Laila Rahhall El Atfani

In this story

1. A collection before a company
2. Learning to lead, and to be led
3. Three platforms with different doors
4. The work behind an introduction
5. Inside the circle
6. Finding a voice and an income
7. A room of entrepreneurs and educators
8. An agreement at the beginning
9. Africa as a participant, not a footnote
10. What the screen made possible
11. The structure of a crowded day
12. Access rather than admiration

A collection before a company

In the account published by UAE Stories, Laila Rahhal El Atfani's first lesson in organising people came through a school collection of food and clothes for people in need. She remembered the effort as difficult and formative. It was a small undertaking beside the international networks that would later appear in her professional biographies, but it gives her story a more useful starting point than a list of titles. A need had to be recognised, other people brought into the effort, and donated resources directed towards someone else.

That account connects an early act of charity with her later interest in women's financial independence. The common thread is participation: helping someone become able to act, rather than leaving them on the receiving end of encouragement. Her public work now centres on Business Gate, Woman Business Circle and the I Am Africa platform. These are distinct projects with different audiences, but she presents them as related ways to connect people with knowledge, relationships and opportunity.

Learning to lead, and to be led

Her father appears repeatedly in her interviews. Speaking to Global Woman, she described being the eldest child and learning self-reliance, discipline and confidence from him. Yet independence was only part of the lesson. She also recalled learning how to work with her siblings and how to accept someone else's leadership. That combination helps explain why she returns so often to teamwork when asked about her own achievements.

UAE Stories adds a more specific memory: learning through her father's business as a child. In International Business Magazine, she again linked her father's encouragement with the confidence she wanted other women to develop before launching their own ventures.

This is where her mentoring argument becomes personal. She does not describe confidence as something a founder should simply arrive with. In her telling, it was cultivated through a relationship, example and repeated expectations. Woman Business Circle's emphasis on self-sufficiency and preparation follows that same logic. The mentor's task is to strengthen a person's ability to decide, while keeping them connected to people from whom they can still learn.

Three platforms with different doors

Business Gate is the commercial connection point in her public account. The supplied Humans of Globe feature describes introductions, business formation support, events and relationships linking business owners, executives and other stakeholders. A conference-organiser biography from Bosco similarly describes connecting clients around trading, franchising and financing opportunities between the UAE and other countries. These descriptions position her work around making relationships useful to businesses, rather than around running a single product company.

Woman Business Circle addresses a more defined audience. In her Arabian Business Timez interview, she described its purpose through networks, mentorship, investment opportunities and international visibility for women entrepreneurs and emerging leaders. I Am Africa places African enterprise, talent and investment opportunities at the centre of the conversation. Her stated intention is to connect that potential with a wider business community.

The three platforms describe different entry points into her network: a business seeking connections, a woman seeking access and support, or an African entrepreneur seeking a wider market conversation.

The work behind an introduction

When Global Woman asked how she facilitated partnerships, El Atfani began with assessing the situation, understanding present conditions and looking ahead. Her examples ranged from Business Gate Talks and BOSS Talks to women-focused work in art, technology, real estate and other fields.

Her explanation of cross-cultural work is more revealing than the length of that list. She spoke about language skills, learning local business practices, personal trust and respect for different approaches to hierarchy and decisions. In the later Timez interview, she returned to credibility, transparency, accountability and a shared long-term purpose. These are her own criteria for a relationship that can survive beyond its first enthusiastic meeting.

That emphasis fits a career organised around introductions. Bringing two people into the same room is only the visible beginning. Her stated method requires enough understanding of their circumstances to judge whether a relationship makes sense. It also leaves room for difference. She argues for clear communication and respect, rather than assuming that every counterpart will negotiate, decide or build trust in the same way.

Inside the circle

In her FINTECH.TV conversation with Rachel Pether at the World Investment Forum in Abu Dhabi, El Atfani explains the work inside Woman Business Circle in more detail. She begins with women's financial independence: helping a woman develop an income from her own work rather than remain dependent on someone else. She describes Business Gate as a meeting point for businesspeople seeking international connections, while the circle focuses more closely on the support women need to build their businesses.

The audiences she names are varied. They include women in technology, law, health and wellness, as well as women starting businesses from home. She describes bringing them together through networks and helping them consider opportunities beyond the local market. In the interview, she says this support is offered philanthropically, without asking the women for charges. That is her description of the work at the time of the conversation, rather than a current fee promise for every service associated with her platforms.

When Pether asks about roadblocks, El Atfani does not choose a single gap. She describes a circle that brings together people who want to work and learn, with others providing advice, guidance and mentoring. She also includes confidence and personal balance in that support. Her explanation moves between the practical needs of a business and the person who is trying to establish it.

Finding a voice and an income

One programme she names in the same conversation is Speak Up. She describes helping women who do not yet feel able to speak publicly learn to become speakers. The task is specific: giving someone a way to express herself, rather than assuming that an invitation to a professional room is enough to make her comfortable taking part in it.

Another programme, Money Talk, addresses the ability to earn from an idea or an existing skill. El Atfani describes meeting people who already do good work but do not know how to turn it into income. In her explanation, the programme is concerned with that missing connection. It sits close to the financial independence she identifies as Woman Business Circle's purpose.

