape the narrative for yourself.
35:30
And then that narrative is then comes, you know, what comes back out into the world.
35:34
In a dialogue, it can be a bit tricky sometimes.
35:39
I want to ask you about your routines and habits.
35:42
I love to ask successful people about the things that they do every day to keep, you know, feeling happy, motivated, successful, tiny joys, things like that.
35:53
What do you do like rituals and practice wise?
35:56
I mean, I think...
35:59
Rituals and practice-wise, I'm quite religious, and so prayer is one that keeps me grounded.
36:07
But I think also having two young kids, it's just the time spent with them, is what I look forward to, but also what keeps me going and gives me that joy during the day.
36:17
So I start my day with the kids, and then after we put them to bed,
36:21
We start to unwind for the evening, but they're a big part of what that rituals and habits and joy is today.
36:29
What are the kind of traditions that you keep within your family that you've maybe taken from how your parents raised you into...
36:38
your children's lives now?
36:40
So actually we spend a lot of time at a macro macro family level as well so weekends are usually with my parents us our my siblings you know my brother's kids my kids and so we do spend a lot of family time together we cherish that we travel quite often together and so those habits are definitely something that we look to keep keep keep
37:02
going on with as the kids grow up so that they stay cultivated and ingrained in that family aspect.
37:09
At our nuclear family level, we do bedtime together every day.
37:15
So bedtime is a ritual that we don't miss.
37:18
Mornings are a ritual that we don't miss.
37:20
My husband drops the kids off to school every day.
37:23
So these are, I think, the moments that the kids really remember and it's an opportunity to really...
37:28
be able to connect with them in other ways, you know, in the morning asking them how they hope their day will go and at bedtime asking how their day did go and what they want to talk about and if something, you know, excited them or upset them.
37:40
And I think that's super important to have that unload and planning with the kids and having them involved.
37:47
So beautiful.
37:49
Who do you admire and learn from as role models?
37:54
I think my father has always been my biggest role model.
37:57
I admire him.
37:57
I learn from him.
37:58
He's always been able to support me in every way.
38:03
And so I think he would definitely be that biggest role model for me, both as a child and today.
38:09
I love that.
38:10
And who outside of the family?
38:13
You cannot know them.
38:14
You know, it's not that.
38:16
I think genuinely one of the most defining role models of this era would generally be His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid.
38:25
I think what he's done and achieved with Dubai over such a short period of time has been phenomenal.
38:31
And so I think His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the way that they have led this country into the success that we are all, you know, reaping the rewards of and enjoying the momentum and energy of has been phenomenal.
38:44
And, you know, I think that if running a country was like being a CEO, he would be the strongest CEO in the world.
38:54
And I think that's phenomenal.
38:55
I mean...
38:56
On our first night here when we arrived, we went to the Theatre of Digital Art and we got to experience kind of a visual story of, you know, the recap of the last 50 years and then the last 40 years and then the last 30 years and then the last 20 years.
39:10
And we were all just blown away because, of course, we know that this is how Dubai has kind of
39:17
progressed and evolved in the last 50 years.
39:19
But then when you actually stop and think about, 50 years is not a long time.
39:23
Like 30 years, 20 years, it's just crazy, it's nothing.
39:26
And to see the change and to see how innovation and
39:31
visionary thinking about the future, what you can achieve as a country and as a nation, it's just so exciting.
39:39
No, for sure.
39:40
And, you know, I studied in London 10 years ago.
39:42
I did my bachelor's and master's there.
39:44
So I was there for five years.
39:45
And every time I would come for holiday, three, four months apart, you know, winter break, spring break, etc.,
39:51
every time I would come would be some new massive development that has, you know, happened in Dubai.
40:00
And for me, I'm from Dubai.
40:02
I've grown up in Dubai, but seeing that was so natural and maybe we took it for granted.
40:07
And then living abroad, every time I'd come three months and I'd see a new six lane highway bridge,
40:13
or CityWalk had come up at the time, Kite Beach had come up at the time, you know, Downtown had come up at the time, and it was so mesmerizing to realize that, like, that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world, where three months apart you see such shifts and such jumps in a community.
40:31
And I think that's amazing.
40:32
And then I think if you zoom out even bigger and you think the next 50 years or the next 100 years, what will happen and, like, how that innovation will kind of evolve,
40:41
It's like, it doesn't even enter my realm of imagination because who knows?
40:48
Yeah, 100%.
40:49
It's so exciting.
40:50
I want to end on two final questions.
40:53
Number one is, if tomorrow everything disappeared in terms of the success that you've built and you had to start again, you know, from scratch, what is the wisdom that you would rely on to build again?
41:04
Yeah.
41:06
the wisdom I would rely on is find a space you're passionate about a space that's big enough to have a big growth impact and just start you just start, everything starts with a step and don't think about the 100th floor of a tower before you've laid the foundations start and see how it goes and you know what, it might not be the right call maybe it'll fail miserably but maybe you'll find something else that came out of it but you just need to start because if you keep thinking three people will have started and
41:36
and lived out and built out your dream while you're still thinking about whether you should take the first step.
41:42
Love that.
41:43
Action focused.
41:45
Spoken like a true entrepreneur.
41:47
We talked at the beginning about your dreams as a kid and your kind of imagination as a kid.
41:52
And I want to also go back to ending on imagination.
41:55
What do you imagine for the future in Dubai, in the UAE, for yourself?
42:01
What do you...
42:02
What do you imagine and what are you dreaming for the future now?
42:06
You know, I think Dubai and the UAE and the region is just getting started.
42:10
We have a very long way to go.
42:11
We have huge ambitions that we're looking to achieve.
42:14
And I'm very proud to be able to be a part of that.
42:18
What I imagine for the future is to keep doing what we're doing, keep growing, keep, you know, being...
42:25
a place that's worthy of the light that has been shining on it.
42:29
And I think that is enough.
42:30
I'm not a person who, let's say, has a five-year or ten-year plan at any given time.
42:37
We say in Arabic, basically, you move in the right direction, you do your best, and God will do the rest.
42:48
Beautiful.
42:48
A lovely note to finish on.
42:50
And thank you for shining your light on us today.
42:52
No, thank you for having me.
42:53
It's been amazing.
42:54
I loved this.
42:55
Thank you.
42:56
Thank you.