A shrewd business brain and green fingers helped Egyptian entrepreneur Sara-Kristina Hannig Nour scoop the top Middle East & North Africa accolade at the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards in Singapore.
Before a packed crowd at a concert hall in the city’s historic Victoria Theatre last Wednesday, the Swiss-born founder of organic-food company Sara and Lara’s Baskets fought back tears as she received the prestigious prize for her business, which delivers weekly shipments of eco-friendly products to families across Cairo.
“I feel humbled, overwhelmed and grateful,” says Nour. “This experience has been incredibly inspiring, especially the exchange between the finalists, who are individually making waves in their region. It’s something that will stay with me forever.”
Having grown frustrated scouring Cairo’s bustling marketplaces in vain for fresh, locally grown, organic produce, in 2014 she founded the country’s first farm-to-table organic-food delivery service, which supplies goods from her desert garden, and surrounding sustainable farms, to more than 100 homes in the capital, Alexandria and along the coast of the Red Sea.
It costs between Dh90 and Dh150 a week, and the seasonal baskets contain a variety of home-grown items, such as aubergines, courgettes, fava beans, mangoes, oranges, eggs and raw honey.
Sara-Kristina Hannig Nour prepares baskets of organic vegetables at her farm in Egypt. Courtesy Cartier
“I have a passion for growing and food, and I wanted to make an empowered choice about what I had access to,” says Nour.
“I discovered there was an overwhelming need in the region for ‘clean food’, and believe there will be something of a green movement as people start to see the harmful effect of pesticides. It’s pretty new and unique that I’m a woman in the agricultural industry in the region, but I feel it’s an advantage because I can surprise people.”
Nour was one of six international award-winners selected by an independent global jury from almost 1,900 female entrants in 120 countries. The theme for this year’s event was: “Transform. Lead the change you want to see”.
Founded in 2006, the awards are open to for-profit businesses run by women who are working to make a strong social impact. The prizes are split into regional categories covering Mena, Latin America, North America, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. The businesses span sectors including design, education, finance, health care, energy and food.
The event is held in association with international business school Insead, and management-consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which respectively provide the a ward winners with further education and a year of individual mentoring. The six winners also each receive US$100,000 (Dh367,000) to invest in their businesses.
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2017 winners
Mena: Sara-Kristina Hannig Nour, chief executive of organic food company Sara and Lara's Baskets.
Latin America: Candice Pascoal, chief executive of crowdfunding platform Kickante.
North America: Katie Anderson, chief executive of resource-conservation company, Save Water & Co.
Europe: Ciara Donlon of Theya Healthcare, which makes post-surgery undergarments.
Sub-Saharan Africa: Salma Abdulai, chief executive of the farming-sustainability company, Unique Quality Product.
Asia Pacific: Trupti Jain, chief executive of water management company Naireeta Services.
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“We’re still small, but now, having won, over next three years I will be able to invest in logistics, customer resources, management and advertising,” says Nour. “We’ll be able to train our staff in English and Arabic and handle more customers.
“Another next step would be a cookbook. Then there’s expansion and we could even franchise to the UAE – anything is possible.”
Helping female entrepreneurs flourish is something to which luxury maison Cartier has dedicated itself for more than a decade.
The ethos of the brand and the ambitions of women working to realise their dreams are closely aligned, according to Cyrille Vigneron, Cartier’s president and chief executive.
“Our values are linked to curiosity, sharing and being inspired by the world – be it through aesthetics or culture,” he says. “The CWIA is about real women with real projects, who have their feet on the Earth, but with big dreams.
“Cartier women are flesh and blood. They are not women on a pedestal. They have bills to pay, and the ambition to want to make their lives better and have an impact on their close environment.”
Vigneron’s advice to aspiring female entrepreneurs is to ask for help when it is needed. Recognising the feeling of isolation commonly associated with launching a start-up, a key focus of the award is to connect like-minded women.
“A thing we continue to work on is the network,” he says. “We’ve found that women usually face more difficulty in getting financing – this platform means they’ll be able to do it.
“The other part of a community is a place to share. The feminine virtues of modesty, humility and a sense of over-responsibility are often present with women entrepreneurs. The more you share, the stronger you become, the more self-assured you are. Don’t hesitate.”
UAE-based Thea Myhrvold, the chief executive and founder of teachmenow.com, an online educational community, was one of two other Mena region finalists at the awards.
Thea Myhrvold, chief executive and founder of teachmenow.com. Courtesy Cartier
“I’ve created a global marketplace for live online learning,” she says. “A student can find anything from Arabic, French and maths to career coaches. You simply connect to an expert mentor via our website and take a live session through our platform.”
Demand for Myhrvold’s service has been driven since its launch in 2015 by millennials and young professionals in the region. Having estimated the dropout rate for students on traditional online courses to be as high as 90 per cent, she developed bespoke learning packages, which cost from about Dh100 a session. The business has 4,000 educators and 250,000 students globally.
“I have to commend the UAE for all the support and the ecosystem they’ve created, which has allowed me to be part of its start-up wave,” says Myhrvold.
“The country is so encouraging of innovation and of women, and although I’ve experienced challenges along the way, none of them are specific to the UAE.”
The biggest initial hurdles faced by female entrepreneurs are financial, says Professor Ilian Mihov, dean of Insead.
“Lesson number one is never run out of cash,” he says. “It seems obvious but I can give you many examples of companies that have not failed, but didn’t get to the level they should have because of this simple principle. Cash is king.
“You must also be very persistent, have a strong will and a desire to continue because it’s a complicated process with many difficulties.”
To equip the six award winners with the right tools, each will receive a place on the Insead Executive Programme. Increasingly, women around the world, and especially in the Middle East, are looking to sharpen their business acumen through higher education to boost their company’s prospects.
Insead, which has campuses in France, Singapore and the UAE, has been ranked by the Financial Times as the number one global MBA programme for two consecutive years.
“We are seeing more ladies on the executive MBA programme, and Abu Dhabi is one of the places that is leading in this dimension,” says Mihov. “While some might argue an MBA is not essential to a business’s success, it certainly gives you competence, self-confidence and a network for financing and support.
“And without business skills, when you reach a certain level you’ll be going nowhere.”
One regional entrepreneur going places fast is Samira Negm from Egypt, Cartier’s other Mena finalist this year. Frustrated with a five-hour daily commute, she devised a carpooling app, Raye7, to reduce traffic congestion and pollution in Cairo.
With European and American “ride sharing” models deemed unsafe and culturally inappropriate for her local market, she created an app that uses customers’ pre-existing social networks of friends and colleagues to facilitate shared rides, with indirect payment methods.
“The company started about 18 months ago and has generated more than $100,000 in revenue,” says Negm. “We’re looking to go for the UAE next year, as I know there are similar challenges with commuters from Sharjah and Ajman to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It can be expensive for families daily and it’s time-wasting too.”
Samira Negm from Egypt, founder of Raye7. Courtesy Cartier
Negm left behind a career in software engineering to concentrate of her business. “We face the same challenges men do in business, as well as additional cultural ones, being women,” she says. “For example, my family wanted me to find a secure job, get married and have kids. But life is short and you must do what you believe in.
“Personally, I really wanted to help people in my country with real challenges and social problems that needed solving.”
rduane@thenational.ae