She also describes Sunday gatherings where women discuss their goals and put their plans before the group. Participants help one another, and she sometimes introduces people whose work could be useful to each other. This is the recurring, small-scale work behind her broader language of networking: listening to a person's aim, noticing a possible connection and bringing the two sides together.

Her discussion of young people follows a related path. At the forum, she argues for teaching entrepreneurship so that future leaders have the knowledge to sustain their own lives. She links this with preparation rather than waiting for adulthood to create responsibility. In the same interview, the conversation ranges from women seeking income at home to young people learning how to approach their future.

A room of entrepreneurs and educators

One concrete public record places her among entrepreneurs and educators at De Montfort University Dubai's Women's Entrepreneurship Day event. The university's own public post names her as President and Founder of Business Gate, alongside business founders, education leaders and other participants. It is a useful example of the kind of cross-sector setting that appears throughout her work: enterprise and education meeting through a shared discussion of women's participation.

Her interviews help explain why that setting matters to her. She advises young entrepreneurs to keep learning, study the market and seek experienced guidance. She also argues that women should be given responsibility for important work, rather than only being encouraged from a distance. An event can create an initial meeting between those groups. The more demanding question, consistent with her own stated priorities, is what access and learning continue after the event ends.

An agreement at the beginning

A public post from her LinkedIn account records another specific step: an announced memorandum of understanding between Woman Business Circle and GBS TalentWorld. She described signing the agreement and linked it to the two organisations' third anniversaries. Her stated hopes were to build programmes, support more women and extend their reach internationally. The language looks forward, which is important to preserve when telling this part of her story.

Africa as a participant, not a footnote

El Atfani describes I Am Africa as a way to bring African potential into wider business conversations. In Global Woman, she named Youth and SME Builder, I Am Africa Talks, Art of Africa, Time to Invest in Africa and initiatives involving rural women and designers. Their range reflects her interest in enterprise alongside creative work, skills and the visibility of people whose opportunities may be limited.

UAE Stories reports that work with women and young people in rural settings, including places without dependable electricity or internet, was a particular source of satisfaction for her. That account introduces a useful tension into her enthusiasm for digital opportunity. Some of the people she wants to reach cannot be assumed to have the basic infrastructure that online business advice takes for granted.

Her ambition spans two kinds of access. One concerns entry into international networks and markets. The other concerns the resources required to participate at all. Her interviews express a desire to connect those worlds through knowledge and mentoring, placing Africa at the centre of her professional identity.

What the screen made possible

In Arabian Frontrunner, El Atfani described the pandemic as a period when she trained and mentored people online and opened routes towards online education through her platform. She also acknowledged the limits of what she could do while people were losing lives and livelihoods. That combination is more grounded than treating the move online as an uncomplicated success story. The screen allowed some conversations to continue; it did not remove every obstacle around them.

Her Global Woman interview develops that experience into a view of digital business support. She identified peer networks, short training formats, social platforms and e-commerce as possible ways for women to learn and find customers. At the same time, she called for cooperation among sponsors to reach women who remain digitally excluded. The practical concern is who can enter those channels, not simply whether the channels exist.

In Timez, she extended the argument to artificial intelligence, placing human judgement, creativity, ethics and emotional intelligence beside technical capability. Across the accounts, technology is useful to her when it expands participation. It is not presented as a substitute for the relationships around the person using it.

The structure of a crowded day

Her Business Tabloid interview offers a quieter view of the person behind the public network. She described waking early, beginning with meditation and prayer, and considering her priorities at home before going to the office. Meetings with employees and the team involved client strategies, events and activities connected with women. She described a demanding working week, with family receiving her attention again at the end of the day.

The public meeting sits beside team discussion, preparation and competing responsibilities. In Global Woman, she described managing different ventures as parallel lines, allowing projects to advance without crossing into one another.

Her lighter interests are also sociable and reflective: conversation, coffee, time with women, art and books. These details resist the idea that the network is only a professional instrument. She speaks of learning through people and culture as well as through formal business activity. The work and the interests overlap around curiosity, but her account also makes room for family and private reflection outside the public role.

Access rather than admiration

Asked about barriers facing women, El Atfani has named capital, mentoring, networks and entry into decision-making circles. In Business Tabloid, she placed those barriers in social systems and expectations, rather than in a woman's identity itself. In Timez, she argued that talent was not the central problem; access to opportunity was. That distinction links her personal mentoring story with the platforms she later built.

Her response is not confined to telling women to be more confident. She calls for financial inclusion, support for women-led enterprises, meaningful leadership responsibility and experienced guidance. At the same time, her advice to founders remains demanding: understand the market, choose partners carefully, plan, learn and take ideas into implementation. Encouragement and preparation sit alongside each other in her account.

The measure she proposes is economic participation and the ability to act, rather than visibility alone. An introduction should lead towards useful knowledge, a stronger decision or a genuine opportunity. That is the purpose running from the early charity collection through the business rooms she now enters: bringing people together in a way that gives someone else more room to move.