Maya Alghaith is the co-founder of Health Gate, which designs and produces its own natural sanitary products in the UAE. Antonie Robertson / The National
Maya Alghaith is the co-founder of Health Gate, which designs and produces its own natural sanitary products in the UAE. Antonie Robertson / The National

Women entrepreneurs move forward as a united force



It is a big claim, but Maya Alghaith is certain of it. Joining the female entrepreneurship programme Women-able has been the best decision of her business life.

“I never realised how much I would learn during this process. The mentors’ guidance makes you want to be the best in your field,” says Ms Alghaith, the co-founder of Health Gate, which designs and produces its own natural sanitary products in the UAE.

“They don’t give you the answer. They don’t hold your hand. But they make you dig deep within yourself and find what is important to you, why you are doing it. All the ladies in the group are like-minded and you can rely on them.”

Ms Alghaith, who is from Bulgaria but has lived in the UAE since 1999, launched her company at the end of 2013 and currently sells 10,000 packs a month of her breathable sanitary products. But Ms Alghaith, who says the company had a 160 per cent turnover increase from 2014 to 2015, was looking to expand into new markets when she heard about Women-able at the start of this year.

The initiative, run by the training and coaching company, grow.ME, in association with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, launched in March. It provides education for female entrepreneurs, mentoring by business owners, introductions and guidance plus a support network.

It attracted 145 applicants when the programme launched in February, 100 of whom were accepted. There are now 25 finalists left.

“We have three categories of women who we are working with which is what makes our programme quite different,” says Maria Pearson, the chief executive of grow. ME.

“A third of the women we selected had an idea, but they didn’t know how to take that idea forward. We had women who had started within a one to three-year time frame but they got stuck. They started and launched and had a couple of customers but literally stopped. Then we had small businesses that were looking to grow and scale and looking to expand into new markets or bring a new product to market.”

Nida Sumar is a member of the third category, having already founded Keza, a company which produces a dining app currently in the beta testing phase. It allows diners to view and review a restaurant’s dishes, plus place an order, call the waiter, split the bill and even pay for it, all from a mobile phone. It is expected to become more widely available in December.

“You are taking away the wasted time,” says Ms Sumar, 28, whose family is from Pakistan, although she was born and raised in the UAE.

She came up with the idea after a disastrous dinner with friends at a top Dubai restaurant a few years ago when their orders became mixed up, inspiring her to develop the business last November.

Ms Sumar, both a chartered financial analyst and a trained chef, had experience working in her family business before she set up her company but was looking for support.

“I do have experience in a few areas. However there are other things, like the network. Those are things I didn’t get exposure to from the family business, which closes you down in a limited network,” she says.

For Health Gate’s Ms Alghaith, the opportunity to take her business to the next level inspired her to apply for Women-able. She stumbled upon her business idea while working as a manager for an automobile company. A good friend was diagnosed with cervical cancer in her early 30s and wanting to find out why, Ms Alghaith embarked on a search for answers.

“I realised that it came down to what we put on our bodies,” she claims. “Everyone checks the ingredients of what we eat, what we drink and what we wear and the cosmetics we use. But the one thing we never check is what we use every month, our sanitary products. Manufacturers can use anything in making them and the trouble is that most of them contain dioxin, a toxic [substance] stronger even than arsenic.”

Early on in her journey she read about negative ions, atoms charged with an extra electron which are generated naturally by evaporating water, ocean surf and waterfalls, and the positive influence they can have on our health.

She decided to combine the two by creating sanitary products with a negative ion strip.

“We create wonderful sanitary napkins free of pollutants and chemicals that actually improve our health and well-being,” she claims. “Anion has a signature green stripe that contains high concentrations of negative ions.”

The two entrepreneurs and the rest of the finalists are now learning about finance, marketing, pricing, how to talk to customers, close a deal and pitch to investors – which will come in handy on November 21 when the programme comes to a close.

“We will pitch to a host of people who could be investors or potential clients, people from the ecosystem, so this is a programme trying to get us to be ready for that day,” adds Ms Sumar. “If someone invests in your company then that’s a huge win.”

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Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
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Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”