The rise of female founders; boardroom leaders in UAE
Today, Alamri — an Emirati woman who wears the hijab and speaks openly on social media about the realities of building a business — serves as a founder of ACCU Group and director of Accutax Consultancy in Dubai. On Instagram, she's part mentor, part motivator, offering no-nonsense advice to women trying to start and scale businesses the right way — compliant, clean, and built to last.
But breaking into the male-dominated world of finance and consulting wasn't easy. 'These days, there is so much pressure on women to stay in their feminine energy and blah, blah, blah,' she said. Alamri doesn't sugarcoat it. 'I'm not a bad-looking girl... I needed to be very aggressive, and unfortunately, I had to be in my masculine energy a lot and really be aggressive in my dealings.'
Her story is part of a bigger shift. Across the UAE, a new generation of women — Emirati and expat alike — are pushing past old limits, launching companies, claiming leadership roles, and refusing to wait for permission. They're not just participating in the economy — they're reshaping it.
A recent survey by GoDaddy shows nearly a quarter of Emirati women, who run small businesses, are now the primary income earners for their families. Today, 36 per cent of small businesses in the UAE are women-owned, and 80 per cent of those were launched in just the past five years — much of it in the wake of Covid-19. For many women, entrepreneurship isn't just about income. It's about independence, fulfilment, and building something that lasts.
Mastercard research backs this: 84 per cent of women in the UAE are considering starting a business, with top motivators being financial freedom, flexibility, and social impact. Women are moving into growth industries like food and drink, online selling, and cosmetics — and 98 per cent of women business owners expect their revenue to rise over the next five years, outpacing men.
'The only blockage we have from scaling and entrepreneurship is ourselves,' Alamri said. 'You have to be hungry for it.'
The momentum isn't just at the SME and startup level. Over the past three years, women's representation on UAE-listed company boards has jumped by 200 per cent, according to Grant Thornton's 2025 Women in Business UAE Edition report. Last year, women held 141 seats in boardrooms compared to only 47 seats in 2021.
George Stoyanov, head of markets at Grant Thornton UAE, believes the shift is driven by both policy and changing perceptions. 'The UAE government has played a huge role by mandating women's participation on boards — that was a critical starting point,' he said. And that mandate is now codified: starting January 2025, all private joint-stock companies in the UAE must appoint at least one woman to their board of directors, a regulation introduced by the Securities and Commodities Authority. This builds upon earlier efforts, such as the Dubai Women Establishment's 'Women on Boards' initiative launched in 2012, which aimed to increase female presence on corporate boards and led to the UAE Cabinet's decision to make representation mandatory across corporations and government entities.
Board seats aren't just about visibility — they're about influence. The rise of women in boardrooms and the C-suite is about more than parity — it shows how the UAE's drive for economic diversification is reshaping who holds power. 'I think the global community, especially post-Covid, has understood that even in a non-physical environment if I dare say something like that, everyone was seeing that the participation, the performance, and the productivity that female leaders continued to deliver was outstanding,' Stoyanov added. 'And that's why you're seeing a lot of the erosion of what traditionally would've been called unconscious bias.'
It's showing up in hard numbers. According to Grant Thornton's research, women now hold 33 per cent of CFO roles and nearly 38 per cent of CHRO roles in the UAE. Investors are paying attention, with nearly 40 per cent now factoring gender diversity into their due diligence before cutting a check. This means inclusion isn't just a buzzword anymore — it's a business strategy. Women are advancing fastest in sectors like financial services, where structure and regulation have pushed companies to take diversity seriously. In industries like heavy manufacturing, change has been slower — a reminder that the glass ceiling doesn't crack evenly.
Stoyanov also points to what he calls a 'missed generation' — women who entered the workforce years ago but were boxed out of leadership by rigid structures, limited flexibility, or career breaks. For years, policies and corporate culture made it hard for working women to advance, especially for those that wanted to take up motherhood while maintaining a career. Now, long-term visas, hybrid work models, and a broader cultural shift toward inclusion are reopening the door — not just for the next generation but for those who almost slipped through.
But the cost of sidelining that talent is real. Every missed opportunity slows growth. For Stoyanov, the math is as compelling as the momentum. 'Closing the gender gap could boost the UAE's GDP by 23 per cent,' he said. 'It's not just a fairness issue — it's a growth strategy, completely aligned with the country's economic vision for 2030.' The UAE ranked seventh in the world — and first in the region — on the UNDP's 2024 Gender Inequality Index, a signal that policy shifts are translating into real progress.
That's the bigger picture. On the ground, for women like GG Benitez, it's personal. As an Arab-American entrepreneur and brand strategist, Benitez didn't just move to Dubai — she built a platform here. She's the founder of GG Benitez International, a boutique consultancy specialising in brand positioning, media strategy, and market entry for global entrepreneurs and investors expanding into the UAE. Beyond her advisory work, she hosts Dubai Connect, a podcast that spotlights business leaders and innovators shaping the region's economy — turning her own journey into a roadmap for others looking to build a real estate portfolio or career in the Gulf.
