Welcome to the second week of the 2024 Raemona Magazine 40 over Forty list. It’s our annual curated list of influential impact makers - all women who happen to be over 40.
Agility, the ability to ‘pivot’ - that dreaded word, or simply stay the distance - this is resilience and in week two we celebrate those who show it. The 10 women who have shown that the way to keep going, is to keep going, often in industries reserved for men, or against the odds.
These women are all trailblazers playing their part in transforming our futures across the worlds of business, health, people and HR, real estate, wellness, tech, leadership and more.
We’ll be sharing our 40 over FORTY every Monday in March 2024 and we can’t wait to share the next 10 ladies on the list next week, but for now, meet this second group of 10 amazing women, our ‘Resilient’ she-roes for 2024.
1.Ghizlan Guenez, Entrepreneur & Investor
When we talk about resilience, one of the first amazing women who come to mind is Ghizlan Guenez, a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor in the space of personal development and fashion. In 2017 she launched her first startup, The Modist, the first global luxury ecommerce platform where over 200 global fashion brands were curated for women who dress modestly. The Modist introduced the “modesty genre” to the luxury fashion industry and was featured in numerous global publications including The Financial Times, The New York Times, Vogue US, Vogue Arabia, Forbes US, and made the list of Fast Company’s “most innovative companies in the world” in 2019 and 2020. In 2018, The Business of Fashion (BoF) named Guenez one of the 500 people in the world who are “shaping the global fashion industry”. After a brief closure in 2020, the Modist made its return in 2023.
Ghizlan is also the founder of FForce, a Personal Development tech platform focused on women and female founders who seek personal and professional growth in the areas of entrepreneurship and self-improvement. Through FForce, Ghizlan has built an incredible community of ambitious women from the Middle East region and beyond, who are at the heart of FForce’s mission to be a leading destination for women who desire to grow, elevate their lives & scale their businesses. FForce is a culmination of Ghizlan's personal journey of growth, challenges, failures, successes and ultimately knowledge & experience that she pours into this platform as a mentor and an avid supporter of women.
Ghizlan is passionate about building communities that connect over shared values. In 2022, she Co-Founded Queen Mode, a digital fashion house and an NFT collection boasting over 700 women and focused on professional networking and bringing more women into the Web3.0 space. She also is the Co-creator of SAWA, an initiative that supports SMEs, young creatives and entrepreneurs in the Middle East region through yearly exhibitions at a very accessible cost.
Originally from Algeria, Ghizlan lived most of her life in Dubai where she currently resides with her husband.
2. Louise Heatley, Owner, Managing Director, Exclusive Links Real Estate
Louise is one of the original female expat entrepreneurs in Dubai and what a journey she had over the last 18 years. Moving to Dubai in 1996, Louise joined Emirates Airlines and quickly achieved the position of Purser at the age of 26. With efficient team leadership, customer service and satisfaction as her personal approach to business and delivery as a priority, Louise witnessed first-hand the growth of the city and the introduction of freehold sales into the property market in 2002.
As a seasoned investor and overseas property landlord and developer, her passion for property management was realized through my establishment of Exclusive Real Estate in 2005. As the Managing Director, Louise led the company through an industry merger in 2011 and was instrumental in establishing Exclusive Links Real Estate as one of the UAE's leading Real Estate brokerage firms. In 2018 and 2020 Exclusive Links received recognition and rewards in Best Brokerage Services in Dubai by Property Finder, the UAE’s largest property portal.
As a joint owner, it remains Louise’s goal to continue to grow Exclusive Links with a strong and loyal team that delivers exemplary service and performance. As a respected voice, Louise often contributes to online media and shares her experience and expertise through her own podcast series - Property Talk from Louise’s Lounge.
3. Zeina Abdalla, Chief Engagement Officer at GluCare.Health
Serial entrepreneur Zeina Abdalla is currently Chief Engagement Officer at GluCare.Health, a hybrid healthcare metabolic disease program generating among the best outcomes globally for its patients.
As one of the early faces of female entrepreneurship in the UAE, Previously, Zeina was the well known Founder and Managing Director of fishfayce, a photography and video event solution company.
