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Maha Abouelenein
Maha Abouelenein is a Personal Branding Expert, CEO of Digital and Savvy, and Author of 7 Rules of Self-Reliance. Maha has been instrumental in orchestrating transformational strategies for global corporate giants, high-growth startups, sports organization, top governments, and high-net-worth individuals.
Renowned Global Strategist and Personal Branding Instructor
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Lousin Mehrabi
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Selected as one of the Most Influential Negotiation Professionals Globally, Lousin Mehrabi is an Inspirational Speaker, Trainer, and Board Advisor. Trained and mentored by some of world's best (hostage) negotiators, Lousin has been qualified as a Certified Professional Negotiator, CPN© by the International Scientific Experts Committee of Negotiators. She works with CEOs and decision-makers worldwide to help them get the best out of themselves and their teams.
International Professional Negotiator and Negotiations Instructor
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Halima Jumani
Halima Jumani is part of the founding family of award winning Kibsons, delivering fresh groceries from farm to kitchen. Today, she oversees all finance and operations, a team of over 1,500 across the business, and over 30,000 orders weekly.
Founding family of Kibsons and Customer Experience Instructor
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Donna Benton
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Donna Benton is the founder and CEO of the Entertainer – the leading provider of Buy One Get One Free. She played a pivotal role in its success, expanding to 15 countries and transitioning from a book to a tech company before exiting in 2018. Donna founded The Benton Group, a dynamic organisation focusing on establishing new companies and investing in businesses with the potential to scale.
Founder of The Entertainer, CEO of The Benton Group and Mentor
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Alissar Nasr
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Alissar Nasr is Arab Woman of the Year 2020 in Education, Chief Academic Officer of Al Mawakeb Schools, one of the oldest school groups in the UAE with a powerful legacy network. She is the founder of AMSI Voices. Graduated from Harvard University with a Masters of Education in Administrative Planning and Social Policy, Alissar Nasr has more than 35 years of experience in academic planning, curriculum development, and school operations.
Chief Academic Officer of Al Mawakeb Schools
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Yan Narayan
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Yan Gao Narayan is the Managing Director of Hunter Foods, a global trend leader in FMCG snacks manufacturing, packaging and distribution. Yan has transformed the company’s brand voice, product suite and distribution strategy, successfully positioning Hunter Foods as Asia’s leading gourmet snack manufacturer.
Managing Director
Hunter Foods
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Su Bridgman
Su Bridgman is the Founder and CEO of SpeakFluence Global. She inspires professionals, executives, and CEOs to speak with influence, lead with impact, and maximize their potential with her company, SpeakFluence. Before being recognized by Forbes Books as the international authority on communication intelligence, Su Bridgman honed her communication skills as a commercial litigator.
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Founder of SpeakFluence™ Global and Communications Intelligence Authority
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Lucy d'Abo
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Lucy d'Abo is a workplace culture expert and awarded business leader. Lucy has been recognized in the top 50 of Inspiring Female Leaders 2022 by Arabian Business, Entrepreneur of Year by the SME Stars of Business Awards 2015 and named as one of the 50 Most Influential Brits in the Arabian Business index in 2013 and 2014.
CEO of Together and Workplace Culture Expert
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Nadia Zaal
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Nadia Zaal is the Owner, Founder, and CEO of Zaya, leading a portfolio that includes Nurai Island, Al Barari, Zuha Island, Hameni, and Zaya Early Learning. Recognized as one of the region’s most dynamic and forward-thinking business leaders, Nadia has earned numerous accolades for her groundbreaking achievements. Beyond her professional success, she is a devoted mother of four who deeply values quality time with her family, especially in nature.
Emirati Entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of Zaya Group
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Elham AlQasim
Elham AlQasim is the first Arab woman to trek to the North Pole. She currently serves as the Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at Majid Al Futtaim Holding, where she leads the development of the company’s long-term strategic vision. Previously, Elham was the CEO of Digital14, CEO of Abu Dhabi Investment Office, and Executive Director of the Ghadan21 program. Her impressive career also spans roles at Mubadala Investment Company, Emirates Global Aluminium, and JPMorgan.
Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at Majid Al Futtaim Holding
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Dr. Saliha Afridi
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Dr. Saliha Afridi is a clinical psychologist and the visionary founder and Chairwoman of The LightHouse Arabia, one of the first mental health clinics in Dubai. Established in 2011, The LightHouse Arabia has evolved into one of the most influential mental health centers in the UAE and the region providing therapies for children, adults, couples and families. Dr. Afridi specializes in workplace and executive mental health, and also possesses deep expertise in parenting strategies and family dynamics.
Clinical Psychologist, Founder and Chairwoman of The LightHouse Arabia
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Jessica Kahawaty
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Jessica Kahawaty is a Food Entrepreneur, Human Rights Advocate and Internationally acclaimed Model. Through an extensive career since her teenage years, the multi-hyphenate Australian figure with Middle Eastern origins, has bridged cultures in the fashion industry and humanitarianism. Jessica is also the Founder of Mama Rita food and lifestyle brand co-founded with her mother Rita in the UAE.
Entrepreneur and Philanthropist
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Julie Nguyen
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Julie Nguyen is on a mission to change the world for women. As the founder, Julie is the visionary and driving force behind Crunchmoms, one of the leading women's networks the region, supporting women at every stage of their careers, business and motherhood journey. She is passionate about empowering women, building communities and brands.
Co-Founder of Crunchmoms and host
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Raya Halet
Raya Halet is mom of two boys living in the UAE for over 25 years. As a biotechnologist turned parenting enthusiast, she is the host and Founder of 'They Say It Takes A Village', a platform to help parents navigate their journey with advice from experts and local heroes.
Founder of They Say It Takes A Village and Master of Ceremony
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Zeina Abdalla
An accomplished and award-winning entrepreneur, Zeina is the Co-Founder and Chief Engagement Officer of Glucare Health and meta[bolic] – an organisation that approaches the global metabolic disease endemic from a first-principles basis. She is responsible for all marketing, advertising and communications initiatives, community engagement, social media strategy and collaborations. Prior, she founded fishfayce, a digital content startup.
Co-Founder and Chief Engagement Officer at Glucare Health and meta[bolic] and Marketing Mentor
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Liying Tay
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Liying is the co-founder of Crunchmoms. What started from a deep personal need to redefine what it means to integrate motherhood and career led to building one of the region's most influential women network. She wants to help women lead intentional lives and believes in the power of building impactful communities as a driving force for change.
Co-Founder of Crunchmoms and host
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Saima Khan
Saima Khan is the Co-Founder and CCO of Cheeky Monkeys Playland, a global children’s play and event company, and a founding Shareholder of Citizen Cosmetics, an inclusive makeup brand with offices in Dubai, London, and LA. A serial entrepreneur and angel investor, she has built multiple businesses from idea to multi-million dollar exits.
Founder of Cheeky Monkeys Playland and Startup Mentor
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Galia Shaw
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Galia Shaw is a dynamic global senior people leader with over 20 years of diverse experience in financial services, consumer goods, aviation, and data analytics. She specializes in organizational design, leadership development, executive coaching, talent management, and change management. Galia's impressive career includes roles at renowned companies such as Unilever, American Express, and Qatar Airways.
Senior Vice President and Head of The People Team for Visa CEMEA
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Lauren O'Connell
Lauren O'Connell is the Beauty Editor of Cosmo Middle East, Skincare and Beauty Expert and Breast cancer warrior. With a Bachelor of Science in bio-mechanical engineering and a Master of Science in nursing, Lauren spent the earlier years of her life deeply connected to science and then took a leap into the beauty industry.
Beauty Editor of Cosmo Middle East
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Sonali Rawal Nambiar
Executive Director & NRI Business Head at Anand Rathi Wealth Limited and Investing Mentor
Sonali Rawal Nambiar is a dynamic leader with over 11 years of expertise in wealth management. She specializes in Indian markets and guides NRIs in building and preserving wealth. As the Executive Director and NRI Head at Anand Rathi Wealth, she oversees more than $191 million in assets for HNIs and UHNIs. Her commitment to financial literacy, particularly empowering women, further amplifies her impact in the industry.
