Dubai once again took centre stage in the global conversation on women’s leadership and empowerment as the WE Convention (Women’s Empowerment Convention) convened on November 1–2 at the Atlantis The Royal. Organised by the WE Council, the event drew over 100 world-renowned speakers and 2,500 participants from more than 100 countries, solidifying its position as a prominent women’s empowerment event.

Tickets for the convention sold out nearly a month in advance, a strong signal of the growing global appetite for conversations around financial independence, career growth, and leadership among women. Delegates represented key regions including the UAE, wider Middle East, the UK, the US, CIS nations, and the European Union.

“This year’s WE Convention has exceeded every expectation, in scale, impact, and spirit,” said Mila Semeshkina, founder of the WE Convention. “We have grown not only in numbers but in the depth of dialogue, the excellence of our speakers, and the engagement from our global audience. Our voice is now heard by over a billion women worldwide. Each year, the WE community becomes stronger, more ambitious, and more united in shaping the future of women’s leadership.”

Read more-Rewriting the rules: How Mila Semeshkina is leading the women’s power revolution

Held under the theme “ALL IN: Career, Money, and Life,” the 2025 edition spotlighted financial independence as a catalyst for personal and professional empowerment. The two-day programme featured an impressive lineup: 24 keynote sessions, 14 industry roundtables, 6 workshops, 4 topic-specific meetups, and 42 mentorship meetings. The discussions ranged from redefining women’s roles in global business to building brands, nurturing innovation, and exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping entrepreneurship.

Anna Wintour on leadership, collaboration, and balance

Among the most anticipated sessions was a keynote from Dame Anna Wintour, chief content officer at Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue. Wintour shared candid insights into her leadership philosophy and the challenges that persist for women in power.

“Of course, the glass ceiling still exists for women. And we just have to keep knocking on the glass, we will get there,” said Wintour. “We have to use our voices and our platforms. We have to stand up for what we believe in.”

She underscored the importance of surrounding oneself with trusted, capable teams. “As a leader, I believe in surrounding myself with people I trust and genuinely enjoy working with, individuals who bring diverse ways of thinking to the table. I empower my team to make their own decisions; I don’t micromanage. My strength lies in recognising talent and good ideas in others,” she shared.

Wintour also touched on work-life balance as essential to sustained success. “Weekends are very important to me, a time to unwind, read, play sports, walk my dogs, and go to the theatre. That balance is so important, and I encourage my team to do the same,” she concluded.

Candace Bushnell champions financial independence

Equally interesting was a conversation with Candace Bushnell, international best-selling author and creator of the iconic Sex and the City series. Bushnell reflected on how her work continues to inspire women to define success on their own terms.

“Even as a little girl, I realised I didn’t think the way women were expected to think,” Bushnell said. “In the 1960s, women were encouraged to pursue only a few professions. I wanted to show women a different way to think and a different way to look at their lives.”

She emphasised financial empowerment as the cornerstone of women’s autonomy. “The most important thing is being independent and making your own money,” she said. “Always have some part of yourself you can rely on. My one piece of advice to young women would be simple: focus on building your confidence and independence. Financial empowerment gives women freedom, security, and choice.”

Bushnell closed with a call for solidarity among women: “Women need to come together more to lift each other up. We’re stronger when we stand side by side and celebrate each other’s success.”

Global leaders and industry titans share the stage

The convention featured a powerhouse roster of leaders across government, business, and the arts. Distinguished speakers included Ohood Al Roumi, UAE minister of state for Government Development and the Future, and Hala Badri, director general of Dubai Culture & Arts Authority.

From the corporate world, notable figures included Dr Maky Zanganeh, US self-made billionaire and co-CEO and president of Summit Therapeutics; Amira Sajwani, managing director of Sales and Development at DAMAC Properties; Mary Gukasyan, managing director at Kraft Heinz Middle East and Africa; Mirna Arif, general manager for Microsoft Middle East and Africa Growth Markets; Alina Nazarova, director of Premium and Private Banking at Alfa-Bank; Nisha Jagtiani, group director of Landmark Group; and Tina Ghafurian, COO of Omorfia Group.

Sports and culture were also well represented, with Nawal El Moutawakel, Olympic champion and vice president of the International Olympic Committee; Svetlana Kuznetsova, Grand Slam tennis champion and sports-fashion designer; Joelle Mardinian, celebrity entrepreneur; and Angela Orlov, co-founder and head of design at ORLOV Jewelry.

