Female chief executives from around the world have urged women to dream big and keep innovating to build successful businesses.
Female founders discussed the challenges women face in business at the Forbes 30/50 summit in Abu Dhabi this week.
The four-day conference, which started on Tuesday, attracted female entrepreneurs from more than 30 countries across the business, creative and non-government sectors.
Being an entrepreneur is harder than running Merrill Lynch, and I would know
Sallie Krawcheck,
founder and chief executive of Ellevest
Speaking at the On Top Of Your Game session at the conference, Wall Street veteran Sallie Krawcheck said entrepreneurs must identify a specific issue that needed to be addressed before setting up a company.
“Being an entrepreneur is harder than running Merrill Lynch, and I would know. It is ridiculously difficult,” said Ms Krawcheck, who led US wealth management company and Citi Private Bank before setting up Ellevest, a digital investment advisory firm for women in 2016.
“Every day is harder than the day before for different reasons. There is a reason why 90 per cent of start-ups fail,” she said.
“I would only do it if you see a problem that needs to be solved and you absolutely have to solve it.”
Stand out and play big
Ms Krawcheck, who is a powerful voice in the US financial investment sector, urged women to stand out and not rein in their ambitions.
“It's a decision I made at a point in my career which is that I wanted to play big, and in order to play big, I was going to have to stand out,” she said.
“I saw the women who came before me on Wall Street who didn't make it to the top and I thought if I try to stay in the pack and play safe, I'm not going to make it.
“Big calls on big stocks, seeing the things that no one else sees and make the big calls – that is what we are doing.”
Samia Bouazza, group chief executive of investment firm Multiply Group, said constantly adapting to change was key.
“I still go to work and every day I think that's just the beginning,” said Ms Bouazza, who founded the firm in 2003 and became the first woman to take a company public on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange in 2021.
“You have that bold vision when you start and the trajectory for growth can happen very fast.
“But later you still have to create growth for your shareholders, you still have to innovate, you still have to bring new things to the table.”
She said her team was driven by the mindset “the best is yet to come”.
For women who want to take their company public, she advised outlining well-defined goals.
“I highly advise you to visualise why you want to go public,” Ms Bouazza said.
“What is it you can bring to the shareholder who is putting his or her money in you instead of a bank?
“What is the next step after you IPO, what do you do when you raise money?
“Do you use it to fuel more growth? You need to have a good plan that you lay out in your prospectus and really execute what you told your shareholders you would set out to do.”
Pushing past setbacks
Both women said overcoming disappointment and failure was important.
"From the beginning your mindset should not be to expect that anything is going to be a straight line,” Ms Bouazza said.
“Success is not that you do things right and you wake up one day and, bingo, you are so successful.
“There are so many ups and downs, so many setbacks, you need to be ready.”
Ms Bouazza said women need to know the fights worth fighting and the sacrifices necessary.
Ms Krawcheck said strenuous exercise helped power her through “depressing winter months” in New York and she tried never to let negative criticism bring her down.
“For my mental health, I focus on the things that are important and not on what I cannot control and to grow very thick skin,” she said.
“As much as slings and arrows can hurt, you need to let that go and keep the attention where it should be.”
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Cracks in the Wall
Ben White, Pluto Press
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About Karol Nawrocki
• Supports military aid for Ukraine, unlike other eurosceptic leaders, but he will oppose its membership in western alliances.
• A nationalist, his campaign slogan was Poland First. "Let's help others, but let's take care of our own citizens first," he said on social media in April.
• Cultivates tough-guy image, posting videos of himself at shooting ranges and in boxing rings.
• Met Donald Trump at the White House and received his backing.
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MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
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MATCH INFO
Manchester City 4 (Gundogan 8' (P), Bernardo Silva 19', Jesus 72', 75')
Fulham 0
Red cards: Tim Ream (Fulham)
Man of the Match: Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City)
LIVING IN...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
TERMINAL HIGH ALTITUDE AREA DEFENCE (THAAD)
What is THAAD?
It is considered to be the US's most superior missile defence system.
Production:
It was created in 2008.
Speed:
THAAD missiles can travel at over Mach 8, so fast that it is hypersonic.
Abilities:
THAAD is designed to take out ballistic missiles as they are on their downward trajectory towards their target, otherwise known as the "terminal phase".
Purpose:
To protect high-value strategic sites, such as airfields or population centres.
Range:
THAAD can target projectiles inside and outside the Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 150 kilometres above the Earth's surface.
Creators:
Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.
UAE and THAAD:
In 2011, the UAE became the first country outside of the US to buy two THAAD missile defence systems. It then stationed them in 2016, becoming the first Gulf country to do so.
Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
if you go
Women & Power: A Manifesto
Mary Beard
Profile Books and London Review of Books
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Can NRIs vote in the election?
Indians residing overseas cannot cast their ballot abroad
Non-resident Indians or NRIs can vote only by going to a polling booth in their home constituency
There are about 3.1 million NRIs living overseas
Indians have urged political parties to extend the right to vote to citizens residing overseas
A committee of the Election Commission of India approved of proxy voting for non-resident Indians
Proxy voting means that a person can authorise someone residing in the same polling booth area to cast a vote on his behalf.
This option is currently available for the armed forces, police and government officials posted outside India
A bill was passed in the lower house of India’s parliament or the Lok Sabha to extend proxy voting to non-resident Indians
However, this did not come before the upper house or Rajya Sabha and has lapsed
The issue of NRI voting draws a huge amount of interest in India and overseas
Over the past few months, Indians have received messages on mobile phones and on social media claiming that NRIs can cast their votes online
The Election Commission of India then clarified that NRIs could not vote online
The Election Commission lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police asking it to clamp down on the people spreading misinformation
The Bio
Amal likes watching Japanese animation movies and Manga - her favourite is The Ancient Magus Bride
She is the eldest of 11 children, and has four brothers and six sisters.
Her dream is to meet with all of her friends online from around the world who supported her work throughout the years
Her favourite meal is pizza and stuffed vine leaves
She ams to improve her English and learn Japanese, which many animated programmes originate in