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Polly Williams
Polly Williams is the Managing Director of Tish Tash and has been instrumental in evolving TishTash into a full 360 communications agency. With more than 20 years’ experience in the PR and Marketing world from in-house for a luxury fashion retailer to agency side working at MediaCom and UM in London before moving to Asia to work with clients such as Procter & Gamble.
Managing Director of TishTash and Influencer Marketing Mentor
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Sophie Thomas
Sophie Thomas is a Strategist, Mentor, Leader, Advisor, DEI & Neurodivergence Advocate, Pragmatist, and Mother to 3. She lives in Dubai, and until 2 years ago had spent 20 years in the corporate world of strategy consulting and professional services with Booz & Co, strategy&, Deloitte & PwC ME. In 2022, she founded The Growth Pod, helping passion and purpose-led entrepreneurs harness their creativity and uniqueness to start up.
Founder of Growth Pod and Business Strategy Mentor
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Hanan Ezzeldin
Hanan is the founder of The Family Hub, an educational platform focused on positive parenting through workshops, online consultations, events, products, and a podcast. With over 111,000 parents tuning in, Hanan shares her expertise from 13 years of experience working in schools globally.
Founder of The Family Hub and Arabic & Social Media Mentor
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Stephanie Martin
As a dynamic international public speaker, a published co-author, magazine columnist and founder of two companies, Stephanie is a woman on a mission striving to make healthy lifestyles easy, maintainable and accessible for all individuals while also helping women use their voice and step out of their comfort zone. As the face of Sip and Edvance Education Consultants.
Founder of Sip and Branding Mentor
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Lucy Bruce
Lucy Bruce Founded Harmony House, a British and Indian registered charity that offers over 500 slum children in Delhi with education, nutrition, medical facilities and vocational training. She joined forces with Beverly Jatwani to create the Home Grown Children's Eco nursery and also co-founded Insignia, the region's leading brand marketing firm in the luxury, travel and hospitality.
Founder of Harmony House and Philanthropy Mentor
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Natasha Hatherall-Shawe
Natasha Hatherall-Shawe has over 20 years experience in the marketing, media and PR world. In 12 years, TishTash has become one of the most sought after and respected independent agencies in the Middle East, using their know how and passion for the latest trends to create campaigns that get brands noticed, which has won them multiple awards.
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Founder of TishTash and Public Relations Mentor
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Mustafa Koita
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Mustafa Y. Koita is the founder and CEO of Koita foods. He launched the company in 2013 and the Koita Milk Brand was born in 2016 with a mission to make premium healthy RTD (ready to drink) beverages more accessible to families. Known to his team as the "Chief Everything Officer," Mustafa is hands-on in every facet of the business.
Founder and CEO of Koita Foods and FMCG Mentor
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Dr Alison Burrows
Dr. Alison Burrows is a professor and researcher of childhood studies and education. She received her doctorate from Johns Hopkins University where she was a two-time merit scholar and research fellow. Her research focuses on the effects of screen time on the developing child as well as meaningful learning with technology for children. Dr. Alison is also a certified parenting coach and a mom!
Senior Lecturer Education and Early Childhood Studies and Co-Founder Screenwise Child U
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Yi-Wei Ang
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Yi-Wei is on a mission to build product-led organizations. Product-led organizations are customer obsessed, data-driven, and experimentation-focused. Currently, he is the Chief Product Officer at talabat, the largest Food Delivery and Q-Commerce company in the MENA region. talabat has 4000+ employees and is headquartered in Dubai, with Tech Hubs in Dubai & Cairo.
Chief Product Officer at Talabat and Product Development Mentor
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Frederica Tribuiani
Frederica started her career with a Dubai-based luxury group and has been in the brand creation and marketing innovation space for over 20 years. Alongside her professional journey, she is passionately dedicated to advocating for midlife, women’s health, and transformation, empowering women through her personal passion.
