I’m Soha M. El Baklawy, I’ve always been passionate about empowering women; no matter what I believe that “There is Nothing a Woman Can Not Do!”. Therefore, I started investing in my professional career and working on my self-development. By the age of 30, I was the General Manager for our family business in Egypt (chain of pharmacies/ stock market accounts and a para-pharmaceutical company). I was managing more than 90 employees while supporting others to develop their career paths and working over my progress. The next step was taking MBA to grow my experience and knowledge in implementing new management styles. And since I am a risk-taker by nature, I chose a very fresh and global business trend topic for my dissertation of the graduation project, Which was “Strategic Alliance and Why it Fails?” to simplify (Strategic Alliance is a type of Business Collaboration). Afterward, I took a Change Management course, in which I learned the importance of adapting to CHANGE as well as adopting new perspectives, currently studying DBA through John Sulston business school, thesis topic “Women in Social Entrepreneurship”. Consequently, I got Nominated in Egycham 6th annual conference as 1 of the top 5 success stories owing to the fact that I was working almost entirely “out of the box”.
By January 2018, I wanted to start my own business, Since I attended a life changing retreat about “Arab women leaders” which lite my spark on fire for empowering women in business. So I thought of launching something to equip, support, guide and enhance women calibers in business for them to gain financial independence. Hence my Master’s discussed Strategic Alliances thereby I wanted to do it but on a different level not only based on my collaboration but also on the collaboration of a whole community of women. Supporting and empowering each other in the business field to share experience, solve problems, decrease risks, pool business resources, etc. And that’s how Businessita came to life! Of course, my target is a global rather than a local community.
Gratefully in less than 2 years after the company’s inception, I have received three awards of appreciation (2 national and 1 international) for Businessita’s active role in society empowering women in business.
Furthermore within 2 years of career shifting, I have joined some of the well reputed international women empowerment and startup associations such as Cherie Blair Foundation, FiveOne Labs (Iraqi incubator), Village Capital and FasterCapital (a venture based in Dubai) as a business mentor.
Finally and most proudly I have been offered an exceptional opportunity of joining The International Alliance of Women (TIAW) board as a media VP. Being the youngest and the only board member from the Middle East region, due to my outstanding achievements and character.