Most of the time, Almaha Almuhairi is either the youngest in the space, the only female, or the only Emirati. Sometimes, she’s all three.
It’s a position that might easily feel isolating– however the INSEAD MBA graduate has turned that into a power relocation, something that may involve a childhood that revolved around computer systems and plants. She was not allowed to use computers as a kid– but went on to pursue computer scienceAlmuhairi matured in a home where computers were, till her 12th birthday, strictly off-limits. Her parents, items of a more cautious generation, even composed letters to her school to excuse her from computer system class.
The outcome was predictable: she ended up being even more curious. Obsessed, even. At one point, she took apart her family home’s hulking desktop just to put it back together– within hours, by herself.
Her daddy saw. The restriction versus computers quietly dissolved.
That early instinct to break things and put them back together again would specify her entire future. She even went on to study computer technology at university.
However someplace between the lecture halls and the strain she felt from excessive blue light, she saw something: she was investing 16-plus hours a day looking at screens.
She needed a hobby that got her hands unclean. She attempted art. She tried sports. Then a childhood memory emerged. She had actually liked growing things. So, she picked up gardening again– however this time it wasn’t decorative plants. It was food.
How a pandemic roof garden blew up into a serviceWhat started as an individual experiment on her roof throughout the pandemic ultimately ended up being a viral minute. She ‘d shared a quick video with friends showing how she ‘d turned the area into a greenhouse … and it spread method beyond her group chat. Even government authorities connected.
Having the ability to grow food in the UAE is a big deal. This is a nation withoutfood security. Over 85% of its food is imported which suggests whenever there are interruptions to worldwide supply chains, cost, and exchange rates, it’s difficult to access to enough safe and healthy food.
The UAE’s food fragility is most likely exacerbated due to the Israel-Iran war, as the closure of the strait of Hormuz is more magnifying threats of food lacks. Almuhairi had actually been preaching about this for many years. She signed up with competitors after competition during her undergraduate studies– start-up weekends, bootcamps, pitching occasions. In 2015, she won the prestigious Believe Science national competitors, pitching a clever home fridge developed for growing microgreens. She did it without a university representative, almost got expelled for missing a week of class to go to, and ended up getting encouragement from the Crown Prince of Dubai himself.
Business (Mahaya’s Farm) that emerged from that roof video is now 5 years of ages. Her soil product, Mahaya’s Super Potting Mix, has actually been best-in-category given that its launch. She even has a patented item, the TerraPod, a pot that’s tech-enabled and designed to improve plant development.
In any case, Almuhairi has built an online-first business model from the ground up, targeting home growers like herself at a time when the world had pulled away indoors and retail foot traffic had evaporated. It was a tactical bet that paid off.
So, why the need to pursue an MBA still?After years of starting and running endeavors, alongside a stint at Accenture as a management expert, Almuhairi decided that surprised some people: she registered for INSEAD’s MBA programme.
The majority of MBA candidates get here wanting to break into consulting or finance. Going against the grain, Almuhairi got here wanting to leave speaking with behind completely.
Although she currently had experience as a creator, she was truthful about what she did not have: official company foundations. She understood ROI, read her own invoices, handled the numbers.
But she desired the credibility and the vocabulary to stand in front of investors and VCs– people who had questioned her qualifications, who had actually questioned aloud how someone without an agriculture background and without an organization degree could lead an agri-tech business.
An INSEAD MBA would provide her that extra credibility– and after that some.
The choice of school was likewise purposeful. An one-year programme with schools spanning Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, INSEAD lined up specifically with her five-year plan. She had no interest in programmes anchored in the US, as her business was rooted in the Gulf and targeted towards international markets that mirror the nations that INSEAD’s mate come from.
Being the woman in the space Almuhairi finished in July 2024. As her company, Mahaya’s, is still in the building stages, she has actually chosen to continue with a business job and is operating at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Technology, Almuhairi notes, is famously male-dominated. Farming presents a different paradox: the United Nations approximates that the majority of the world’s farmers are women, yet it is males who disproportionately gain the economic rewards.
As an agri-tech creator, this leaves Almuhairi in a distinct position.
She has long experienced the double-edged truth of showing up as a female in STEM. At early bootcamps and competitions, she was sometimes chosen not entirely on merit but because organisers wanted female representation. She resented it.
She didn’t want to be a token– she wanted to walk into spaces that had other women in them.
That said, she is pragmatic about benefit. In the UAE today, she argues, ladies in professional and entrepreneurial contexts frequently hold structural benefits over their male peers. After all, males deal with mandatory military service after graduation, while government initiatives are actively funneling resources toward ladies in STEM. She takes none of that for approved, but she does not apologise for it either.
You take the advantages readily available to you, she states, and you build from there.
Her advice to women aiming to start companies is typically direct: do not engineer an issue to fix. Take a look at your own life. Take a look at the spaces that frustrate you daily, the ones that guys around you may not even notice.
The best businesses, she believes, are constructed by people who have actually lived the issue– not by people looking for one unnecessarily simply to be a founder.
Almaha Almuhairi is still, often, the youngest in the space, the only female, the only Emirati. However she’s also, progressively, the one setting the program.