We discuss the importance of supporting others with Owner and Founder of Moi Bella Lounge, MONA KAIKSOW.
As the Owner and Founder of Moi Bella Beauty Lounge, you are able to empower so many females throughout the beauty and wellness industry. Tell us why this is so important to you and your role.
As the only girl in the family of four brothers, it was really challenging for me to prove that I could start my own project and succeed in it and show them that I can handle it, so I had to always empower myself and work really hard to get this far.
I want the younger girls to use me as an example that they can do it too if they put their minds into it. As a business owner, I always view my staff as equal to me, I want them to feel confident enough to know that they can always enhance their capabilities for their careers.
We are all for lifting other women up and fixing each other’s crowns, how do you embrace this mantra?
I always hire fresh graduates, and I won’t bat an eye when people say that they don’t have job experience, as they are used to learning and have a great enthusiasm and workplace manner. This makes me more than happy to train them to assist them to gain the right qualifications and skill set that they need to be working at Moi Bella Beauty Lounge – I want to be the one that helps them see that there are no limits to learning and being heard. Having a HR background helps me in this leadership role, to see potential and encourage opportunities. I know how important it is to be comfortable within the environment and people you work with, so having an honest policy with my employees is important; they are comfortable to tell me when they are facing any challenges and we can work towards the solutions.
“She always taught me to support people and not bully them, see them as equal, and especially with being a Muslim woman, she taught me to always speak and stand up for myself.”
Tell us what female empowerment means to you.
I want every girl to know that her voice can change the world, and it’s never a competition. I read this quote once, ‘a flower does nothing to compete with the flower next to it, it just blooms’ and I stand by this completely. We are all trying to succeed and everyone is different with alternate visions of how they want things to happen. Imagine if we were all allowed an opportunity to pursue those visions and succeed, how happy and magical the world would be. To me female empowerment is knowing that you are indeed capable of having a different idea, having hope, and having the chance to showcase that idea and pursue it. It is the freedom of thinking and being.
Every woman deserves to be spotlighted for greatness, name someone who has impacted your approach to life, and strengthened your position as a strong female in Bahrain. What did they do to help you through your personal journey?
This question is making me emotional, my dearest mother has always believed in me ever since I was a kid, the support and guidance was always there, she would guide me through everything I have been through in my life. She always taught me to support people and not bully them, see them as equal, and especially with being a Muslim woman, she taught me to always speak and stand up for myself.
Knowledge is power. What challenge have you overcome as a female and how did this mould your approach to everyday life?
I graduated in 2011 from university with my bachelor’s degree, in 2012 I started thinking about taking the next step and doing my masters but never got around it. By 2016 I was accepted by the university I applied for and for my salon’s CR! I felt stuck in the middle of choosing between a career and an achievement, I was really stressed and discussed the matter with my dad; he told me to choose between one of them to stop stressing. I chose to do both, and I was already working somewhere else, somehow I managed to balance between all of those with believing in myself. Had I not chosen to pursue opening the salon along with my studies, then I don’t know how things would’ve turned out.
@monakaiksow