President, Dawood Global Foundation & LADIESFUND
| Topics: Business & Finance, Charity & Humanitarian |
| Interview Date: December-20-2011 |
| Extraordinary Insights: "Be yourself and know that you can do anything. Set aside 'me' time because you will be able to love and energize each moment." |
Audio-only version:
Tara Uzra Dawood is President of Dawood Global Foundation and serves on various boards and Advisory Councils of eminent organizations throughout the world, particularly those focused on the rights of women and children. She’s a recognized World Authority on entrepreneurship and particularly Women Entrepreneurship having been an invited keynote speaker at conferences in Sweden, Chile, UAE, Malaysia, US, Canada, Pakistan, UK, Finland and France. Tara will be speaking as the authority on Entrepreneurship at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Turkey December 2011.
She was the first female CEO of a publicly listed financial institution in Pakistan which she founded with Asian Development Bank; Tara grew her company to become an industry leader in managing Mutual Funds with top payouts for its unit holders.
Tara has studied at Cornell and Oxford Universities and Harvard Law School. She helped found Athena, the all-female debating society within the Oxford Union Society to encourage more women to speak and debate at this age-old institution. She participated as a speaker on the Extreme Entrepreneurship tour of American Universities to inspire more students to start their own businesses. She often speaks at conferences on topics such like Entrepreneurship, Islamic Finance and Women and Money, a topic that is very close to her heart as it is her vision to not only see every woman in the world having financial security, but to celebrate, acknowledge and encourage women to extraordinary things with their entrepreneurship capabilities. She is President of 85 Broads Toronto, was President of the Cornell Club of Toronto, founded LADIESUND® Women’s Entrepreneurship Awards (the first awards in Pakistan that honour women), LADIESUND® Entrepreneurship Conferences, LADIESUND® Women of Influence Networking Lunches, LADIESUND® Magazine, LADIESUND® Internships, LADIESUND® Mentorships and LADIESUND® Scholarships & Fellowships. She has spearheaded Dawood Global Foundation to having over 100 partners including multi-nationals (Unilever, Nokia, GSK, Roche, Nestle, DuPont, Johnson & Johnson, et al.), financial institutions (Khushhalibank Ltd., First Women Bank Ltd., NAFA, HBL Asset Management, et al.) SMEs (Raintree Spa, HobNob Cafe, Canvas Art Gallery, et al.), institutions (Karachi Stock Exchange, SECP, HEC, Women's Chamber of Commerce, CIPE et al.), educational institutions (BSS Foundation, Harvard Business School/All World, IBA), Consulates (Swiss, US, British, Turkish et al.), foundations (final contract stages Cherie Blair Foundation) et al.
Tara is an avid reader and traveler, as well as a popular columnist and freelancer for several publications including The Friday Times (where she is “Girl Friday”), Dawn newspaper, Libas International Magazine, DelectablyChic!, LisaLiving.ca, 85Broads and The Toronto Star.