A glamorous night of networking and culture

Adding to the momentum of the two-day summit, WE Night on November 1 stood out as one of Dubai’s most glamorous social events of the season. Hosted at the Michelin-acclaimed estiatorio Milos at Atlantis The Royal, the evening combined high fashion, art, and business networking.

Guests enjoyed red-carpet arrivals, an exclusive ORLOV Jewelry fashion show, a Schiaparelli Couture presentation, live music by Jodok Cello, and a gourmet dinner that encouraged top-level networking among business and creative leaders. The event underscored the WE Convention’s dual focus on empowerment and community, fostering professional growth while celebrating cultural excellence.

The WE Convention 2025 was made possible by a roster of partners representing diverse industries and sectors, including ORLOV Jewelry, Eywa by R.Evolution, Lectera.com, Kraft Heinz, Omorfia Group, META, LinkedIn, Oracle, Migems Dubai, La Biosthétique, OKX, Shiseido, Philip Morris International, Aeon & Trisl, AM Wealth, LITT, LETOILE, Keto Kartel, Divinom, Milena Aesthetic Clinic, Privé7 Dubai, the female factor, and Women in AI.

As the convention concluded, its message resonated powerfully across sectors, women’s empowerment is not a movement, but a sustained global force driving economic growth, innovation, and leadership. With Dubai’s growing influence as a global business hub, the WE Convention has cemented its role as a platform for shaping the future of women’s participation in the global economy.

Microsoft said it would invest $15.2bn in the UAE by 2029 to advance artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure, develop local digital talent, and deepen technology cooperation between the UAE and the US.

Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, was briefed by Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith on the company’s plans to expand AI infrastructure and training programmes in the UAE, Abu Dhabi Media Office reported on November 3.

“This is not money raised in the UAE. It’s money we’re spending in the UAE,” Smith said, adding that the investment aims to bring together “technology, talent, and trust.” He said Microsoft’s focus was on equipping local talent to develop and deploy AI that aligns with regional needs.

The investment builds on Microsoft’s partnership with Abu Dhabi-based AI firm G42 and underscores growing US-UAE technology ties. G42 CEO Peng Xiao said the collaboration would “advance the frontiers of AI across industries” and “establish a new standard for cross-border collaboration rooted in trust.”

The plan includes more than $7.3bn in spending between 2023 and the end of 2025, comprising a $1.5bn equity investment in G42, over $4.6bn in capital expenditure on AI and cloud data centres, and $1.2bn in local operating costs.

From 2026 through 2029, Microsoft expects to spend an additional $7.9bn, including $5.5bn in further data centre expansion.

The company has secured export licences to import advanced NVIDIA GPUs into the UAE, providing over 80,000 A100-class chips for AI workloads.

Microsoft to bridge skill gap with training

Microsoft said it would also train one million people in the UAE by 2027, including 120,000 government employees and 175,000 students, and has opened a Global Engineering Development Centre and an AI for Good Lab in Abu Dhabi.

The company and G42 co-founded the Responsible AI Future Foundation this year alongside the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence to promote ethical AI practices. Both nations have also signed an Intergovernmental Assurance Agreement to ensure compliance with cybersecurity, data protection, and export controls.

Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, secretary general of the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council, said the move “reflects our shared commitment to harness AI for sustainable growth, economic diversification, and opportunity for future generations.”

Read: ADNOC, Masdar, XRG, Microsoft to deploy AI across energy, data centre ops

Bupa CareConnect, the healthcare delivery arm of Bupa Arabia, used its Platinum Sponsorship of Global Health Exhibition 2025 to underscore its expanding role in Saudi Arabia’s healthcare transformation. The company’s participation reflected a clear objective: to demonstrate how an integrated, patient-centric ecosystem—powered by digital innovation and human care—can accelerate the goals of Vision 2030. Through its initiatives, Bupa CareConnect continues to redefine how healthcare is delivered, connecting digital, home, and clinical services into a seamless, data-driven experience designed to enhance accessibility, efficiency, and wellbeing across the Kingdom.

Mohamed El Missaoui, chief executive officer, Bupa CareConnect, said: “Through our presence this year, we aim to showcase our journey in building a fully connected healthcare ecosystem that brings together all medical services within one digital framework centered on the patient.”

