The Growth Architect: HE Najla Al Midfa

HE Najla Al Midfa, Vice Chairperson of the Sharjah Entrepreneurship Center (Sheraa), has been at the forefront of cultivating the UAE’s entrepreneurial ecosystem for a long while now.

In fact, under her leadership as the founding CEO of Sheraa, the government-supported entity launched in 2016 with a mandate to build Sharjah’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, the center cultivated a portfolio of more than 450 startups that went on to collectively raise over US$290 million in investment, generating more than $274 million in revenue, and creating over 2,000 jobs in the process.

So, it didn’t come as much of a surprise when she was recently selected to be the Vice Chairperson and Managing Director of the Emirates Growth Fund (EGF), a growth equity platform launched by the UAE’s Emirates Development Bank (EDB) to accelerate the scale, resilience and global competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country.

The fund, which was announced in May at the fourth edition of Make it in the Emirates—an annual four-day event by the UAE government designed to encourage companies to develop and manufacture products in the UAE—will allow SMEs operating in priority sectors like manufacturing, food, security, healthcare, and advanced technology, to gain access to patient capital as well as strategic partnership oppor tunities. By targeting SMEs with investments ranging between AED10 million and AED50 million, EGF aims to play a key role in supporting the industrial transformation of the UAE and particularly the goals of Operation 300bn, the national strategy to raise the contribution of the industrial sector to GDP to AED300 billion ($81.7 billion) by 2031.

EGF is a growth equity platform launched by the UAE’s Emirates Development Bank (EDB) to accelerate the scale, resilience and global competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country, Pictured here in the center, from left to right, are HE Dr. Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, UAE Minister of Sports and Chairman of EGF, and HE Najla Al Midfa, Vice Chairperson and Managing Director of EGF, with their colleagues.

“EGF was created to solve one of the most persistent capital market failures in the UAE: the lack of institutional funding for scale-stage enterprises,” Al Midfa tells Inc. Arabia. “These are companies that have outgrown the venture ecosystem, but are not aligned with traditional private equity’s preference for control. They have built teams, validated models, and generated significant revenue, yet remain excluded from the capital that enables scale.” Here, Al Midfa points out that while SMEs represent 94 percent of UAE companies and employ 86 percent of the private workforce, they receive less than 10 percent of total lending. That mismatch, she explains, “is not just a financing inefficiency, it is a drag on innovation, productivity, and job creation.”

Which is precisely why the growth equity model was strategically selected for EGF, allowing founders to grow their companies without giving up equity. “We chose growth equity—specifically active minority investments—because it is the most aligned capital for this segment,” Al Midfa explains. “Founders want to grow without giving up control. They seek partners who bring more than capital: strategic insight, operating leverage, and patient conviction. EGF was purpose-built to meet that need. We are not here to fund scale. We are here to unlock it with conviction, not control.”

The aim, as Al Midfa explains it, is to provide SMEs in the UAE with long-term patient capital that will allow them to scale and become globally competitive. And to qualify for EGF’s offerings, SMEs must demonstrate strong growth potential and annual revenues starting at AED10 million ($2.7 million). However, Al Midfa also points out that revenue is just one of the factors considered by EGF, with the aforementioned figure acting as a threshold rather than a line in stone. “Our minimum is AED10 million in annual revenue, but great investments are defined by depth, not just scale,” Al Midfa says, while adding that the fund also considers other core attributes like alignment with the UAE’s national priorities, scalable architecture, and targeting founders who are building for more than just exits. Indeed, EGF’s choice to invest in industries like advanced manufacturing, food security, healthcare, and enabling technologies reflects its mandate to build for the future of the UAE. As Al Midfa puts it, these are sectors that “define the UAE’s future resilience. These are not investment themes. They are national imperatives.”

HE Najla Al Midfa, Vice Chairperson and Managing Director of EGF, alongside HE Dr. Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, UAE Minister of Sports and EGF Chairman; HE Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology; and HE Omar Al Suwaidi, Undersecretary of the UAE Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology.
When it comes to the scalability factor, Al Midfa specifies that EGF is targeting companies that have the potential to expand across markets, integrate deeper into their value chains, or transform through innovation. And for this, it is seeking out companies that are driven by more than just ambition, but instead have already built the operational maturity and strategic readiness that will allow them to scale up. Finally, when it comes to founders, she stresses that funding entrepreneurs with the right mindset is “non-negotiable.” “We back entrepreneurs building not just to exit, but to endure,” Al Midfa says. “Founders who want strategic challenge, not ceremonial support. That alignment of intent is what makes our capital catalytic.”

