After I moved to Dubai in 2010 I realized working a daily job will not do justice to my potential. Dubai life offered many opportunities and it was ripe for entrepreneurship. Launching something of one’s own was the right thing to do, therefore, I launched my first company a year and a half later to unbox my true potential and live my dream life of an independent woman. As a content creation agency my first company writerz Galore in Pakistan stemmed from my passion for writing and creating powerful content. Soon after this, I launched my first entity in Dubai as Dynasty Technologies which was a web design and branding agency.
In 2015 a networking community under the title of YesGulf welcomed hundreds of young entrepreneurs through monthly networking events and knowledge sharing workshops. The community rolled over some 25,000 members during these 6 years. My interaction with various struggling business owners in 2014 convinced me of the fact that no business can stand in isolation; every entrepreneur needs to connect with others for affiliations and collabs to operate and succeed. YesGulf aimed at making this level of B2B connectivity possible for business owners. The ease with which entrepreneurs could find solutions to the issues they brought to this network made YesGulf expand fast and gain popularity.
In 2019 I launched Buraq Media which evolved into a PR and branding agency rather than a media company under the title Nousheen Mukhtar International during 2020 and continues to grow. What sets this company apart is the momentum it has built through its signature summit in 2021 that engage global business owners and allow them to tap into the UAE business eco-system through systematic business introductions and exchange of business leads. The journey from Writerz Galore to Nousheen Mukhtar International has been exhilarating. It taught me the real facts about business evolution. I could understand how consumer needs many reshape themselves over time. It is important for every business to adapt to the needs of its consumers to ensure it stays in the market and is relevant. Agility and resilience are the keys to real business success. I have been a content writerz, columnist in different e-mags, a public speaker, a business mentor, and I am a mother of a wonderful son.
I strongly believe a woman should not prevent herself from taking the lead just because she has not been offered enough support. She can make use of her determination, inner strength and her vision to move forward, take charge of her life and make her dreams come true.
My “why”. The purpose to live to serve others and enable many younger people explore their inner strengths, creativity and talents to be the best version of themselves. I want to work harder to make many lives more meaningful. As I work with entrepreneurs, it is important for me to help them discover their strengths, achieve their goals and understand the larger purpose for which they work. I look for ways to solve entrepreneurial challenges to ensure success for them through various projects. Seeing them succeed keeps me going.
One of the major challenges was to be accepted as an expert. I remember I was invited to discuss an ecommerce project with the CEO of an HR company in 2014. The CEO talked me for some minutes and I understood his requirements. My team was well equipped and trained to take care of that project but he thought I was somebody inexperienced in business and would not be able to work with him. I did not get that project but I understood, I had a long way to go. Therefore, I worked towards learning and empowering myself with every passing day. The challenge to be accepted and trusted by different levels of businesses was there but it did not discourage me. I learned and adapted to overcome it and made more wins possible.
That’s true, especially in first few years of business it is unavoidable because the team needs guidance and the brand needs to build its authority. However, if you have right people who are correctly aligned to achieve goals, you will not have to micromanage. I strongly believe in delegating authority and have been doing the same to manage work. Letting the managers take their decisions in most of the cases, keeps a lot of responsibilities covered without my intervention. Running multiple businesses with diverse clientele asks for delegating. Another important aspect of my work style is, I do not stress on perfectionism because that forces an entrepreneur to micromanage. My team members take care of work diligently and they are skilled and experienced enough to take care of work. I trust them for optimum performance. That prevents me from draining over the micromanaging needs. Success comes when you trust your team, are able to delegate effectively and have them all working towards common goals without acutely micromanaging.
We are a PR and marketing agency; we take care of branding and market position of our clients. Most of our work is related to reputation and brand authority building. We cover all marketing and business growth needs for businesses from all sectors right from the time of inception till they have scaled up. Therefore, our clients stay with us for years to experience exponential growth. There is a lot of creativity involved here as my teams work on building brand presence through various digital and offline strategies. We are different from other PR agencies as we work very closely with our clients. We believe their success is ours and we walk extra miles to make that possible. We host conferences, seminars and summits all year round to connect businesses and make strategic alliances possible for us as well as our clients. These conferences and summits attract global businesses and investors. We have delegates joining our conferences from Bolivia, Argentina, Tanzania, Germany and many other countries in next three months.
The pandemic has expanded the market. Post pandemic businesses have a greater understanding of the need for branding and PR. The importance of building something larger than answers the needs of a massive group of consumers has accentuated. Companies have also realized that branding is a powerful form of marketing that will sell for them even when a pandemic hit. As we work on our clients’ media presence – digital and traditional – we can experience a difference in perceptions and attitude towards brand presence and growth. We have more brands on board and we expect this to gain further momentum in future.