The event, one of the Middle East’s largest gatherings of healthcare professionals, provided the company with an opportunity to engage directly with national and international leaders, experts, and decision-makers. “The event also provides an opportunity to engage directly with national and international leaders, experts, and decision-makers, sharing our experience in digital transformation and medical innovation, all in alignment with Vision 2030’s goal of achieving a more efficient, sustainable, and human-centered healthcare system,” El Missaoui added.

Expanding a digital-first, integrated model

Bupa CareConnect’s participation at Global Health focused on consolidating its position as a strategic partner in shaping Saudi Arabia’s healthcare future. “Our primary goal is to solidify Bupa CareConnect’s position as a strategic partner in shaping the future of healthcare in Saudi Arabia,” El Missaoui explained. “We continue our journey of evolution into a fully integrated healthcare ecosystem delivering digital and on-site medical services.”

The company aims to deepen collaboration with both government and private-sector organisations, expand the network of Bupa Clinics at client premises, and highlight Bupa CareConnect, a model that combines advanced technology with human care to deliver a seamless, efficient, and compassionate healthcare experience.

Bupa CareConnect’s unified digital framework is central to this vision. It connects every stage of the healthcare journey—from consultation to diagnosis, treatment, and recovery—while eliminating administrative complexity. The platform has already facilitated over 400,000 digital consultations through its 24/7 virtual clinic, staffed by licensed physicians who provide instant consultations and digital prescriptions.

Complementary services such as home care, laboratory testing, vaccinations, prescription renewals, and home medicine delivery extend convenience and continuity of care. A specialised medical and technical team leverages artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to manage chronic conditions more effectively, improving outcomes and enhancing members’ quality of life.

Aligning with Vision 2030’s transformation goals

El Missaoui emphasised that Bupa CareConnect’s model operates in harmony with the Health Sector Transformation Program under Vision 2030. “The company applies these goals through a digitally unified model that connects healthcare services under one umbrella, increasing operational efficiency and supporting better health outcomes,” he said.

By investing in telemedicine, digital clinics, home healthcare, and AI-based predictive care, Bupa CareConnect is helping shift the national healthcare system from reactive treatment to proactive prevention. This aligns with the Kingdom’s wider emphasis on accessibility, sustainability, and data-driven health management.

The company’s booth at Global Health 2025 provided an interactive demonstration of these principles in action. Visitors explored innovations including the Digital Clinic, enabling 24/7 consultations with instant prescription delivery; Bupa @Home, offering home-based medical services across 10 cities—double that of its nearest competitor; and Bupa Clinics at client premises, which bring complete healthcare solutions directly to workplaces.

New physical centers in Riyadh and Jeddah, equipped with MRI, laboratories, physiotherapy, and pharmacy services, illustrate how Bupa CareConnect integrates digital, home, and on-site care into one connected experience.

Strategic partnerships are a cornerstone of Bupa CareConnect’s expansion. The company plans to sign new collaboration agreements with leading national institutions during Global Health 2025, following partnerships already established with the Public Investment Fund (PIF), SABIC, National Housing Company (NHC), Savola Group, Alinma Bank, and the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD).

These alliances support the rollout of Bupa Clinics at client premises, enabling employers to provide comprehensive medical services on-site—including general medicine, physiotherapy, occupational health, and wellness programs—while promoting employee wellbeing. “Through this, Bupa CareConnect aims to bring healthcare closer to people by making it available directly in their workplaces,” said El Missaoui. “We also seek to promote a culture of corporate care that places employee health and well-being at the heart of organisational priorities, in alignment with the Quality of Life Program under Vision 2030.”

The company’s digital transformation strategy is also strengthened through these partnerships, which integrate on-site and virtual clinics into a single ecosystem. “This step represents an extension of Bupa CareConnect’s strategy to bring its healthcare services closer to people both in their workplaces and homes, helping companies build healthier and more productive work environments,” El Missaoui said.

Bupa CareConnect’s roadmap includes expanding its physical and digital footprint across the Kingdom. Its first CareConnect physical clinic in Riyadh will open in 2025, followed by additional centers in major cities. The company plans to double its clinic network by 2026 and introduce new AI-powered tools for diagnostics, chronic disease management, and patient follow-up.

