ABU DHABI // After excelling in the retail sector and as an advocate for female entrepreneurship, Muna Al Gurg wants to see more women working for private businesses.
Fourteen years ago, Ms Al Gurg began working in an advertising agency to gain experience and learn about the creativity in the field. She then progressed to joining the family business, the Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group.
“I felt there was a great deal of value that I could add to the business, plus learn from people who were more experienced.
“I was a marketing executive, so it took me many years to work my way up and learn, and I really immersed myself in that field,” she said. “I learnt about the brands in retail, how to tailor it to the market, so I was heavily involved, not only in communication, but in the shop front seeing that the right message went out to our customers.”
In 2008, Ms Al Gurg began studying at the London Business School for her Master of Business Administration degree.
“When it comes to the MBA, after many years working within my sector, I felt that I needed to come out of my comfort zone, I felt there were many areas in the business that I needed to learn about,” she said.
She said about half of her experience in London was interacting with people from different sectors and learning how they worked.
“I came out of it a different person. The London Business School is a strong school, they support women’s development. Recently, they sponsored the Women in Leadership programme, where they brought global leaders from all over the world – a fantastic array of women,” she said.
“And so it’s good to see that LBS supports these kinds of programmes because it means that women in the UAE can develop through them.”
She said she was working towards becoming the director of her family business, but “was not expecting it directly after the MBA”.
“I feel I’m up for the challenge. The moment I dived into it, I felt my background in terms of all the brands I had worked on and everything I had really looked into, and with the MBA it was good for me. I recall being a bit surprised,” she said.
By that time, Ms Al Gurg had 10 years’ experience and said it was a “natural progress” for her career.
“I did face a few challenges at the start, particularly because I was predominantly surrounded by a lot of male employees. But eventually they were happy with my results, they did buy into my ideas.”
She highlighted the roles of women in the business sector and said more women need to push on in the field.
“If you look at women across the globe, they account for up to 80 per cent of purchasing decisions. Businesses must understand the power of female consumers and the need to market products and services to their needs intelligently,” Ms Al Gurg said. “I always talk about how important it is that women should be part of the private sector, how there’s a lot to be gained in the innovation-creativity-knowledge development.”
She said there were a lot of platforms that women could explore and many organisations were concentrating on mentoring and advising women.
aalkhoori@thenational.ae
