Q and A with Michelle from Dubai, United Arab Emirates
“…I tell my children every day: “You do you! Do not care about what others think.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: Last year, I started a management consulting agency that focuses on business process management and organizational efficiency. I wanted to start my own business for a longer time and within consulting but wasn’t sure what area to focus on.
During COVID-19, as for many others, I did a lot of reflection on my career in startups and corporations and saw a clear path ahead. In the general span of my career, I have always been drawn to bigger improvement projects and implementation of digital transformation and worked with these as my passion projects. Hence the most obvious choice for me was to start a consultancy that does exactly that!
Optimer is a boutique Scandinavian business process management and organizational efficiency consultancy. We operate with a client-centric and transparent approach, our team of 25 expert specialists (including contracted professionals) ensures personalized attention to your unique needs.
Our services include Process Mapping, Process Improvement, CRM/ERP optimization, SaaS implementation, and sustainable practices integration. We work with you as a trusted partner for driving impactful change.
Besides my professional work, I realized the need to also do something more expressive and different and found I have a love of baking and making customized cakes! This helps me to take my mind off stress in general as I focus completely on the creative process. It always amazes me what I have made. I am self-taught and would love to take some professional courses, should time permit.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I am from a mixed family of a Danish mother and an Indian father, born in Copenhagen, Denmark. When I was three years old, my father realized that school started much later in Denmark than in India and, therefore, moved the family to India so I could attend school. I remember snippets of this early time in my life, and it’s not with fondness. Yearly, we bounced back and forth as one parent would be homesick. Later in my teens, when my parents divorced, I settled in Copenhagen.
Living in such different countries gave me a great perspective and started me off on my expat mindset and journey. Since then, I have lived in Melbourne, Australia, where I did my bachelor’s, worked in London and Cambridge, managed a software company in Dubai, relocated to Saudi where I lived in both Riyadh and Jeddah and had my two kids, moved to Brussels where I worked for Mastercard, and then lastly back to Dubai.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: Take chances and make mistakes! Lots of them. If you really feel for something, do it! Do it no matter how unlikely it may seem. Unlikely things can happen all the time. And like I tell my children every day: “You do you! Do not care about what others think.” It’s our daily mantra. I wish someone had been whispering or shouting this in my ear when I was young and naive.
Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A: To believe in oneself and stand up for yourself and other women that need it. Create equality in all aspects needed.
To be honest, I have a love/hate relationship with this word [feminism] as it serves as a constant reminder that we are still so far from where we ought to be. Being Scandinavian where there is a bit more equality when it comes to parenting, maternity/paternity leave, etc, and a different culture overall, living now in the Middle East for eleven years, I see that things are moving but very slowly.
I decided that I want to be a bigger part of the solution and am doing what I can to support women. I mentor young women and female entrepreneurs so that they can move forward in their businesses and ventures. Also, as the CEO of Optimer Consulting, under UN Women and UN Global Compact, I am a registered signatory for the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs).
The WEP is a set of Principles offering guidance to businesses on how to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace, and community. Established by UN Women [https://www.unwomen.org/en/partnerships] and UN Global Compact, the WEPs are informed by international labor and human rights standards and grounded in the recognition that businesses have a stake in, and responsibility for, gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Thank you for reading! Please feel free to connect on LinkedIn, follow me on other social media, and get in touch if I can help with mentoring or taking your business to the next level.
Optimer consulting:
https://www.optimerconsulting.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/optimerconsulting/
https://www.instagram.com/optimerconsulting/
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