Women's Health Advocate, Brand Strategist and Summit Moderator
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Jean Winter
Jean Winter is a business consultant, philanthropist, angel investor and keynote speaker. She is also the founder of TOUCH, UAE's inclusive Talent Agency. TOUCH represents celebrity athletes, celebrity chefs and champions equal opportunities for people of disability in the region and around the world. She was named one of UAE’s top 20 most influential women in the hospitality world in 2022.
Founder and CEO of TOUCH, Diversity & Inclusion mentor
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Sarah Jones
Sarah Jones, founder and CEO of Rayne, is an entrepreneur with a passion for growing businesses and building market-driven solutions. After founding Sprii and scaling it into a multi-million-dollar enterprise, she now leads Rayne, offering flexible finance and HR consulting services. Jones is also a mother of five and strives to balance career and family life while delivering Rayne's growth potential.
Co-Founder & CEO at RAYNE and Start Up Mentor
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Linda Chambers Cochrane
With a career spanning across two decades, Linda Chambers Cochrane is a sought-after wellness expert renowned for her unique hybrid approach to holistic wellbeing. A business owner, consultant, educator, coach, instructor & healer to name a few of her daily roles.
Founder of Hybrid Soul and Keynote Speaker
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Tiffany Bain
Currently Principal at Dubai Future District Fund, heading up value creation for a portfolio of 17 ventures. Advisor to multiple VC-backed growth-tech companies (FemTech, HealthTech, EdTech). Previously Innovation Lead for the John Lewis Partnership, Chief Product Officer for Arriva, led the successful development and go-to-market strategy for a new venture for Blenheim Chalcot.
Principal at Dubai Future District Fund and Venture Capital Mentor
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Vicky Reynal
She is the first financial psychotherapist in the UK, where she has pioneered an approach that applies psychodynamic psychotherapy principles to working with client’s complex relationship with money. Her award-winning book “Money on your Mind: the psychology behind your financial habits” is being translated in 8 languages.
Financial Psychotherapist and Author
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Maisoun Selim
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Maisoun Selim is the HR Director at Visa CEMEA with over 15 years of experience in FMCG and financial services. Maisoun is also a Certified Professional Coach, specializing in transformational coaching helping individuals with personal growth.
HR Senior Director at Visa, Career Changes at a Senior Level Mentor
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Anastasia Achilleos
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Anastasia Achilleos is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed holistic wellness practitioner with over 25 years of experience. Currently a celebrity facialist at Kintsugi, the world’s premier female space, Anastasia has worked with women across diverse industries, including film, fashion, wellness, hospitality, education, and corporate beauty. She has also served as a beauty ambassador for some of the world’s most renowned companies.
Award winning wellness holistic practitioner and celebrity facialist
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Sophie Heymann
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Sophie Heymann is the head of corporate events for Visa CEMEA and has been in the events and sponsorship industry for over 20 years deliverying for major activation including Formula One, FIFA World Cup and the Olympics. Sophie is also the co-chair and founder of Visa's Parents and Carers employee resource group and is a big advocate for equal opportunities to parents returning to work after leave.
Senior Director, Head of Events CEMEA at Visa, How to Return to Work After a Break Mentor
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Diana Dagher
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Diana Dagher is the Director of Solution Delivery at Visa Middle East, bringing over 17 years of dynamic leadership experience in the financial services industry, particularly in payment solutions. Passionate about driving transformational change, Diana empowers others and champions youth financial literacy initiatives. She firmly believes that fostering financial literacy among the younger generation can uplift entire economies
Director of Consumer Solutions at Visa Middle East
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Carmen Rotilio
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With nearly twenty years of experience as a manager in a multinational corporation, in 2006 she transitioned to coaching and since then, she has trained over 4000 managers internationally in three languages: Italian, French and English. She designs and delivers tailor-made workshops and training to support transformation and innovation in large corporates like EDF, Michelin, Burgess Norton, to name a few.
Founder at Leave Your Mark
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Irfan Verjee
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Based in Dubai, with over 20 years of leadership, consulting, and product development experience across 23 countries in Americas, EMEA and Asia. Have helped organizations grow 10X in revenue by transforming the sales culture from a product-led to a value-led approach for customers. By creating positive business outcomes for customers, achieved 3X increase in deal size, 80%-win rate.
