Mona Ataya, CEO and founder of Mumzworld.com, has proven to be one of the Middle East’s most prominent of women entrepreneurs. Beyond leading a successful and growing SME, and inspiring her employees and communities, Mona is on a mission to change the region, one mum at a time.

A transformational leader and a change agent in every sense of the word, Mona has managed to grow Mumzworld from a business plan on paper to an enviable brand reaching more than 2 million mothers across the region in 7 years.

Founded in 2011, Mumzworld has pioneered a revolutionary and gold standard e-commerce shopping experience for all things mother, baby and child in the ME region. Today, Mumzworld prides itself with being the leading, trusted and definitive source with over 200,000 products, an engaged community, exclusive product offerings and delivery to over 20 different countries in the fastest, most convenient and cost-effective way, at everyday low prices.

Key Takeaways:

0:00 Intro

0:41 Mona shares her journey of entrepreneurship and what really made her become an entrepreneur

3:23 Mona talks about three things that are necessary when starting a new business, that is, the people you are starting the business with, capital and your risk appetite

5:02 Mona talks about how entrepreneurship has changed or developed from back then when entrepreneurship was not fashionable till today 

8:18 Mona also talks about capital, talent, laws and regulations and corruption and how she would rank them in today’s environment

8:44 Mona shares the reasons why she ranked laws and regulations as number one specifically in her sector

9:49 Mona talks about why she would rank capital as number two also in her sector and why the scale capital in the e-commerce sector is lacking 

12:43 Mona also talks about what impacts the scalability of her business more in terms of challenges and the two most important drivers for growth

13:53 Mona speaks of what she has done at Mumzworld proactively to increase the participation of women in the economy 

17:32 Mona gives advice to the private sector on what they need to do to increase the participation of women in the economy

19:15 Mona talks about how COVID has accelerated flexibility to work from anywhere and anytime and how it has also impacted the e-commerce sector

22:29 Mona shares the vision of e-commerce sector now that it has been impacted by the pandemic 

25:24 Mona talks about how and why vertical players are working and also not being crushed by the horizontal players such as Amazon

28:38 Mona shares what to focus on technologically in e-commerce as a vertical player due to the innovations happening in e-commerce 

30:22 Mona shares two things that has been the trepidation of the foreign investors investing in e-commerce especially in the Middle East region 

33:23 Mona talks about the gap or what’s missing for people to be able to create real innovation 

35:55 Mona also talks about the ripple effect of Bayt and of Mumzworld especially to the Middle East region

38:55 Mona explains the biased and non biased way where she would invest in, in the Middle East if she had $10 million and why 

Shows Mentioned:
FMCG: Fast-moving consumer goods, also known as consumer packaged goods, are products that are sold quickly and at a relatively low cost.

P&G: The Procter & Gamble Company is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble.

Johnson & Johnson: is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceutical, and consumer packaged goods.

Bayt: is the Middle East's #1 job site in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA...