Shaima Hamidaddin, Shalini Misra featuring, Aysha Al Khamous

Shaima Hamidadd...:

Whether you're in Saudi or in the US or in China, everyone worries about job opportunities, everybody worries about being ready for those jobs, and everybody struggles with becoming a global citizen, which is really important with how interconnected we are.

Sam Saperstein:

Welcome to the Women on the Move podcast from JP Morgan Chase. I'm Sam Saperstein. Women on the Move is a global initiative designed to empower female employees, clients and consumers to build their careers, grow their businesses, and improve their financial health. Each episode will feature successful and inspiring women who are breaking the mold. They're sharing their career journeys and leadership lessons, talking about their professional and personal goals, and making a difference in the lives of others.

Sam Saperstein:

This season, I'm taking you to the world economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, where I caught up with many of the women who inspire me every day. In addition to interviewing executives, philanthropists, and thought leaders whose work is felt on a global scale, I also spoke with women whose work hits closer to home. In this episode, we meet Shalini Misra and Aisha El-Kemos, two innovators who've created women powered-businesses from scratch. We also hear from Shaima Hamidaddin, the executive manager of the Saudi Arabia based Misk Global Forum.

Sam Saperstein:

First I'd like to share my interview with Shalini Misra, the owner of an interiors and architecture firm in London. For 25 years, Shalini has incorporated wellness and sustainability into design, and has expanded her award winning business to reach clients around the world.

Sam Saperstein:

So Shalini, thank you so much for being with us on this podcast. Can you tell us what about yourself?

Shalini Misra:

Thank you for having me. It's a topic that I totally relate to about women empowerment. I'm Shalini, and I live in London. I run a practice, which is Shalini Misra Limited, which is interiors and architecture. I've been doing it for about 25 years, and I was thrown into interiors by accident. I was just finishing a degree in virtual reality from UCL Bartlett, and at that time, internet was just about starting. I was really enjoying the course and everything, and as soon as I finished it, a friend was moving to London and said, "Could I do her apartment?", and I said, "Sure. Interiors will be very easy to do," until I started doing the window dressing, which had 50 components to it.

Sam Saperstein:

Wow.

Shalini Misra:

Slacks, tails, all sorts of things, but I enjoyed the journey of interiors, and then over the last so many years, I'm very proud to say that I have an all women's led company.

Sam Saperstein:

Fantastic.

Shalini Misra:

It's global. The main theme is wellness at its very core. So over the years, I've realized that to make a home or office or a boutique hotel, the inhabitants have to be extremely happy and enjoy being there. So what are the tools that will make them happy? So one is sustainability. So there is no plastic, there is all natural things, there's no goose down feathers and pillows, and use of natural materials, a lot of natural light, if there is mood lighting at different levels, and there's always a moment of joy or a sparkle or something. We try to create a moment of surprise. So basically that.

Sam Saperstein:

What are those moments of surprises look like? What would that be, maybe for some folks in their home?

Shalini Misra:

So we do try to use art a lot. I think art is quite thought provoking, and you don't need to have a huge budget for art. You can buy beautiful prints and posters and frame them very nicely, or you can have a collection which you're very proud of because you worked very hard in your life. I think I use art as a very strong medium, which could be video art, it could be photography art, it could be sculpture, it could be anything. That, I think, talks to the inhabitants really easily.

Sam Saperstein:

You say you have people around the world working for you and your business.

Shalini Misra:

Yes.

Sam Saperstein:

So do you have a consistent approach when you're designing for clients, or do you do things a little bit differently depending on where people are based?

Shalini Misra:

It's all about people. It's about people who will be enjoying the space, but there are some coherent elements, like wellness at its core and art, and the style can change according to the place, because in Davos, you won't have the same style as Ellie. It's very different. So the style changes according to the vernacular of the place.

Sam Saperstein:

When you talk about, it's about the people enjoying the space, how do you get to know clients well enough to understand what they're looking for?

Shalini Misra:

That's very easy. I think it's intuition for me. If you come and tell me what you want, I can get it very easily. Because of my architectural training, I can plan a space very quickly and understand what a client wants very quickly. [crosstalk] Creating the lifestyle is not hard.

Sam Saperstein:

Can you almost give clients two things that they didn't even know that they wanted.

Shalini Misra:

Always. Always.

Sam Saperstein:

That's always amazing that you can help guide them in a different direction, maybe, than they thought.

Shalini Misra:

Yes, because if you go to a doctor, the doctor knows exactly. It just takes a process. It takes time for the cure to happen. So it's a journey, which is quite enjoyable.

Sam Saperstein:

Well, thank you so much for speaking with us. I appreciate it.

Shalini Misra:

Thank you.

Sam Saperstein:

Great to hear about your business.

Shalini Misra:

Thank you.

Sam Saperstein:

That was Shalini Misra. Next is Ayesha El-Kemos, a restaurateur from Saudi Arabia who got her start by opening up a pro shop on a local golf course.

