Women entrepreneurs are driving the Middle East’s next growth phase

Across the region, female founders are launching scalable businesses, building employment pipelines, and contributing meaningfully to economic diversification. This is not a social movement or a symbolic milestone. It is a structural change with real commercial impact.

Women entrepreneurs today are operating across sectors that shape perception and productivity. From technology, finance, culture, retail, healthcare to the creative economy. They are not waiting to be invited into the conversation, they are setting the agenda.

In the UAE, this evolution has been deliberate. Regulatory reform, openness to global markets and a long-term commitment to diversification have created an environment where entrepreneurship is treated as a serious economic shift. Women are not positioned as a niche demographic or a special category of founder. They are increasingly recognised for what they are: business leaders, operators and growth drivers.

Having grown up in the UAE and built my career across Europe and the Middle East, I know today’s female entrepreneurs in the region are not simply responding to opportunity, they are shaping it.

A relevant question today is not whether women can build businesses here, but how quickly and at what scale those businesses can grow.

Entrepreneurs such as Mona Ataya, who co-founded Mumzworld and successfully exited to a regional retail group, demonstrate how digitally native platforms can scale across borders. Huda Kattan transformed a personal brand into Huda Beauty, now one of the Middle East’s most globally recognised consumer companies, proving that cultural relevance and global execution are not mutually exclusive.

These are not isolated success stories. They reflect a broader reality: women in the region are not only building companies, but they are also reshaping entire sectors.

In my own experience as a founder, scale has always been the real test. Building CRUSH Agency was never about launching just another events business; it was about creating a platform capable of operating at international standards. This ambition was validated early when global institutions such as TIME Magazine entrusted my team with delivering the TIME100 Impact Awards, a project that demanded world-class governance, trusted partnerships, and consistent delivery under international scrutiny.

As a founder and CEO, I am often asked about resilience, particularly as a woman entrepreneur. It is an important quality, but it is also frequently misunderstood. Resilience is not about enduring obstacles. It is about making precise decisions under pressure, adapting quickly, and maintaining long-term vision in volatile environments.

Markets in the Middle East move fast. Expectations are high. Competition is global. Entrepreneurs who succeed here do so by understanding positioning, governance, and long-term value creation, and not by relying on exceptionalism.

When I launched ICONS. by CRUSH, the decision was strategic, not symbolic. I saw a clear market gap. Extraordinary regional talent existed, but there was clear space to be occupied in becoming a trusted bridge between that talent and global luxury brands, particularly where cultural nuance, discretion, and long-term relationship-building matter as much as commercial outcomes, while also attracting international talent into the region.

This is increasingly the reality for women founders in the region: identifying inefficiencies, building disciplined solutions, and operating with commercial intent.

There is now ample evidence that female-led businesses deliver strong commercial outcomes when given equal access to capital and opportunity. Diverse leadership teams consistently outperform their peers, particularly in innovation-driven sectors. Yet women-led ventures across the region still receive a disproportionately small share of investment.

This gap is not a reflection of capability. It is a gap in perception.

What is often overlooked is that the UAE has already built many of the structural foundations needed to close this gap. The country consistently ranks among the top markets globally for women’s entrepreneurship, according to the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs, reflecting strong regulatory frameworks, ease of business ownership, and institutional support for female founders.

From an operator’s perspective, the opportunity is clear. Investors who back women-led enterprises in the UAE are not making values-based decisions; they are making commercially intelligent ones. And the region’s next growth phase will be shaped by founders who combine cultural intelligence with global execution.

One of the most under-recognised areas of women’s entrepreneurship in the region is the creative and cultural economy. Yet this sector plays a critical role in shaping global perception, attracting investment, and building soft power.

Creative industries, from experiential design to content, talent, and cultural platforms, are not peripheral. They influence how cities are experienced, how brands earn cultural relevance, and how the region is understood internationally.

Women are bringing more professionalism to this space. They are introducing structure, governance, and scale to industries once considered informal or peripheral. In doing so, they are transforming creativity into an economic asset rather than a soft add-on. This is where women founders are creating both commercial and cultural value for the region.

Women entrepreneurs in the Middle East are moving from visibility to influence, from participation to leadership. The next phase requires less encouragement and more commitment: investment deployed with intent, board-level mentorship, and a willingness to see women founders not as emerging talent, but as long-term value creators.

And the commercial momentum is already visible. Mastercard research published in March 2025 found that 84 per cent of women in the UAE are considering starting their own business. This is a powerful signal of entrepreneurial intent that, if matched with capital and networks, can translate into real economic growth.

Women are changing the economic and cultural environment in the UAE: decisively, strategically, and at scale.