This strategy is already delivering measurable results. In 2024 alone, more than 1.2 million members benefited from Bupa CareConnect’s services, including over 400,000 virtual consultations. Its integrated chronic care programs—covering diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, asthma, and thyroid disorders—are supported by continuous digital monitoring and personalised treatment plans. Complementary services such as home diagnostics, medication delivery, and international consultations ensure uninterrupted care for patients across geographies.

EO Charging said it has completed a GBP25m recapitalisation backed by its existing investors, Zouk Capital and Vortex Energy, alongside an increased debt facility from HSBC, to support the next phase of its growth and fleet electrification strategy in the UK and Europe.

The shareholder-led funding follows a strategic restructuring that includes EO’s planned exit from the US market and the sale of its domestic EV charger hardware and manufacturing business to Cogent Technologies, part of the Heathpatch Group.

The move enables the company to focus on its software, services, and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering for commercial fleets and heavy goods vehicles.

EO said the fresh capital will accelerate the deployment of its commercial-grade charging infrastructure and its flagship platform, Charge Assurance, which provides fleet operators with visibility, management, and energy optimisation tools.

Investors’ confidence in EO’s evolved strategy

“This investment underscores our shareholders’ confidence in EO’s evolved strategy and long-term vision,” said chief executive Richard Staveley. “We are doubling down on what we do best: delivering reliable, commercial-grade charging infrastructure and intelligent software that helps fleets electrify and perform at scale.”

Zouk Capital Partner and head of infrastructure Massimo Resta said EO’s renewed strategy “aligns perfectly with where the fleet electrification market is heading, towards scalable, software-enabled infrastructure solutions.”

Bakr Abdel-Wahab, CIO at Vortex Energy, added that electric mobility and smart infrastructure were “becoming foundational to fleet and bus operations across the UK and Europe,” and that EO was “well-positioned for its next phase of growth and further strategic moves.”

EO, which has more than a decade of experience in EV charging infrastructure, serves global fleet operators including Amazon, DHL, UPS, Tesco, GoAhead, Metroline, Stagecoach, and FedEx.

Saudi Arabia’s healthcare transformation is entering a new stage—and Lean Business Services, a Public Investment Fund (PIF) company and the nation’s leading provider of integrated digital health and wellbeing solutions, is at its center. As a PIF portfolio company and Saudi Arabia’s National Champion for Health Transformation, Lean is strategically aligned with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 objectives to build a world-class, data-driven health ecosystem. Having built the Kingdom’s foundational digital infrastructure, Lean is now shifting its focus toward what it calls “ecosystem activation”, a strategic evolution from platform development to large-scale citizen engagement and outcome-driven healthcare innovation.

“We have successfully built the foundational national health platform; now, success means activating it at scale,” said Khalil Alabdulwahab, chief commercial officer of Lean Business Services, on the sidelines of Global Health Exhibition 2025 in Riyadh. “Our key metric for success will be the demonstrable engagement of citizens in new preventive and digital health services. We are measuring the shift from reactive care to proactive health management.”

To date, Lean’s platforms, including Seha, Sehaty, Anat, and Raqeem, have collectively enabled millions of digital health interactions, supporting citizens, clinicians, and healthcare institutions across the Kingdom. These national platforms have improved access to virtual consultations, streamlined physician licensing, and enhanced preventive health monitoring through seamless digital channels. The company’s immediate focus is twofold: growing the health-tech ecosystem by integrating strategic partners and services into its national platform, and measuring tangible impact on population health. “Ecosystem growth and population engagement are how we will define progress over the next year,” Alabdulwahab explained. “It’s not just about user numbers anymore—it’s about the depth of interaction and the shift toward prevention and wellness.”

From infrastructure to intelligence

Established to build the Kingdom’s digital health backbone, Lean Business Services has become a pivotal enabler of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 Health Sector Transformation Programme. Over the past few years, Lean has delivered the platforms and data infrastructure that underpin national health initiatives, from patient records to public health surveillance. Now, its mission is evolving toward enabling interoperability, innovation, and practical outcomes across both the public and private sectors.

At the heart of this transition lies one of Lean’s most transformative initiatives: the Kingdom’s first healthcare “digital twin”. This technology, part of the Sehhaty and national public health systems, represents a paradigm shift toward personalised, predictive, and data-driven medicine. “The digital twin is the cornerstone of our personalised medicine strategy,” Alabdulwahab said. “We are moving it from concept to clinic by focusing first on high-impact areas, like chronic disease management and predictive public health.”