Sam Saperstein:

So Aisha, thank you so much for joining us on our Women on the Move podcast.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Thank you.

Sam Saperstein:

So let's start by talking about you. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Aisha El-Kemos:

My name is Aisha El-Kemos. I have three kids. First of all, I did not start working. I finished my school, and I have my kids and I want to be always with them, and suddenly they become bigger and they kick you out of their life. They said, "That's it."

Sam Saperstein:

Enough mom.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Enough mom. So you need to work after that. I cannot work because I did not start when I graduate, so I need to make my own business. So I start to think what I'm going to do. So I start with a pro shop. My son, I used to take him to play golf because I cannot let him go alone. He's too young.

Sam Saperstein:

Too young.

Aisha El-Kemos:

So I read that they want a pro shop in the golf course, so I started with that. A tee shirt and creams, and it's a very small thing, but it's made me busy, and I like it so much. After that, one of the people that my son was playing with is a chef, he is a French Korean chef, he was playing, and we talked, and he used to work in the Four Season hotel in Korea. We talked about, how about if we make our own restaurant, and we start that.

Sam Saperstein:

Really? So now you've gone from selling things through this golf shot to starting restaurants.

Aisha El-Kemos:

I started my own restaurant. It was really good. It was an Asian fusion. I am a foodie person, and I love food and I love to cook, so we start dealing with that. We make the best sushi, the best food.

Sam Saperstein:

That is amazing. You actually do some cooking as well?

Aisha El-Kemos:

Yeah.

Sam Saperstein:

And he does too, being a chef.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Me and him, and we start out with restaurant. We start a restaurant, a very small restaurant, then we start thinking, I want to make more, and my restaurant, thank god it's good. We started the coffee. It's very important, and I work with a lot of foundation about the woman and how to make women empower and to work, and we started that. If you let them start to do the coffee, the [inaudible] or cook from the house, it will make him a lot of income for the family, and not just the women.

Sam Saperstein:

This is helping women do business out of their house.

Aisha El-Kemos:

From their house, and they sell it. Then I think, how about if we make a coffee shop, a small coffee shop? It says art cafe, we name it like that. So the coffee shop, it's really small, but on the wall, we let the artist put their art.

Sam Saperstein:

These female artists.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Yeah, female, but now female and male. In the beginning, I started female, but I felt it's a family, both of them should be. The cake, we buy it from the woman who cooks in the house.

Sam Saperstein:

So now you're selling female-made goods like that through this.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Through this, and then we started with the coffee to make the [inaudible] and the coffee, all of that. We started with a student, they used to come and make the coffee, and then as a part time, some of them would come and work like that. It's very small. We started as a small thing, but now I have eight coffee shops.

Sam Saperstein:

That is unbelievable. You started with one small shop, now you have eight.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Yes, eight.

Sam Saperstein:

All over ...

Aisha El-Kemos:

Riyadh and [inaudible 00:08:43], Dammam, the cities that I lived there. So it's very small, never been a big one, but I was surprised that ... It's work. The cake from the woman from the house. The coffee, the student will do it, and the art, I don't take anything for it for that. I put in, they talk, they come, they do that. It's become like a pop up for them. They come there, they said ...

Sam Saperstein:

That's a great experience.

Aisha El-Kemos:

It's really very good to sit with the young generation. You will learn from them.

Sam Saperstein:

So I love the fact that everything you've touched really has turned to gold. You started things in a small way and did it based on passion and people you knew, and look what happened! Did you have any expectation that it would grow like that?

Aisha El-Kemos:

No, at all. When I started, I started very small, and I never looked to take a big one, and now they try with me to make it as a franchise, I said no, I want it like it is. Small business. I have no high risk. Whenever it's not good, I would close and go bye.

Sam Saperstein:

When it's right for you. So do you mind my asking, you did this all after you had your kids or your kids were older?

Aisha El-Kemos:

Yeah.

Sam Saperstein:

So how did you teach yourself about business or just learn what you needed to do to get started?

Aisha El-Kemos:

I read a lot, and I make a lot of workshops, and of course my husband helped me. He's a businessman, and we started like that.

Sam Saperstein:

Is this typical of other women that you know in Saudi Arabia? Do they come to the workforce later, once their kids are a little older?

Aisha El-Kemos:

No.

Sam Saperstein:

No.

Aisha El-Kemos:

But always I want to do something, because I used to work and I want to work. I work with foundation, but after that I feel I want to have my own business. I can do it. When I go and see it, well, I can do the same. So I work with very good interiors, with very good companies, and I did it.

Sam Saperstein:

You must be inspiring other women around you. I think that's really phenomenal.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Thank you.

Sam Saperstein:

Where do you go from here? What's your next venture?

Aisha El-Kemos:

I'm going to go to Riyadh back home, because my daughter's there, and go back to my work.

Sam Saperstein:

Is there a new business idea you have for the next thing or not yet?

Aisha El-Kemos:

Not yet.

Sam Saperstein:

Okay.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Just the restaurant and the art cafe.

