Mona Ataya, the founding partner and CEO of Mumzworld, has said she would be using her new role as a mentor, and sharing the knowledge, skills, and successes with other women in the region, as well as creating tools, information, and resources for them to tap into.
Ataya, a Palestinian-Lebanese entrepreneur based in the United Arab Emirates, runs the largest online marketplace for mothers in the Middle East. In recognition of her achievements, she has been chosen as one of the six eTrade for Women Advocates for 2021-2022, by the UN trade agency, UNCTAD, according to UN News.
In a conversation with May Yaccoub from UN News, she shared the challenges faced by businesswomen in the Middle East, and why she is committed to supporting them.
She said, “I have been working in the digital economy in the MENA Region for the last two decades, and I have seen how it has gone through some revolutionary changes.”
“The digitalization of the global economy is core to the way the world is moving, but women remain underserved, and we need to bring more of them on board.”
UNCTAD’s eTrade for Women is helping women by providing the information and resources that allow women to have their voices heard and contributions felt, she said.
Ataya said she started her corporate career outside the Middle East, and used the years to build the skillset that would allow her to return home, and help to build businesses in this part of the world and create value.
Mumzworld was built in 2011 to support women in the Arab world and help them to make informed decisions for their families as access to products for the women was limited, costly and an online community for mothers to tap into did not exist before Mumzworld.
Ataya said that Mumzworld tried to solve these problems and built a business that reaches more than 2.5 million mothers, with good quality products in the region, and which has become the go-to destination for global brands that want to reach Middle Eastern consumers.
Today, Mumzworld have over 350 staff, with over 6,000 brands and more than 300,000 products for sale on the website, and a business that has created momentum for other women to succeed and create more jobs in the region, said reports.
Ataya noted that the e-commerce industry in the Middle East is heavily male-dominated which includes suppliers, delivery companies, and financiers, and for a woman operating in this space, this can be a big challenge: you have to use your unique skills and abilities to manoeuvre through the corporate maze and succeed.
She said that the good news is that, when women do succeed and build scalable businesses, we give other women the courage to also come in and start their own ventures.
“I have been helped by the fact that my husband and three teenage sons are very understanding.”
“Their support has been instrumental in my success, because an entrepreneur has to compromise, sacrifice time and give a tremendous amount of effort, financial risk and compromise in order to build a successful company,” said Ataya