Entrepreneur Mina Al Sheikhly On Navigating Entrepreneurship Without Compromise
For Al Sheikhly, success has never been about chasing trends or external validation—it lies in staying grounded while allowing both career and business ambitions to evolve.
At the 2025 edition of the Women Empowerment Convention (WE Convention) in Dubai, Inc. Arabia asked accomplished female leaders speaking at the event to reflect on the experiences that shaped their careers—and what they know now that they didn’t then.
Mina Al Sheikhly’s career began in interior design, before evolving into social media content creation, and, later, entrepreneurship with the launch of her UAE-based mascara brand, By Mina Al Sheikhly.
But ask Al Sheikhly if she ever envisioned her professional arc to lead her to where she is today, and she’d reply with a firm “no.” However, Al Sheikhly does point to a deliberate choice she made to always maintain her sense of self that has been guiding all her decisions along the way. “I stayed true to myself, always,” Al Sheikhly tells Inc. Arabia. “The only thing that led me to where I am today is that I did not change—and I did not let anything around me change me either.”
This is a principle that can be difficult to uphold, particularly in the domains that Al Sheikhly operates in, which are often shaped by trends, algorithms, and constant external pressure.
But it’s been a non-negotiable for Al Sheikhly, and that clarity of self does seem to have served her well—a detail that might strike a chord with others in similar positions today.
Pictured in the lead image is Mina Al Sheikhly, founder of By Mina Al Sheikhly. Courtesy of By Mina Al Sheikhly.
This article first appeared in the December 2025-January 2026 issue of Inc. Arabia. To read the full issue online, click here.