From Al Midfa’s perspective, EGF is a growth engine that is committed to investing deeply in the sectors that are set to anchor the UAE’s industrial future, and by partnering with founders and providing SMEs with post-investment support and access to markets, it is offering them the capital to accelerate their growth while protecting ownership. These core commitments—which include sector fidelity, founder partnership, and value creation—Al Midfa explains, are ultimately designed to advance the goals of the UAE’s Operation 300bn mandate. “This is not theoretical,” she adds. “It is designed in direct alignment with Operation 300bn’s goals: to localize production, build industrial depth, and expand the nation’s export capacity. EGF backs the firms that will define the UAE’s industrial future. From medtech and agritech to industrial automation and precision manufacturing, our portfolio reflects a national mandate. EGF isn’t just aligned with the future. It is building it.”

As for those looking to draw on Al Midfa’s experience while launching an investment vehicle in the region—particularly one that aligns with national goals—she offers this advice. “Start with a structural gap, not a fund structure,” Al Midfa says. “Define what is missing in the capital stack. Understand how that absence is holding back national priorities. Then, design your vehicle to solve for it—not just with capital, but with capability. In this region, the funds that endure will be those that align ambition with accountability. That requires fluency in policy, deep context on sector dynamics, and the discipline to resist copy-paste models from other markets. Returns matter. But relevance compounds. Build a platform that founders trust, institutions respect, and policymakers see as additive to the national agenda. The region doesn’t need more capital allocators. It needs capital architects—and we need more of them.”

Al Midfa adds that looking forward, the aim is to build an entity that will propel SMEs forward, redefining what UAE-born companies can accomplish. “Five years from now, we want EGF to be recognized as the platform that turned conviction into capability,” she says. “We want to see UAE companies exporting innovation, leading in their verticals, and creating jobs of the future. And we want it to be known that we were there before the inflection point—not just as financiers, but as partners who helped them scale with integrity. If our capital helped move the ecosystem from incrementalism to institutional growth, if we helped reset expectations around what UAE-grown companies can achieve, then we’ve succeeded. Our metric isn’t fund size. It’s the future we enable.”

Ripple Effect

HE Najla Al Midfa’s vast experience across consulting, entrepreneurship, and institution-building has provided her with a new perspective that allows her to better understand the tools and mechanisms required to build a thriving, outward-looking ecosystem.

“Every chapter [of my career] added a lens,” she tells Inc. Arabia. “Consulting gave me precision: the ability to break down complexity and design for scale. Entrepreneurship gave me proximity: an unfiltered understanding of what it takes to build under uncertainty. Institutional development gave me perspective: the insight that systems, policy, and capital must align to deliver transformation. EGF is the integration of these disciplines. We built a fund that can speak to founders, translate to policymakers, and deliver to investors. It is structured for execution, but designed for purpose. That duality is the heart of our approach.”

Al Midfa also credits her cross-sector board experience, which spans serving on the boards of publicly-listed companies like Dana Gas and Arab United Bank, in addition to institutions like the Emirates Development Bank, Sharjah Research, Technology and Innovation Park, Friends of Cancer Patients, and the Sharjah Education Academy, for giving her a unique perspective on how industries serve one another. “Serving across multiple boards has given me a multi-sector operating system,” she says. “You begin to see how medtech informs food security, how fintech reshapes procurement, how manufacturing redefines workforce pipelines. At EGF, we apply that systems lens deliberately. We evaluate each investment not only for direct growth potential, but for ripple effects across value chains. We invest not just for performance, but for adjacency. The most valuable companies are often those that unlock economic linkages others haven’t yet mapped.”

Inclusive Evolution

From investing to governance, HE Najla Al Midfa believes women are reshaping MENA’s business landscape by rewriting the rules of leadership, capital, and value creation.

In reflecting on her personal journey and how it has served her in her current roles, Al Midfa shines a spotlight on the evolving role of women in shaping the region’s investment and entrepreneurial landscape. According to her, “the most powerful shift is that women are no longer adapting to old paradigms; they’re architecting new ones.”

In fact, she points out that “across investing, entrepreneurship, and governance, women are redefining how value is created and how leadership is practiced. They are expanding the lens through which capital is deployed, risk is understood, and purpose is embedded. This isn’t about inclusion. It’s about evolution.”

She adds that this invariably benefits not just women, but the wider leadership ecosystem as well. “The region is stronger when leadership reflects the full spectrum of insight and experience. I am proud to be part of that transformation, and proud that so many women across the region are leading it with clarity, ambition, and purpose.”