'I couldn’t go back to the office': Four UAE entrepreneurs on how to change career course

The highs, lows, dos and don’ts of embarking on a complete career 180

Omar Al Shunnar turned his love of travel into a job when he created his own boutique travel company. Photo: Omar Al Shunnar

Quitting your corporate nine-to-five to start your own business and become your own boss is a big leap and a dream many people have. But what happens when your dream is so completely and utterly different to your current job that it would require a total career 180?

Four people in the UAE who took the plunge share their insights, tips and lessons learnt along the way.

Omar Al Shunnar: Healthcare chief executive to boutique travel company founder

Omar Al Shunnar’s resume is long and distinguished. He oversaw the development of Dubai Healthcare City, acted as chief executive of Emaar Healthcare Group and spent four years as chief executive of Majid Al Futtaim Healthcare.

While acknowledging the many opportunities and privileges his corporate life has afforded him, the Emirati entrepreneur and father of three admits he had long suspected his future lay not in an office, but rather in the far-flung corners of the world. All of which led him to start his own boutique travel company, Beyond With You.

“I think what drove the change was me asking myself: 'Why am I doing this?'” he says. “I was in a budget meeting and I thought ‘why am I here?’ My need to understand that is what led me to realise I needed to disconnect, to go and understand what I wanted to do.”

After a period of soul-searching, as well as setting up the economic think tank Jsoor, Beyond With You was born in 2021. The company creates bespoke, small group travel experiences, during which guests immerse themselves in different countries and cultures across the globe.

“I want to create value for people,” he says of the company. “Just seeing young people empowered and having confidence in their abilities and knowing their full potential really resonates well with my core values and my personal life purpose, my mission and my vision.”

Advising budding entrepreneurs to “become independent from their job financially” as a way of gaining the freedom to make the change they want to, Al Shunnar credits setting and re-evaluating his own personal – not business – strategy every five years, as a way to check in on where he is in his life.

“I used to be a workaholic,” he says. “So, I had not just a 180 in my career, but also on the physical and mental side too. Every five to six years, I develop a strategy for myself, including elements such as health, growth and spirituality. As long as things resonate with my mission and my vision, I’m living my values.”

Claire Lambert: Group art director to pet sitter

After a disappointing experience with a pet sitter, Claire Lambert decided to start her own company. Photo: Claire Lambert

An ever-increasing workload and an idea for a new company led Dubai resident and mother-of-one Claire Lambert to leave her corporate job in publishing and launch a cat sitting company that has since grown into five businesses.

“Working in the corporate world became a struggle in terms of workload and general well-being and happiness,” she says. “I didn’t think I would move into the pet space, but it happened by accident. I needed a pet sitting company to take care of my cat and I was so disappointed with the service. I had booked twice daily visits but received no photos or updates, the food and water bowls were left dirty and my cat was distraught. I thought, 'I can do better than that'.”

Lambert, 49, started small, keeping her day job and cat-sitting in the mornings and evenings as she built a client base. “I took a few bookings in the first month and by the second month, my schedule was full. That was the catalyst to quit.”

Her background in design meant she was able to create her own marketing, website and logo, while seven years of gratuity kept her afloat.

“For the first year, I did all the pet-sitting myself, zigzagging across Dubai, from Mirdif to Dubai Investment Park, building up a database,” she says.

As well as Dubai Cat Sitting, Lambert has launched The Vet Store, Pet Industry Awards, Dubai Feastival – a festival for dogs with categories such as "waggiest tail" – and the coming Paw Power Challenge, under her main company Best Friends Pet Co.

“That entrepreneurial side has always been there, it was finding the thing that earned enough for me to make the move,” she says. “It’s given me freedom to choose and shape what I do and how to do it. I’m not being told what to do as I’m my own boss. I couldn’t go back to the office.”

Basma Chaieri: Travel industry expert to sustainable jeweller

Basma Chaieri's interest in lab-grown diamonds helped her change her career field. Photo: Basma Chaieri

“I don’t think I’ve watched Netflix in about four or five years,” says Basma Chaieri, founder and chief executive of sustainable jeweller Etika Jewels. “Any spare time is dedicated to the company, the children or catching up on sleep.”

Twelve years in the travel industry – including stints at Booking.com and Expo 2020 – had Chaieri spend half her year travelling and taking on so many different roles her colleagues nicknamed her “Swiss army knife". It was the birth of her second child that led her to re-evaluate her work-life balance.

“I needed the flexibility to drop off and pick up from school, take them to activities and help with homework, which I couldn’t do. I was travelling half my time or being in an office from 8am to 7pm,” she says. “About 15 years ago, I’d watched a documentary about the diamond industry and lab-grown diamonds and I’d always kept that in the back of my mind, thinking that if I had to create something, I’d want to do that.”

When Expo finished, Chaieri started taking gemology courses to learn about lab-grown gems.

“Lab diamonds were not so well-known when I was talking about them,” she says. “People were like: you have a successful career, you have a good level at the company, decent paycheque, why would you do this now?”

Setting up Etika Jewels in 2021, Chaieri quickly realised her online business model needed a retail space so people could see and physically hold the diamonds.

“There were fears of failure, of course, and the financial aspect was a huge consideration,” she says. “In the beginning, it is tough. I’m self-founded with no investors and at the start there are little sales, payment platforms pay you two weeks later and suppliers want pre-payment, so there is a lot of figuring things out.”

Revealing that “nights were spent trying to understand Google algorithms, pricing, design, payments and accounting,” French-Moroccan Chaieri says one of her biggest lessons was appreciating she couldn’t be an expert at everything.

“We see entrepreneurs as glamorous and usually we only start to know about them when their business becomes successful,” she says. “You don’t see the many hours spent trying to figure things out. It requires so much dedication.”

Muna Rahim: Corporate banking to party treats

It was during Muna Rahim's daughter's eighth birthday where she was inspired to start her own business idea. Photo: Muna Rahim

A career in the corporate world, including five years with American Express Middle East, helped Canadian Muna Rahim hone the entrepreneurial skills she would need to turn her children’s party treats into the successful business Crackles.

“All my life I had had this entrepreneurial spirit and was always dreaming up ways to have my own business, but I never believed in any so strongly as to move forward with my ideas,” says the married mother-of-one.

Her daughter’s eighth birthday turned out to be the catalyst when the rice crispy treats Rahim made for the party proved a hit with the children and adults.

“They’re a popular North American dessert, but it was the first time I had made them while living here in the UAE,” she says. “People started asking me to make them for their parties and I realised I had found a niche in the market, that this type of dessert was missing in this part of the world.”

After experimenting with flavours and design while making them for friends, her little passion project at home grew into a fully fledged business, which she launched in 2021.

“There were skeptics,” she adds. “People wondered how you can turn your hobby into a business and compete in a saturated F&B market in the UAE. But I always follow my gut and I tuned all of that out.”

Appearing on reality TV show Shark Tank Dubai and securing three investors allowed Rahim to expand her business and reflect on a few lessons learnt along the way.

“I wish I had known that you’re never going to know everything from the get-go,” she says. “You learn as you go, and you won’t have all the answers at the beginning. I’m so proud to have built something truly from scratch that brings smiles to people’s faces.”