Dubai-based Entrepreneur Halima Jumani On Problem Solving, Life Defining Moments And Having It All
“Our ability to respond to the emotion of pain can change the way we think about everything in life. Either we succumb and dissolve to the negative emotion, or we forgive, heal and emerge stronger with faith and optimism…”
Born and raised in Dubai, the Founder and Director of Kibsons is the brains behind the game-changing UAE fresh-food delivery service. Now, the mother- of-three – who oversees finance and operations – welcomes a partnership with UK supermarket giant Sainsbury’s. Here, she shares her thoughts on the key to success to the values she admires most in others with Bazaar Belief.
Defining career moment?
Launching the first online grocery store within the fresh fruit, vegetable and meat wholesale industry in the UAE.
What part of your work are you most proud of?
Making healthy eating practical and affordable to thousands of households in the UAE.
Describe yourself in three words…
Passionate, perservering, resilient
What aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?
No two days at Kibsons are the same. There’s a new problem to solve every day, a new challenge, a new reason to strive harder, a new opportunity to learn and grow. The journey is healthy and happy. We are all super tired, but happy.
The key to success is…
Having empathy for others and going out of your way to help them when they need you the most.
Best advice for someone launching in your field?
The first thing as an entrepreneur is to overcome the mind and its fears, and be truly in an independent state of mind that is able to ‘give’ more than it ‘needs’.
What life-defining moment changed the way you think about everything?
Hurt. Our ability to respond to the emotion of pain can change the way we think about everything in life. Either we succumb and dissolve to the negative emotion, or we forgive, heal and emerge stronger with faith and optimism.
The person who changed your life and how?
My mum’s influence in my teenage years completely changed my life.
The values you most admire in yourself?
Curiosity, responsbility and humility
Which experience in life taught you the most about yourself and why?
Becoming a mother elevated me to a whole new level of responsibility. Finding a balance between my maternal and professional responsibilities was my biggest challenge along the years.
Favourite adage you life your life by?
“So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great good fortune.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg
What feeds your soul?
My spirituality and my sense of gratitude. I have a life partner who lets me be my own person. He loved me into freedom not cages, and that energy allowed me to follow my soul.
The values you admire most in others?
Integrity, initiative, lack of ego, with respect to growth and change.
What effect do you have on others?
Fear! Strange but true. The joys of being an operations leader…
What would you tell your younger self?
When you forgive, you heal. When you heal, you grow.
Can we have it all?
Yes, we can. It’s about how we define ‘all’ and what it really means to us.
When you were younger, what did you want to be?
I wanted to be a doctor and solve medical problems. Somehow I am still solving problems, by trying to make healthy eating practical and affordable to families.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s December 2020 issue.