Most women on earth will have to make financial decisions on their own at some point in their life, due to divorce or longer life expectancy. We therefore need to educate, enable and embolden ourselves – as well as our children – so that we can all own our financial independence. This episode is for people who want to learn about investing cheaply and/ or people thinking of entrepreneurship.

Nadine Mezher is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of award-winning Fintech start-up Sarwa, the first automated investment advisory platform in the Middle East – one that’s accessible from all over the planet. Sarwa is trying to make investing more accessible to the masses, through low minimum investment amounts and extremely low fees. Like other robo-advisory platforms, they’re democratising investing. And there is clearly demand: just 2 years into its existence, Sarwa has won loads of competitions and raised 3 rounds of funding…

Nadine co-founded Sarwa after years of being a retail consultant to large public and private sector clients. Prior to that, she was in fashion management and marketing across various industries. Nadine was named MENA Achieving Women 2019 by Entrepreneur Middle East Magazine.

What did we talk about? Initially, it was trees… I know it sounds weird, but this bit is going to interest & surprise you. It takes us a few minutes to get into investing: the mistakes that people typically make, and how we can avoid them using the 4 rules of investing. She had some data to back up what I knew anecdotally: that most everyday “financial advisors” underperform the market. We discussed her experience as an entrepreneur and the challenges she faces every day, both in business and as a mom. And finally, we talked about the ingredients of success as well as the failures along the way.

My favorite quotes of the episode were:

• “You only incur the loss when you pull out of the market”
• “I’m not someone who thinks that there’s one career path per person”
• “Failure is part of the learning process for me”

You can find Nadine on LinkedIn or at www.sarwa.co.

As mentioned on the show, we’d like to highlight some young women-owned start-ups over the 2019 Christmas holidays… Please email producer@rananawas.com between December 16^th & 23^rd a 30-50 second video telling us about your business. Two videos will be selected per week – four in total. Please keep the video snappy – and if you’d like some help creating it, check out my new YouTube video on crafting a badass Elevator Pitch.

Do keep an eye on our social media platforms as some changes are planned for 2020! If you enjoy the podcast and are an iTunes user, dropping us a rating and review would be the best Christmas present ever 😊

The team here wishes you a glorious festive season – you need it and deserve it. We’ll be back on air on Monday January 6^th. Happy Holidays!