Nyla Khan: The millennial mogul from Dubai who built an empire

Gulf News

Full Article Here: https://gn24.ae/87b16b9b0116000 See More Videos Here: https://gulfnews.com/videos  At 27, Nyla Khan is a successful entrepreneur. You might recognise her business, Kids World Nurseries, which is currently valued at a couple of million dollars. That's not all, however. Plans are in full swing to see these numbers rise to a whopping Dh100 million in the next five to eight years. #MillennialMillionaire #YoungCEO #Success

Transcript

00:00My name is Naila Khan and I am 27 and over the past 10 years my primary goal and mission has been

00:11working within the education space primarily because I believe that education is the tool

00:15to create kind of the positive social change we want to see. And so I've worked across five

00:20countries and four continents. I've worked in inner city schools in Brooklyn, working on youth

00:27advocacy programs. I've worked in Greece at a refugee camp building an early education

00:33environment there. I've worked in Brazil on educating men on sexual violence and I've worked

00:39in of course Dubai and India. But I think I was around 12 when I first came out to my parents as

00:48I like to say and told them my mother is Catholic, my dad's Muslim, they ran away and got married.

00:54So we grew up in an environment where we never really focused on one religion or one way of

00:59looking at the world and I was 12 when I came out to my parents and I said mom, dad there's

01:03something incredibly wrong because I used to watch a lot of Oprah Winfrey and Christiana Monpore

01:08because as a young girl you don't have many role models. The role models you have are models or

01:12actresses and they're beautiful and they're great at what they do but those are the only.

01:17So I came out to them and I told them I said I want to do something for children

01:23and women but I want to do it through broadcast journalism because I liked to speak a lot. I

01:28spoke too much. That was a huge problem for my parents and then because my parents were

01:34supporting me in my passion I landed up going to university in New York where I focused on

01:40gender and child development. I was such a like rebellious outspoken person but I realized that

01:46that's not how you get your point across. You know you can't just tell people you have to be better.

01:52You can't expect people to just save the world. You have to learn how to strategically communicate

01:57and so that's why I went into communications and then in the middle of all of that I was very

02:02unhappy because I had worked like I mentioned in non-profits my entire life and now suddenly

02:07I was in a corporate and at the same time my mother, you know she really wanted to expand

02:14but she was tired, she was getting older and she was struggling a little and so she said

02:21you know you have to do it and I said I want to be a teacher. I don't want to start a business

02:26you know and that's not me and then I kind of just did it because I was very passionate about

02:32the children and so I started, I was 23 at the time, I started the third nursery in 2016.

02:42I had no experience. I didn't know what a balance sheet was. I didn't, I wasn't even like a proper

02:49teacher at the time so I was operating and starting this nursery really with no experience

02:55except for the passion. I've made many mistakes but the one thing I would say that was really

03:02beautiful about that journey was consistently just you just have to believe in yourself.

03:08My dream when I since I was a young girl was I want to help as many people and when I say help

03:13I don't mean it in an idealistic way. I mean I really want to create systems and institutions

03:18that create impact for people you know whether it's and children are the most vulnerable people

03:22in our societies and schools and education that's a safe space for them. What if your home life,

03:30I can't, I can't say that I can control people's home lives but what we can do is provide a safe

03:35space for children to come where they can develop themselves, where they can find a safe space and

03:39where they can grow up then to create kind of the positive impact we want to see in the world.

03:43The idea as a leader is not to be in complete control. You shouldn't be because then you always

03:49have to be there. I think for me the definition of being a leader was to start something that

03:53could run itself. How could I train the teachers? How could I train the manager? How could I create

03:58systems that operated without me having to be there? So that was my job for like around a year

04:04and a half after which I started to consult with other people. So yeah I think the whole idea of

04:09the entrepreneurship journey was it was about, it wasn't about starting a business, it was about

04:13solving a problem and I think today we're consistently told oh why don't you become an

04:17entrepreneur, why don't you start a business, make your next, become the next unicorn, make your next

04:22hundred million but is what you're doing solving a problem? Did you start it because you were trying

04:28to solve a problem? And I think the most successful businesses are those that solve problems and

04:33honestly respond to the needs of people. It's not always been easy. People think that you're

04:40young and so you can't, you're not actually the boss. I've been mistaken for being the executive

04:44assistant many times which is fine, I don't mind as long as I can get, do what I have to.

04:50But I think the biggest challenge is being, is my age and I see it more so also because I'm a woman.

04:56Many times I have to try and assert myself like I have a huge pitch in the morning and I'm

05:02more worried because I've stayed up all night about whether I have my concealer so I don't look

05:05tired, you know, or I have to dress a certain way because if I wear certain colors or if I,

05:11you know, so one of the biggest challenges is age, is being a woman and being assertive

05:18and then third is not everyone has their best intentions, you know, not everyone does but like

05:25making sure that you're consistently confident, like you have to psych yourself, you have to like

05:30there's times if you go into my room and I'll show you every morning I wake up and I tell myself

05:34and my mom taught me this, she said always look at yourself and be like I can do this, I can do this.

05:39So it doesn't come overnight, it and that's why I said you have to consistently even when every day

05:45is different, right? Some days you get, let's say you're running a business, you have extremely high

05:51sales, the next day you have extremely low sales but you have to be resilient and you have to

05:55have a long-term vision. Having the long-term vision helps you with the short-term, you know,

06:01because if you know in three years this is where I want to be, the short-term failures don't feel

06:06that much and one thing I would say is never compromise on quality and your values for

06:14for a quick win. Quick wins will be your biggest fallback because what is your value as a

06:21company? Your reputation. If you compromise on your quality by cutting costs or by, you know, by

06:28honestly by being ingenuine, it can really harm your business. Whether you want to start a business

06:35or you want to do well in your career, you have to keep having a vision. That's what a vision is,

06:39it's a dream of being somewhere. You know, I've always believed my dreams are real. I've been a

06:44daydreamer growing up and I whenever I talk to like even if it's my younger sister or people I

06:49work with, I'm like, they'll say this is my dream but they're like, I don't know if I can get there.

06:53I'm like, no, no, you can. You just need to put it out there in the world and keep reminding

06:58yourself that you can, so yeah.

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