Women Leading Change: Building Cultures of Empowerment and Inclusion

DUBAI / GULF TIME

Women leaders across industries are reshaping organisations through action, intentionality, and empowerment. They are redefining leadership by creating environments where performance, well-being, and growth coexist. From marketing and corporate advisory to live events and creative industries, these leaders demonstrate that meaningful change starts with culture, access, and visibility.
Surbhi Daga is bringing change to Nine Dots Marketing by making leadership practical and human in the way the organisation operates every day. This means setting clear expectations, encouraging open communication, and making it acceptable to speak about workload, burnout, and boundaries. Performance is important, but it should not come at the cost of well-being.
Surbhi leads by example by being transparent about priorities, respecting personal time, and showing that ambition and empathy can coexist. When leaders model balance and accountability consistently, organisational culture begins to shift.
This matters because workplace culture is shaped from the top and leadership behaviour directly influences how teams think, perform, and grow. Demonstrating that results and respect can go hand in hand helps teams feel more engaged and responsible for outcomes. A healthy culture improves retention, collaboration, and long-term performance. If even one young professional feels they do not have to choose between personal responsibilities and career ambition, then progress is being made.

Amreen Iqbal, Founder and CEO, Piece of You
Amreen Iqbal is intentional about building more than a business at Piece of You Jewellery. She is creating a platform where women are trusted with responsibility, encouraged to lead, and given the confidence to own their ideas. Growth comes from empowerment, so she ensures creativity is valued, voices are heard, and contributions are recognised at every level.
Amreen collaborates closely with female artisans and designers as true creative partners, ensuring their craftsmanship and perspectives shape the collections. She also mentors young women who aspire to enter the luxury and creative industries, sharing her journey openly so ambition feels achievable rather than intimidating.
For her, change begins with access, representation, and confidence. By creating an ecosystem where women are supported, respected, and fairly valued, Amreen is redefining what leadership and success look like in this space.

Cordelia Henry, Founder, Pearlescence
Cordelia Henry highlights that organisations often celebrate women for resilience and delivery, but delivery alone does not shape succession. Influence does. She has witnessed highly capable women being described as indispensable yet excluded from strategic decision-making. This gap is rarely about competence and more about perception, sponsorship, and relational visibility.
In her work with corporate leaders, Cordelia focuses on helping women move from being trusted executors to recognised contributors at the decision-making level. This approach is deliberate rather than louder or more aggressive. When women understand how performance, perception, and power intersect, they build cross-functional equity, sponsor others, and become part of the organisational memory rather than just its output.
For senior leaders, the key question is whether systems reward visibility as much as reliability. Sustainable growth depends on both.

Sini Illias, Event Manager, MICE Media LLC
Sini Illias is intentionally working to change representation in technical areas of her agency, such as AV production and show direction, which remain largely male-dominated. She encourages more women, including herself, to step into technical execution roles like sound engineering, lighting design, stage setup, and live production management.
This is not theoretical support. Sini and her team shadow live events, create hands-on learning opportunities, and prioritise confidence-building so women feel equipped, capable, and ready to lead on site. Change does not happen through observation. It happens through participation, and participation begins with access and belief.
When women are present in technical roles, the creative dynamic shifts. Diverse teams bring sharper problem-solving, stronger collaboration, and fresh perspectives to live events. Expanding representation is not only about inclusion but also about industry evolution. It enables career progression, builds long-term capability, and ensures the events industry reflects the diversity of the audiences it serves. Balanced teams deliver better experiences on stage.