Meet Roxanna Jaffer - CEO, Thought Leader, Motivator - video Dailymotion

Gulf News

See more at https://gulfnews.com/videos  Meet Roxanna Jaffer, CEO, Thought Leader, Motivator, Social Entrepreneur, Strategist and Change Agent. She is running the Holiday Inn on Shaikh Zayed Road in Dubai, but her story began with crunching numbers for Dunkin' Donuts in the UK #DubaiMillionaire #FemaleEntrepreneur #ChangeAgent

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00:00My name is Roxana. I'm a housewife turned entrepreneur in Dubai. Although I was a student

00:10turned entrepreneur in London and then I came here to join my husband and Dubai gave me an

00:18awful lot. I learned several trades which I did not know I could master. I just happened to be

00:26here. My husband was trying to sell the land of this hotel to the owner at that time who was a

00:32friend of ours and I just happened to just be with him and I could see that he was going to

00:39go to London soon and he wasn't ready with meeting all the suppliers and the nuances that go into

00:50building a hotel. So I was just lucky at the time and he says Roxana can you take over and I said

00:57sorry what do you mean? He says I'm going tomorrow and you've got to check out which of the doors

01:03we're going to be buying for the hotel and I said what do you mean which kind of doors? I mean he

01:09says well I think it's 310 rooms with two bathrooms so you're talking about a thousand doors maybe

01:15and we just need to know what quality they have to be. Before I knew it I was looking at the

01:23designs which was a wenge wood with zebrano but it's not the aesthetic look that you look at

01:30it's the fire rating and the quotations were coming from like maybe say 20-50 dollars a door

01:38to 500 dollars a door and I'm just giving you these ballpoint figures and how do you decide

01:46what is the right door for the hotel? So things like this that happen the structural cabling

01:53I had to learn about where that came from and why we needed it and which quality we should use

02:00and so before I knew it I started becoming like an engineer and I used to be working in a porter

02:06cabin wearing a hat because at the drop of a hat I would have to put on my the hard hat go up in

02:17a hoist in 50 degrees heat and it felt more than that and you go and check each of the

02:26floors that were being laid and to see whether there were any issues which I did not know much

02:33about but had to find the issues to be able to sort them out. So it was very interesting

02:39building a hotel I mean it's not very many people who get that opportunity and I did and I grabbed

02:46the opportunity with both hands because I was eager to learn. I'm an accountant turned maybe

02:53an architect not an architect but a engineer come then a designer because then there were

03:00nine restaurants in this building and we had to make sure that whatever we decided had to be a

03:06success. So being an accountant being budget savvy making sure that everything worked to a number

03:15we also had to make sure therefore that the restaurant was of the nature that would suit

03:23the population. So we did a feasibility and we learned that for the Indian population you needed

03:28to have a good quality Indian restaurant but it didn't have to be any of the you know

03:36how do you say off the street type of restaurant. So we prepared a restaurant called Gharana

03:41and Gharana is actually where the musical elite comes from in India and there are 110 musical

03:47elite and we picked four where the food was also renowned. So you know Jaipur, Lucknow, Punjab

03:54etc and each of these we did research went to India to find out as to what

04:02made that Gharana's food a success and how did which musical maestro came from that Gharana

04:09and so today Gharana is like nine years old and we've got live music every day food is renowned

04:17and alhamdulillah it's how can I say it's a household name. The restaurants have become

04:23the reason why there's football in this area in this marketplace where now we have I don't know

04:31how many hotels and in in Barsha alone with 14,000 keys. So we are competing with 14,000 keys to fill

04:39up this hotel every day because once you don't it's inventory gone down the drain. I don't know

04:45whether it's luck but I happen to become the a accountant for Dunkin Donuts whom you've heard

04:54right and so I got my lucky break there and I became a director in the company.

04:59The American company then left selling the shares to a British person Brian Perry with whom I

05:06partnered and then he set me up in business because he started going a little ory and I opened up a

05:13wholesale donut company which was in a way different to what Dunkin Donuts were doing and

05:20we were producing 14,000 donuts a night selling to Harrods, Selfridges, British Rail Stations

05:28places any coffee shop had my donuts in there. I didn't want to work anymore

05:37and so I came I sold everything in London to join my husband. I came as a housewife

05:41so saying okay I don't want to do anything technically and then of course you know you

05:46work so you get bored and I ended up with this hotel and we've got other in the group there are

05:53other hotels in Tanzania as well and which I've been there and given my two pennies bit to help

06:01but I love the Holiday Inn. It's been my baby like I know every stone and every

06:09you know piece of wood that's gone into it and as you called it labor of love it certainly has

06:14been that so if any woman had a little focus and they wanted to go and do something I think they

06:25can achieve. Women many a time I feel are a little scared to take that step and they also feel

06:34they like being shielded by their husband or their father and I think you really don't need

06:42to do that because I think you've got to be a little more assertive and you are able to

06:49actualize your potential and actualize your vision which should be able to which it can

06:56happen. I talk about this to a lot of women I like to empower them and I see many women

07:03who have achieved a lot of success in Dubai. I think Dubai the UAE is fantastic for women

07:11living under our leader's vision I think we are given that

07:18you know step to to be able to achieve and so yes but I think it is depends on the woman

07:25as much as it is on the family on the environment that they have to empower first. What I found was

07:32that here was a melting pot of cultures in the UK where I came from I was a brown girl

07:42and I was a female so not only did I have to fight discrimination because I was a female

07:48but also because of color. Here I didn't find that but what I did find was that like we were

07:54employing about 30 nationalities now each one came with a different mindset they were brought up with

08:00their own cultural nuances how do you bring them together so that was my biggest challenge so that

08:07we would all think together. I decided that we needed to bring in get all my staff to think

08:14about the other and look at trying to see how we can be united by knowing the differences

08:23and making sure that we work that the differences are a strength not not pull them down because of

08:30the culture or the religion or anything and so therefore right now what I can say is not only are

08:37we a green hotel we are a socially responsible hotel only because the staff are socially

08:46responsible. Today the millennial is the customer and what does a millennial want they want to know

08:54whether we are responsible they will want to partner with somebody who's helping others who

09:00is looking after the environment saying no to plastic and we do that making sure that we are

09:08not wasting any of our resources which means the food and water and so we get a lot of custom base

09:15because of what we put on our website so technically yes it's how innovative you are I think

09:23anybody any woman any man any youth coming out of college pressure even at not coming out of college

09:31can make a success but is success only gauged by the amount of money one makes that's one thing

09:37we have to think of for me is money with it being humble being able to give back to another

09:44environment that is the full package of being a success and I think if you're talking about

09:51economical success anybody is able to do that we women should aspire they should have a vision

09:58they should put the vision down on plotted on a paper and look at what they require to be able to

10:06actualize the vision and you know what like me there are so many women entrepreneurs who would

10:12not mind being mentors and I am a mentor to quite a few women and all they have to do is write

10:20and ask them be assertive and say are you able to help me guide me along the

10:25way because I'm new to the field and I don't think any woman would say no.

Meet Roxanna Jaffer - CEO, Thought Leader, Motivator

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