Meet the Women Behind IWD SOUQ

IWD SOU

The Context

And the woman who understood it before anyone else did.

Dubai does not stand still. It reinvents. It accelerates. It attracts founders, dreamers, and builders from every corner of the world. And for thousands of Indian women who made this city their home, it became a place full of promise but short on belonging.

The Indian expat community in Dubai is one of the largest and most entrepreneurially active in the UAE. Women arrived with degrees, talent, and ambition. They launched businesses. They built careers. They raised families. But they did it largely alone, without infrastructure, without networks built for them, and without a platform that truly saw them.

The gap was not a talent gap. It was a community gap. And one woman decided to close it.

The Founder

The woman who turned a coffee chat into a movement.

Reema Mahajan did not set out to build an empire. She set out to feel less alone.

When she arrived in Dubai, she felt what many expat women feel: displacement. The weight of distance from home. The quiet loneliness of a new city that does not yet know your name. So she did what made sense: she gathered a few women, made coffee, and created a space to talk.

That gathering became a group. The group became a community. The community became Indian Women in Dubai, a platform of 160,000 women and counting, and one of the most trusted voices in the UAE's women-led economy.

Before all of this, Reema was something else entirely: a high-performing management consultant. IIT Delhi. IIM Bangalore. Twelve years at Bain and Company. A career that looked perfect on paper.

It was not burnout that made her leave. It was clarity. She realized that empowering women was not a side project. It was the work. So she walked away from the prestige, the salary, and the title. And she started over.

Her father came from nothing. He built a life through discipline, community, and a belief that business is ultimately about people. Reema carries that lesson into everything she builds. Business is not just about margin. It is about meaning.

The Movement

A safe space, a support network, and a platform for 160,000 women.

Indian Women in Dubai began as a Facebook group. It is now a fully realised ecosystem. Workshops, mentorship circles, networking events, brand partnerships, and a community culture built on one foundational belief: when women support each other, extraordinary things happen.

The IWD community does not just connect women. It builds careers. It launches businesses. It mentors new arrivals. It gives women their first audience, their first client, their first sense that someone in this city actually sees them.

Reema has been recognized as one of Asia's Top 100 Women Power Leaders. She received the Women Empowerment Award in 2023. Brands across industries partner with IWD because Reema has something no influencer can manufacture: genuine trust.

But ask her what she is most proud of and she will not mention the award. She will mention the woman who found her first customer through the community. The DM at 2 AM from someone who needed advice and got it. The 160,000 women who show up for each other every single day.

That is the real win.

The Next Chapter

Because visibility is not just an aspiration. It is infrastructure.

For years, the women inside the IWD community built beautiful things. Products. Services. Brands born from skill, passion, and late nights. They shared them in group chats and WhatsApp threads. They got occasional features and word-of-mouth referrals.

But they did not have a platform. A real one. A curated, trusted marketplace where their work could be discovered by the right buyers at the right time.

So Reema built one.

IWD SOUQ is not another e-commerce platform. It is the next chapter of a movement. It is the infrastructure behind the community. A place where women-led brands get the visibility they have always deserved, and where buyers in Dubai and beyond can shop with intention and with meaning.

Every product on IWD SOUQ comes from a woman who built something. Every purchase is an act of community.

Why It Works

This is not just a marketplace. This is a mission with infrastructure behind it.

Now Live

A curated marketplace of women-led businesses. Shop with meaning.

IWD SOUQ brings together the best of what women inside the IWD community have built. Fashion. Wellness. Home. Beauty. Services. Every brand on the platform has been curated. Every seller has a story worth knowing.

The platform is live now at iwdsouq.com. First-time buyers can use code WELCOME10 for 10 percent off their first order, a small welcome from a community that has been building toward this for four years.