'I'm doing what I'm doing because I want Americans — Arab or not — to feel what I feel when I'm here,' she said in an interview on her Dubai Connect podcast. 'The safety, the empowerment as a woman, the harmony, the diversity, the tolerance, the acceptance, the opportunity.'
She effectively contrasts the state of female entrepreneurship in the US and the UAE. 'I always felt the contrast is that we're constantly pushing ourselves to be at the forefront — pushing glass ceilings, pushing to be taken seriously, to be equal members on boards, to have equal opportunities, equal pay, equal salaries in the United States,' she said. 'I come here, and there are things like the Women on Board Initiative and so many positions where that is already happening here on a much greater level. Women are already there.'
That shift didn't happen overnight. It's the result of years of government and private sector investment — from the UAE Gender Balance Council, which has driven national policy on workplace inclusion, to initiatives like the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, which provides capital and mentorship to women-led SMEs. Programmes in the private sector, such as She's Next by Visa, have also helped close the gap by offering funding and business training to female founders. Benitez agrees policy is part of the equation — but not the whole answer. 'That trickle-down from leadership is important, and policy can be one of the factors that help implement that,' she said.
Beyond funding, it's about creating pipelines — and that's where networks like TiE Women MENA come in. The TiE Women MENA programme, now in its sixth edition in 2025, is backing the next generation of female founders with real tools — offering mentorship from industry leaders, pitch competitions, and direct access to global investor networks. 'They get mentorship, they get funding — the winner and runner-up for MENA will get equity-free funding — and a lot of exposure,' said Carlina Marani, co-chair of the 2025 cohort. Marani has spent the last four years in Dubai, balancing her role as a mother of two with her position as managing director at Accenture. Before that, she built her career in tech across the Netherlands, holding leadership roles at global giants like Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco. Now, she's turning her experience toward a different kind of leadership — co-chairing the 2025 TiE Women MENA programme, one of the region's biggest platforms for female founders.
The programme's five tracks include the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the rest of the MENA region (which includes Jordan and Lebanon). The programme is designed to accelerate women-led startups with real resources: equity-free funding for the winner and runner-up, high-profile mentorship, and significant exposure through events like the TiE Global Summit in Jaipur. The winner has a chance to win a $50,000 cash prize and gain global investor visibility. Applications for the 2025 cohort are still open, with the final deadline closing by the end of June.
The goal isn't just to get women into the room — it's to make sure they stay, scale, and lead, Marani explained. Still, she is blunt about the broader landscape for women founders in the region. 'It's going the right way, but it's not finished until we're completely equal,' she said. This recognition of women's economic potential comes at a much-needed time. Women-led startups receive just 1.2 per cent of venture capital in the MENA region, according to the World Economic Forum — not far off the global figure of 2 per cent. The funding gap persists despite clear evidence that gender-diverse founding teams consistently deliver more substantial returns.
'It's something to be ashamed of,' Marani said. 'Why can't funding be at 50 per cent? It has been proven that female-run companies take fewer risks. They're more stable. They normally make more profit,' she added. Programmes like TiE Women are trying to close the gap, but the flow of capital remains painfully uneven. And funding isn't the only place where progress can be deceiving. Marani is just as wary of the numbers around leadership. She points to the 200 per cent rise in women's board participation highlighted by Grant Thornton's 2025 Women in Business report — but stresses that statistics without context don't tell the full story. 'You can easily show a 200 per cent increase if you're starting from almost nothing,' she said.
If funding and representation are visible gaps, belief is the invisible one. For Alamri, the real battle starts earlier — in mindset. 'I don't always see funding as the initial issue,' she said. 'It's people having belief in themselves that they're going to make it happen. We're afraid of rejection, we're afraid of what people are going to say if a business fails.'
That fear, she warns, can hold women back from even starting. Alamri, who is sceptical of 'networking just for the sake of networking,' believes women need to focus on building first. 'Nobody wants to network with people who are just getting started. Start somewhere. Have at least one proof of concept.'
Marani offers a similar warning. 'Don't wait until it's 100 per cent perfect. And don't be afraid to — I don't want to use the word fail — but don't be afraid to iterate,' she said. 'It will take multiple iterations to get where you need to go.' Marani points to another, quieter force stalling progress: self-doubt. 'There's enough research that says females don't respond to job vacancies unless they meet every qualification,' she said. 'Meanwhile, a male candidate will look at the same list and think, 'Oh, I can do that' — even if he can't.'
For real progress to stick, companies must move beyond good intentions. 'Talent processes need to be designed to drive gender balance,' Stoyanov said. 'We need to make this an active thought process so that we don't have any missed generations in the future.'
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