By leveraging AI and real-time data analytics, Lean’s digital twin allows clinicians to model treatment paths for a patient’s unique profile and predict potential adverse events before they occur. Simplified, this means doctors can better anticipate patient needs and personalise care plans before health issues escalate. “Workflow integration is paramount,” he emphasised. “Our biggest priority is seamlessly embedding these complex, data-driven insights into a doctor’s daily decision-making process in a way that is simple, actionable, and, most importantly, trusted. This is a change-management challenge as much as it is a technical one.”

The integrator at the center of Saudi healthcare

As the Kingdom accelerates its public-private partnership (PPP) model in healthcare, Lean is serving as the central digital integrator—connecting ministries, hospitals, and private innovators within a unified, secure framework. “A successful partnership in this sector is not just a commercial contract; it is a unified commitment to solving a core problem for the nation’s citizens,” said Alabdulwahab.

“Lean embodies this principle,” he continued. “We are the central digital engine for the public health sector, but we operate with the agility of a private-sector technology company. We provide the secure national platform which allows best-in-class innovators to connect their technology into a unified ecosystem. We ensure that private-sector innovation directly serves the public good and accelerates the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.”

This approach has positioned Lean as the Kingdom’s leading health-tech orchestrator, balancing regulatory rigor with innovation. By enabling private firms to plug into national systems without compromising security or interoperability, Lean is transforming collaboration into a structured, scalable model—one that aligns every stakeholder around a shared objective: improving population wellbeing. Through this national role, Lean has become the enabler behind Saudi Arabia’s connected-care vision—powering interoperability between government agencies, hospitals, and startups, and ensuring that innovation translates into better, faster, and more equitable healthcare delivery.

Building the data backbone for value-based care

Saudi Arabia’s healthcare strategy is shifting decisively toward value-based care, an approach that rewards outcomes over service volume and places patient experience at the center of performance metrics. “Value-based care is impossible without data,” said Alabdulwahab. “The entire model, which shifts focus from service to outcome, runs on the ability to securely capture and analyze a patient’s complete health journey.”

Lean’s national health platform acts as the data backbone for this model, providing what Alabdulwahab calls a “single source of truth” that enables providers and payers to measure outcomes, track costs, and identify at-risk populations. “By integrating preventive and lifestyle data, we are taking it a step further,” he added. “We are not just measuring what happens inside the hospital; we are providing a 360-degree view of health, enabling a true focus on wellness and prevention, which is the ultimate goal of both value-based care and Saudi Vision 2030.”

This ecosystem now supports population health analytics at national scale, enabling decision-makers to identify emerging trends, manage chronic diseases, and allocate resources efficiently. It also helps reduce fragmentation in service delivery by creating unified patient profiles accessible across the continuum of care.

Trust and data governance at national scale

Digital transformation in healthcare inevitably raises questions around privacy, consent, and ethical data use. As the operator of several major national health platforms, Lean sees trust as both its mandate and its most valuable asset. “Our single most important responsibility is ensuring data security and public trust,” Alabdulwahab said. “Trust is not a feature for us; it is our foundation. Our operations depend on it.”

The company enforces this principle through a dual approach—technical and strategic. “Technically, we operate under a privacy-by-design framework, adhering to the strictest national data governance standards set by authorities like SDAIA,” he explained. “All data is encrypted, held securely within the Kingdom’s borders, and managed with world-class security protocols.”

On the strategic front, Lean defines itself as a custodian, not an owner, of the Kingdom’s health data. “Our framework is built on citizen-centric control,” said Alabdulwahab. “Every partnership we sign is governed by these strict principles, ensuring the public’s data is used for their benefit and with their explicit consent. We are not just building a secure system; we are building a trusted one.”

At Global Health Exhibition 2025, Lean’s presence signaled not just its achievements, but its forward momentum. Looking ahead, Lean’s leadership envisions a health ecosystem powered by intelligence, collaboration, and trust—where digital innovation directly supports healthier communities and sustainable outcomes for future generations. The company’s blend of national mandate and technological agility positions it uniquely to bridge innovation and governance—driving a health ecosystem where every citizen interaction, every dataset, and every partnership contributes to a healthier, more connected Saudi Arabia.