Using skills she cultivated in a two-year tenure at Hill & Knowlton, one of the world’s largest public relations and public affairs networks, Abdalla launched fishfayce, the first service of its kind in the United Arab Emirates in 2010. Within her first year in business, the U.S. born, Sudan and Canada-raised entrepreneur had already been nominated for the Emirates Woman’s ADCB Ambition Award 2010, Bespoke Magazine’s Living Award, Ahlan! Hot 100 award, SME Advisor ‘Ones to Watch’ Award, Emirates Woman Achievers Award 2012 and was the winner of Olay Arabia’s Power Seven.
Pivoting into healthcare and the new frontiers of health tech, Zeina is instrumental in driving GluCare forward in 2024.
4. Nina Olatoke, Co-Founder, ALL Africa Festival and VP HR Europe Middle East & Africa & Global Diversity Equity & Inclusion, BDP International, Sub-Sahara Africa
Nina is currently the Vice President HR Europe, Middle-East, Turkey & Africa (EMEA) for BDP International; a global US-based logistics solutions company with a focus on building a home not a workplace; a family not a workforce. Her role spans over 3 continents, 21 countries and is charged with developing people strategies that help deliver business results and executive development across the EMEA Region. Nina is also an advisory Board Member of the MEA Business HR Group; focused on market insights that help shape human capital strategies.
Nina is passionate about creating ripples of positive impact and leading the ‘change that you want to see’. She is the co-founder of the ALL Africa Festival. The biggest African Cultural festival in the Middle East, in partnership with EMAAR. It is a community event focused on a vibrant celebration of African culture in all its UNIQUE and BEAUTIFUL representations across the world. From Africans to African Americas, African Europeans, African Caribbean, African South Americans, African Arabs, and African Asians. These cultural experiences come to life through music, entertainment, fashion, art and many other expressions of culture.
5. Dr. Kerstin Brehm, Surgeon and business consultant
Dr. Kerstin Brehm is a former cardiac surgeon turned Career and Business Mentor for Ambitious Women in male-dominated Industries - namely healthcare. Over the past two decades, she has dedicated her career to the healthcare sector, driven by a strong desire to create a meaningful impact. Her journey began as a female cardiac surgeon, determined to challenge the stereotypes that claimed cardiac surgery was not a field for women. Breaking barriers, she became the first female Consultant In Cardiac Surgery at the university hospital in Freiburg, Germany , proving the naysayers wrong.
Seeking to expand her sphere of influence, she ventured into healthcare consulting. Here, she had the opportunity to work on cross-sector medical strategies and lead transformation and digitization projects, offering a fresh perspective. In her current role in the Middle East, she discovered a market ripe for her innovative, patient-centric ideas to take root and flourish.
From day one, another mission has been close to her heart: empowering women. Having navigated a male-dominated environment throughout her career, she is committed to leveraging her knowledge, experience, and expertise to help other women ascend to leadership positions. This passion led her to establish Dr Kerstin Brehm Consulting with a specific focus on addressing the leaky pipeline.
6. Katy Holmes, CEO, British Chamber of Commerce
Returning from the 2023 list, Katy features again for her resilience in the transition of BBG to the British Chamber of Commerce Dubai in 2024. From a 20+ year career in marketing and communications, Katy has worked in international trade, with global financial institutions, agencies and government entities across her career before coming to Dubai in 2012.
Joining the then British Business Group, Dubai and Northern Emirates in 2019 as Marketing Manager, Katy’s years of experience across the corporate field and global trade have promoted the revered business group across the world.
Since its inception 35 years ago, the now BCCD has championed the interests of the Dubai-based British business community and curates and hosts more than 70 events a year including knowledge-sharing business briefings, structured networking, C-suite roundtables and embassy-based events. Becoming General Manager in 2021, Katy works to support the growth of BCCD members and stakeholders. Under Katy’s tenure, the BCCD experienced its highest volume of new members as UK companies are looking for working relationships in the UAE with a partner that understands the market and acts as an ecosystem for connecting business people, now operating as the British Chamber of Commerce, with Katy as CEO.
Katy is passionate about working with female business owners and championing women in the workplace and has recently held specific events that address issues faced by women in careers and business.