Sam Saperstein:

Well, I hope to get there one day and see you and experience it.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Sam Saperstein:

Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

Aisha El-Kemos:

Thank you. Bye.

Sam Saperstein:

That was Aisha El-Kemos. My last guest is Shaima Hamidaddin, whose work with the Misk Foundation promotes youth empowerment in the areas of entrepreneurship, employment and social awareness.

Sam Saperstein:

So Shaima, thank you so much for joining us here on our podcast.

Shaima Hamidadd:

It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. It's an honor.

Sam Saperstein:

Tell us a little bit about your background and the Misk organization.

Shaima Hamidadd:

Our pure focus is empowering youth. We are based in Saudi Arabia, and we have been embarking on this mission for the past 10 years. We focus on entrepreneurship, on character and Richmond and values, global citizenship, and upscaling and rescaling young people to prepare them for the future economy. I've had the honor to be with the foundation since we first started back in 2009, so it's been great to see how we've grown from being two people in an office to now over a hundred staff, and all of us hopefully contributing to the global youth community.

Sam Saperstein:

Why is it important to be at a place like Davos to tell the story?

Shaima Hamidadd:

A key thing that we do is international engagements, because we find that places in Davos and elsewhere don't show the youth perspective and they don't bring the youth voice to the table, although they represent over half, 51% of the global population. So decisions are being made, but excluding that youth perspective, so we make sure we bring that to places in Davos and others.

Sam Saperstein:

You're around the world, really.

Shaima Hamidadd:

Oh yeah.

Sam Saperstein:

At all conferences.

Shaima Hamidadd:

Yes. We participate during the UN general assembly in New York, the Bloomberg global business forum. We've been at TED, we've been in India, we've been in China, so really anywhere where there are really these important discussions happening, we really try and make sure that youth voices are being represented somehow.

Sam Saperstein:

Are youth voices consistent, or every time you're in different regions, you're reflecting what the youth of that region might be thinking?

Shaima Hamidadd:

It's unbelievable how alike the challenges are, whether you're in Saudi or in the US or in China. We recently published a global youth index in 2018. It shows that the challenges are very, very similar. Everyone worries about job opportunities. Everybody worries about being ready for those jobs once they become present, and everybody struggles with becoming a global citizen, which is really important with how interconnected we are.

Sam Saperstein:

So say more about that. When you say global citizen, what do you mean by that?

Shaima Hamidadd:

So the world has never been more globalized, and we are all connected, and we share very similar views, and it's really about how can you function as a global human being in this ever interconnected world, but stay true to your values and your roots. It's so important, and some aspect of it is around STGs and how can we come together to come up with some of the solutions, but it's really important for us to be sustainable as a youth community globally.

Sam Saperstein:

How can someone find out more about the organization if they're interested?

Shaima Hamidadd:

Oh yay. Well, the easiest thing to do is miskglobalforum.com, and you can also follow us on our social media platforms. So that's on Twitter, on Instagram. We post everything, we announce all the global initiatives. We have a really big one, Entrepreneurship World Cup, so you can always be connected through our social media platforms.

Sam Saperstein:

Are those things that people can go to? Those events, if they're local in those areas?

Shaima Hamidadd:

Yeah, of course, of course, and with Entrepreneurship World Cup specifically, last year we were in 185 countries.

Sam Saperstein:

Wow. So you reach a lot of people.

Shaima Hamidadd:

We reach a lot of people, and there's another initiative that we launched with the UN last year around global citizenship called It Starts With Us. Digitally, we've reached 90 million young people.

Sam Saperstein:

Wow.

Shaima Hamidadd:

So we really try as much as we can to involve everyone everywhere.

Sam Saperstein:

So tell me one misperception about global youth that we should correct.

Shaima Hamidadd:

Ah, so young people tend to be perceived to be very demanding, but it's just that they recognize that this is the future we're handing to them, and they're eager to see quicker change. So it's not really that they're demanding, it's just maybe they have a better, clearer vision of what's about to happen and what they're going to be handed over, and they're worried. So yeah, maybe we should work together better.

Sam Saperstein:

Well, it's interesting. Maybe there's more known by youth today as to what they're going into, whether that's the job force or the environments. There's more information than we've ever had before, so we can understand that urgency.

Shaima Hamidadd:

Yes, definitely.

Sam Saperstein:

Well, thank you. It was so nice to talk to you.

Shaima Hamidadd:

It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Sam Saperstein:

Good luck with the work.

Shaima Hamidadd:

Thank you.

Sam Saperstein:

Thank you to Shalini, Aisha, and Shaima for joining me at Davos to share their unique stories. Together, they prove that women around the world are taking their own paths and making collective impact.

Sam Saperstein:

Thank you for joining us today. The mission of Women on the Move is to help women in their professional and personal lives. Our goal is to introduce you to people with great ideas, inspiring stories, and a passion to make a difference. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe so you won't miss any others. Thank you to our partners at The Female Quotient and Magnet Media for helping us tell these stories. For JP Morgan Chase's Women on the Move, I'm Sam Saperstein.