UAE Country Transformation Leader at IBM
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Golnaz Bahmanyar
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Golnaz (Goly) is a Partner with Egon Zehnder, a top global leadership advisory firm. She leads the firm’s Consumer and Retail as well as Family Business Practice in the Middle East and is a trusted advisor to regional and multinational organizations on their most critical and senior leadership topics including CEO and C-suite succesion and transitions, as well as assessment and development of leaders and organizations
Partner, Egon Zehnder
Summit mentor, Leadership & Management
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Amna Raisi
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With 8 years of experience in the health and wellness industry, Amna (Amoon) has always had a passion for watching people get healthier and THRIVE. Whether it is through Coaching, Yoga, or Nutritional Therapy, Amna approaches health from a holistic perspective – where body, mind and soul are addressed equally. Her experience has taught her that this is a powerful approach not only to initiate change in one's life, but also to sustain it.
Certified Coach, Nutritional Therapist, and Wellness Mentor
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Aalia Thobani
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Aalia Thobani has been in the business of changing brains for the past 2 decades as a Senior Speech-Language Pathologist, Specialist in Learning Disabilities, Designing Your Life Coach for the Crunchmoms, and now as the CEO and Founder of The Brain Accelerator. She has a dual Masters in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Northwestern University, Illinois. Aaia passionately believes in unlocking the potential of every client and watching their confidence soar! She is up-to-date on recent research and intelligence and uses the latest technologies to help develop the most relevant and effective interventions.
CEO at The Brain Accelerator
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Mo O'Brien
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Senior HR Director with Leadership & Coaching skills and experience across a number of sectors - Oil & Gas, Banking, Advertising, Financial Services & FMCG. Experience with prestigious global blue-chip organisations both in the UK & Europe.
Senior Director - People Business Partner at Visa Inc.
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Tickets
All tickets include full access to the two-day summit, including masterclasses, speaker series, networking and mentoring experiences, in addition to a lunch buffet, refreshments, an invitation to our exclusive group channel and an incredible gift bag.
Regular
Valid until October 25
AED
2,500
for one person
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What is a Crunchmom?We define a crunchmom as a woman driven by success, understanding that it’s all about balance and boundaries. Crunchmoms was created for all women – moms and aspiring moms – to help them find time and space to invest in themselves.
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Great, how do I sign up?Easy! Sign up for our basic membership to get access to information about the Crunchmoms Community and limited access to the member’s area. Connect with us on Instagram or send a good, old-fashioned email to hey@crunchmoms.com. We’re starting out in the Middle East but welcome members from all over the world.
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Do I need to pay to be a member?We offer a monthly or annual membership that gets you unlimited access to our talks and events, and we’re planning to introduce value-packed upgrades in the near future. Our aim is to promote real female-led growth in the Middle East and beyond, so we’re looking at different ways to make that happen.
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What do you offer members?A whole lot, but it’s all about what YOU want. If you’re seriously considering a new job, we’ll give you access to exclusive talks for career-enhancing tips and tricks, and introduce you to other moms who can help provide the boost you need. If you want to open your own business and be your own boss, we’ll connect you to our star startup moms. We’re going back to basics, emphasising one-to-one connections within the Crunchmoms community of talented moms who are making it happen. We’re ALL here for you.
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Where can I find you?We host regular events every Monday at Tania’s Teahouse from 9:30 to 11 am, where members can co-work, listen to talks from the best in the business, or simply get connected to other amazing crunchmoms….and we have so much more lined up for you in 2022, so watch out for updates!
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Are kids allowed at your meetups?We really want you to use our time together to invest in yourself but of course, your children are always welcome. We’re still searching for kid-friendly co-working spaces so, at the moment, there’s limited entertainment for little ones.
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Are you open to collaborations?Of course. We’re always open to new ideas, partnerships and collaboration opportunities. We’re passionate about helping others, so if you feel the same, drop us a line at julie@crunchmoms.com.
The Schedule
Our Partners
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