Learning Business from Emirati Women Entrepreneurs

As the UAE expanded Emirati Women’s Day into a month-long national celebration this year, running from August 28th to September 28th, Commercium Club at The Westminster School Dubai chose to mark it by learning directly from Emirati women who had built businesses of their own. Students from Years 11, 12 and 13 visited Coffee Architecture, Khazaf For Fine Arts, Aljoud Lootah Design Studio, Cinema Akil, Medaf Creative Studio + Art Spaces, and To The Moon & Back Cafe, getting a closer look at the people, ideas and decisions behind each one.

The businesses could hardly have been more different, but each offered students a glimpse into the reality behind entrepreneurship: the risks, the unexpected turns, the practical decisions and, above all, the persistence required to keep building.

For Nooran Albannay, founder of Coffee Architecture, coffee has always been personal. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she was a Senior Quality Engineer at ADNOC Onshore, but her love for coffee began with childhood memories of her grandmother preparing Arabic gahwa with cardamom and saffron. After losing her grandmother, Nooran turned that connection into something meaningful through her business. She also spoke openly about the realities of running a company, from finances and operations to pricing and customer experience, while her engineering background continued to shape her approach to quality and detail.

For Habiba Rizwan, what stood out was “how much thought goes into the design and overall atmosphere of the business.” Nooran showed students that building a café is about much more than the coffee itself, from creating a strong identity to building genuine relationships with customers. Her journey eventually grew beyond Coffee Architecture through Section Coffee Roaster, founded with her sister, while her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs remained simple: “Don’t give up.”

At Khazaf For Fine Arts, founder Sarah Al Hosani offered another perspective on turning an idea into something tangible.

Sarah began exploring pottery in 2015 after growing up around her mother’s painting and studying Multimedia Design. In October 2021, she opened Khazaf using her own savings. She told students about taking a chance on a space at Al Mushrif Co-operative Society Shopping Mall, then later finding an old notebook containing ideas for her future studio. Looking around Khazaf, she realised she had created much of what she had once imagined.

Today, Khazaf offers wheel throwing, hand-building and glazing workshops, while artists can use the studio and its facilities for their own projects. Sarah spoke especially warmly about people travelling from across the UAE simply to spend time there, return to projects or enjoy somewhere they can slow down. Students also experienced the craft through a live pottery-wheel demonstration.

Her work connects this creative space to Emirati heritage. Sarah creates contemporary pieces inspired by cultural objects such as Arabic coffee cups and incense burners, and has represented Emirati ceramics internationally through the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and Artisan-in-Residence programme in Washington, D.C.

When asked what she would tell someone afraid to pursue their dream, Sarah answered: “Don’t be scared to start your dream.”

At Medaf Creative Studio, Year 11 girls met Alia Hussain Lootah, learning about another side of entrepreneurship: building something while learning how to run it.

Medaf began when Alia and co-founder Noora M. BinKalban identified a gap in Dubai’s creative landscape and created a space where people could experience art in an accessible, community-focused environment. Along the way, they had to learn financial management, cash flow, pricing, logistics and partnerships.

Alia shared the Arabic saying “Al Haraka Baraka”, meaning that movement brings blessing, as a mindset that reflected the way she approached building the space: keep moving, keep doing and keep creating. For students, it was a reminder that businesses can grow alongside the people building them.

The other visits added their own perspectives. At Cinema Akil, students explored how independent cinema can build a loyal community. At Aljoud Lootah Design Studio, they saw how Aljoud Lootah combines contemporary design with Emirati cultural references. And at To The Moon & Back, students encountered Zainab Al Mousawi’s journey from psychology and Melbourne’s café culture to building a specialty coffee brand in Dubai.

For Fatima Gazafi, the experience captured what made the initiative so meaningful: “There’s a difference between learning business from a textbook and sitting across from the person who actually did the business. It was raw, honest, beautiful and enlightening.”

That may have been the greatest lesson of all.

Across six businesses, our students saw that entrepreneurship is not a neat journey from idea to success. It involves uncertainty, experimentation, patience, mistakes, learning and a willingness to keep moving. Most importantly, they saw Emirati women creating businesses in their own voices, across coffee, ceramics, design, film, art and hospitality.

For Commercium, celebrating Emirati Women’s Day through these conversations was about more than recognising successful founders. It was about giving young people the chance to sit across from them, ask questions and imagine what they might build themselves.

Because sometimes the most valuable business lesson is not found on a page. Sometimes, you just have to meet the woman who built it.