7. Kathryn Jones, Founder of KJ Serums
Kathryn Jones’ Hand Blended Serums are a game changer in topical skincare. Kathryn established her eponymous business in Dubai following a career working in the UK biopharmaceutical sector, making life saving medicines. With a passion for skincare and anti-ageing and using her background in science and medicine, she wanted to provide skin care to women (and men!) that would be more effective than the leading products on the market using fresh, active ingredients at a reasonable price.
KJ Serums now offer the UAE’s only freshly made to order skincare product range. Offering a unique concept in skincare using fresh, pared back ingredients using only the optimum amount of actives to deliver powerful results without overloading our formulas with unnecessary additives, Kathryn has established her brand firmly in the hearts of thousands of customers who swear by the KJ properties with raving reviews from happy customers for all to see across social media platforms.
2023 saw Kathryn grow the brand further with the launch of her baby and childrens range.
8. Melissa O’Neill, CEO Wayfinders
Having built a number of companies from the ground up to reach multi million dollar valuations , Melissa now also supports and advises founders on how to do the same. Melissa moved to the UAE 12 years ago and after meeting her now business partner through her first job she set up her first business 2 years later in 2014. 10 years later she has grown that into a group of companies and now sits as Co-founder and CEO of Wayfinders, an investor, accelerator and builder of businesses within the employment and workplace support space. Currently, a group of 8 businesses, she plans for Wayfinders to be a group of 25 over the next 5 years. With Melissa O’Neill as CEO, Wayfinders invests and builds businesses across the employment and work space. to build, accelerate and invest in businesses that change the way the world works. The community driven approach to growing the Wayfinders portfolio supports Middle East founders in building and executing their visions.
Melissa is also co-founder of People Partners and SGP Technology and a partner in Recruitment Entrepreneur, a global venture capital group, 100% focused on recruitment businesses. The company provides capital to recruitment companies helping them “start up” or “scale up”. It also provides a support infrastructure from an internal team of recruitment experts and successful recruitment entrepreneurs, with multiple exits amongst them. Since 2015, they have carried out more than 14 exits.
9. Dr Shefali Verma, Integrated Medicine Specialist
After completing her MSc, Doctor Shefali worked as an Honorary Clinical physician in Sports Medicine and had the opportunity to be a part of the boxing medical team at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, UK.
In 2007, she returned back to the Emirates. In addition to having a busy private practice, Doctor Shefali has held many prestigious appointments, working with many major corporate organisations, both private as well as government, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Future in 2020. During the same year, she was hired to consult and enhance the performance of an all male team selected for the Government games. In 2018, she also looked after all the employees of The Executive Office in Dubai.
A pioneer of a hybrid healthcare career. Dr Shefali says “ After losing my father in my final year at medical school I found it hard to work as a regular hospital doctor. I needed to be in charge of the amount of time I could give my patients. I wanted to learn about them. Get to know them, more than just a bed number. My love for sport led me to do my masters in Sports Medicine after which I was able to work with a lot of elite athletes. To perform on the world stage and compete in the international circuit, all athletes needed to be elite all through and through. This is where I decided to retrain as an Integrative Medical Practitioner more like an Integrative Medical detective looking for every clue as to why a patient would not be performing or living at their best possible potential. From athletes I returned to private practice in search of the root cause of all the diagnosis and looking at educating and inspiring people to live and feel their best. My love for education grew my corporate consulting business to help employees understand the lack of importance to one’s health would eventually lead to suboptimal performance. This half consulting half private practice gives me the balance I require to be the best doctor, wife and parent I can be”.
10. Nishika Thomas, Logistics professional, Enkay Express
Nishika started her logistics career over 30 years ago as one of the first women to work in the industry in Asia and the Middle East. Nishika persevered when women were not often given leadership positions in the 1980’s, as the work involved a lot of travel and working with transporters and on vessels, all considered to not be a ‘womans work’. With determination and a strict work ethic, she rose through the ranks to become one of the most sought after minds in the industry in the MENA region.
She has over 30 years of experience in the logistics industry and at 60 is a force of nature. Still working, Nishika received the award for Best Agent for Middle East and Africa on behalf of Logistica - Al Rai Logistica Company (Enkay Express), at the annual HTFN Global Logistics Partners awards in 2023.