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empowerME Conversations

January 19, 2021

It’s a mumz world

By Atlantic Council

In Season 1, Episode 2 of empowerME Conversations podcast, host Amjad Ahmad interviews Mumzworld Founder and CEO Mona Ataya about what it takes to be an entrepreneur, how the Middle East’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is radically changing, her company’s biggest policy pain points, and the future of customer personalization to the power of one. 

Businesses are built to create intrinsic value that gives a company the ability to scale and be sustainable and stand the test of time!”

Mona Ataya, Mumzworld Founder and CEO

Key Takeaways

0:00 Intro
0:41 Mona shares her journey of entrepreneurship and what really made her become an entrepreneur
3:23 Mona talks about three things that are necessary when starting a new business, that is, the people you are starting the business with, capital and your risk appetite
5:02 Mona talks about how entrepreneurship has changed or developed from back then when entrepreneurship was not fashionable till today
8:18 Mona also talks about capital, talent, laws and regulations and corruption and how she would rank them in today’s environment
8:44 Mona shares the reasons why she ranked laws and regulations as number one specifically in her sector
9:49 Mona talks about why she would rank capital as number two also in her sector and why the scale capital in the e-commerce sector is lacking
12:43 Mona also talks about what impacts the scalability of her business more in terms of challenges and the two most important drivers for growth
13:53 Mona speaks of what she has done at Mumzworld proactively to increase the participation of women in the economy
17:32 Mona gives advice to the private sector on what they need to do to increase the participation of women in the economy
19:15 Mona talks about how COVID has accelerated flexibility to work from anywhere and anytime and how it has also impacted the e-commerce sector
22:29 Mona shares the vision of e-commerce sector now that it has been impacted by the pandemic
25:24 Mona talks about how and why vertical players are working and also not being crushed by the horizontal players such as Amazon
28:38 Mona shares what to focus on technologically in e-commerce as a vertical player due to the innovations happening in e-commerce
30:22 Mona shares two things that has been the trepidation of the foreign investors investing in e-commerce especially in the Middle East region
33:23 Mona talks about the gap or what’s missing for people to be able to create real innovation
35:55 Mona also talks about the ripple effect of Bayt and of Mumzworld especially to the Middle East region
38:55 Mona explains the biased and non biased way where she would invest in, in the Middle East if she had $10 million and why

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The empowerME conversations podcast features conversations with business and government leaders shaping the Middle East. The podcast sheds light on key opportunities and challenges for companies and governments, and Season 1 will focus on top regional entrepreneurs and their path to success as well as struggles they faced along the way.

Related Experts: Amjad Ahmad