Arabian Business brought together a distinguished assembly of influential businesswomen, entrepreneurs, and gender equality experts from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Dubai on Thursday to engage in an enlightening discussion about the vital role of employers in empowering women in the business sphere.
Esteemed business leaders and entrepreneurs shared their invaluable experiences and effective strategies for fostering female empowerment in the workplace, while championing gender diversity and inclusion.
Speaking at the conference was a distinguished panel of highly accomplished female professionals who unpacked an array of topics during the panel discussion, including allyship between men and women in the workplace, the importance of sponsorship and networking, as well as navigating the highly complex landscape of male-dominated industries.
Female entrepreneurs are looking to overcome the barriers to entry in the male-dominated industries, but the right steps must be taken to build a strong network, to gain access to the resources needed.
“If I talk about the fruit and vegetable industry 25 years ago, it was a heavily male-dominated market. It was just me walking into the market and I recognise that we actually have come a long way. But we need to recognise that we need to go further and actually enforce consciously at every step of the journey including opportunity. It is one thing to say it but another to actually give them the opportunities,” Kibsons Online Home Delivery Service chief executive officer Halima Jumani said.
However, women must also be accountable for their own careers, growth and development she said, adding women must invest in themselves to climb up the career ladder and get the gender equity we all yearn for as women.
“At a lot of companies on Women’s Day, there’s usually balloons and cakes. I’m not really sure we really want balloons and cakes on any day of the year. What we can actually do is invest in our name on all of the days of the year and we want equal pay and equal opportunities to promotion and allocation of resources,” chief and founder of WILD, the region’s biggest female networking platform, Emma Burdett said.
“We can’t only blame our outdated, autocratic, patriarchal leadership because women need to take ownership for their own careers, trajectory and growth,” she added.
Mentorship and peer networks, in particular play a key role in supporting women entrepreneurs as they scale their businesses, especially as women entrepreneurs leverage these resources effectively.
‘Not all men are out to get you’
Tania Jarjur – the General Counsel at Yellow Door Energy – said: “I think there are a lot of men, especially modern men today, are actually helping. They’re beginning to understand the need for women to grow and understand that not all men are out to get you.”
She added that men can often be “a little unaware” of how women want to be supported in the workplace, emphasizing the need for dialogue.
“When they do that, men will come to understand and know how to support women,” she explained.
Government policies and programmes also play a key role in the growth and success of a women-owned business.
Nourhan Farhat, Chief of Staff at Careem, said that her sponsors and mentors have been invaluable to her career.
“I focused on developing my skillset, how I need to think about my future, they gave me advice on this basis. They made sure that there was the infrastructure in place and be sure there’s a systematic approach to providing such programs,” Farhat explained.
Moreover, according to Minda Xu – Honeywell’s VP and GM for high growth regions, safety and productivity solutions, “representation” is key.
“This topic is really dear to my heart. We take a very systematic approach at Honeywell to really promote and advance women in their careers. I would say aside from our representation that it is important that we have a pipeline of female talent in our organization, we have seen this in multinational companies.”
However, more than this, organisations must find a way to retain women talent rather than just attracting them. “I think it’s really important to understand how we can attract and retain the best talent in business. So what we saw with the great resignation and quiet quitting was that many woman leaving the corporate world. So, attracting and retaining talent is very important,” Burdett said.
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