Being an inspiration to many people, Marwa Al Mansoori is reinventing entrepreneurship and pushing the limits of traditional business. She is dedicated to pursuing optimal growth and sustainability practices in a variety of financial sector businesses, undertaking research and development to create effective and efficient international business frameworks in the UAE.
CEO of Prosper Partners Consultancy and Board Member in Abu Dhabi Chambers of Commerce and Industry
Being an inspiration to many people, Marwa Al Mansoori is reinventing entrepreneurship and pushing the limits of traditional business. She is dedicated to pursuing optimal growth and sustainability practices in a variety of financial sector businesses, undertaking research and development to create effective and efficient international business frameworks in the UAE.
Please tell us in brief about you and your journey as an executive and inspiring leader in the world of finance.
Since graduating from Edinburgh, I’ve come to realize that my most enduring ability is entrepreneurship. According to Google, an entrepreneur is someone who establishes a firm and takes financial risks in the hopes of making money, although everyone misunderstands what that means. My definition of an entrepreneur is a person setting their own personal understanding of how to live. A person who creates their own mindset and regulations and a person who accepts being underestimated all the time. Entrepreneurship is a word that comes up with skills like commitment, belief, creativity, and the most important thing of not being afraid of failure. The first step to take if you want to become an entrepreneur is you should redefine failure to success.
Within the past 7 years of being an executive, my colleagues are my family and they have full confidence in me. This is a responsibility I have to be thankful for because it’s my everyday fuel to not let anyone down. Nowadays an executive is a title, to mentally trick you to show respect. But nowadays loyalty and dedication are what make you gain respect and not a title.
I’ve been chosen as a board member in the Abu Dhabi Businesswomen Council in July 2022, which aims at empowering young and entrepreneur women to contribute to the economic development of the UAE and playing active participation in including those women to be change-makers in the business sector. I honestly believe that we as women can do much with the right tools, access to opportunities and support needed. As a board member, I try to use my voice to advocate for enabling each and every woman to take an active part in her small community and believe in the impact she can make no matter how small it is.
What’s your greatest entrepreneurial achievement to be proud of?
When COVID hit the world, I discovered that I have a talent for building businesses to make money. I am currently working as a consultant within international companies on projects in the world and space. I launched Prosper Partners Consultancy in 2019 which aims to provide a strong infrastructure that adapts real-time strategies to empower startups, ideas, and global businesses.
We combine our strategies with global best practices and deep data analytics to help our clients create change that matters. The projects I work on cover bitcoin mining, alternative energy, organizational restructuring, business development blockchain, metaverse, and currently space innovation labs. In continuing with my journey, I took on a project with a global corporation called Metavisionaries in June 2022, Metavisionaries is founded by space scientists including former chief scientist of NASA Jim Green, Dr. Tara Ruttley former associate scientist at NASA, and its CEO Wasim Ahmed. Our mission is to utilize space and frontier technologies and give access to the masses through our Metaverse and Space Innovation Labs.
What innovative ideas have you used that led to profitability in your business venture?
I’ve been able to launch Malena App – the first mobile platform for the cosmetology industry in the GCC in 2018, and raised around $ 1 million in seed funding within 8 months, Malena operated till COVID-19 hit. No Matter how simple your idea is or how crazy it seems to other people, you should never hesitate. The best ideas are the ones you stop and think “It’s impossible” or “I’m sure someone thought of it before and it didn’t work”. Believing in your idea – knowing the “WHY” – commitment and discipline is the remedy towards success. Prosperity is around the corner you just need to listen carefully.
Currently, I am fully dedicated to my consultancy and working on international projects, this is when I comprehended my skill was to support others, develop ideas and businesses, providing solid financial data to forecast any business’s future income based on real scenarios. The main fuel within my consultancy is a private and public partnership which is the most highlighted prospect in the consultancy.
What future plans do you foresee from UAE leadership to promote sustainable economic growth?
The UAE focuses on achieving sustainable development goals that will enable access to clean energy, quality education, and sustainable economic growth. Additionally, as I previously stated, I do not see my duty as anything less than the leader of enormous change projects, and this is the UAE’s vision, which always has a sense of responsibility towards the rest of the globe. Therefore, I expect projects very soon to solve major crises and create educational, economic, and health opportunities that will be a lamp of light for the world. UAE is pioneering in all sustainability projects, trends, and ideas we witness in the world, starting from Expo2020 and beyond, we’ve witnessed initiatives from various governmental and private sector entities that aim at creating sustainable solutions from reducing plastic waste to saving energy resources and moving to electrical cars, etc.
One of the key examples is the efforts of the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment in partnering with local and international entities in addressing Sustainable Development Goals of zero hunger, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water and life on land. Also, implementing the UAE Agenda 2030 for a more sustainable future.
What upcoming trends in digital transformation do you see in Dubai?
I have been nominated in July 2021 as the youngest board member of the Abu Dhabi Chamber and the subcommittee of the digital transformation committee. Our main task is to raise the competitiveness of the business sector and expand the scope of opportunities in general. This is done by providing empowerment, studying all that is available, and creating well-thought-out plans.
The UAE government is a good example of accelerating the achievement of actual steps. One of the very good examples is the new mandate announced lately by the Government of Dubai on the “Metaverse Strategy” which aims to increase the number of blockchain and metaverse companies in the UAE 5 times in 5 years and create 40,000 virtual job opportunities placing UAE first in the Arab region and one of the top 10 cities worldwide in the metaverse economy.
Please share some of the key pointers for any budding entrepreneur from your diverse experience across multiple responsibilities and projects that you have been involved in.
To succeed, you need to dream big and trust yourself that you can achieve your goals, I have understood this through my past experience in mentoring 35 women who have entrepreneurial projects and who needed help to start and convert these ideas into real projects. The common factor I noticed between all of them is the lack of self-confidence, all they needed was a push and the motivation that they were capable of doing it, especially because in some Arab societies, women are less empowered with resources and mentoring while if they’re given all the trust, they innovate and bloom! There will be moments of self-doubt and this is normal, all successful people come across those feelings, the key is to know how to deal with that doubt and turn it into something meaningful in your life and business alike, with the support of experts and people you trust. Everything comes with a cost, you’ll have sleepless nights and that’s okay, you’ll witness the results of your hard work which always pays off!
Never underestimate any project or person you work with, there’s always something to learn as long as you’re open to new experiences and flexible to accept the change.
Being a leader in your project isn’t about just leading a team towards fulfilling certain tasks but trusting your team, and giving them the power to express themselves and own their tasks to do them innovatively in their way.
● Make a big dream with small plans – No matter what you want to achieve in life, you need to dream big and start small. We all have dreams and goals to pursue and what makes your dreams come true are the intensity of your thoughts and the power of your actions.
● The difference between fear and cowardice is the next step – If you have the courage to start and face things then you have the courage to succeed.
● Effort is never wasted -An effort is never wasted, even if the outcome is disappointing.
Because doing so always makes you more prepared, capable & experienced.
Lastly, what message do you have for our readers?
Always embrace the opportunities thrown your way, you don’t know what lies beyond that might change your life entirely.
“Never underestimate your role, there will be no change without you first.”
“Read, learn, post info, change behavior …”
