Women in tech: Leyla Azizova, co-founder and head of MENA at Wema Health

In terms of the digital tech industry, I believe the year 2022 has seen more focus on businesses with a social impact, especially in the fields of healthcare and sustainability. Within digital health, there has been a surge in business models that improve not only patients’ health but also their experience of receiving health, with predominantly more accessible, remote health models.

Personally, the past year has been transformative as I shifted my career from strategy consulting to entrepreneurship and co-founded Wema Health, a membership-based virtual clinic for the treatment of obesity. We launched our platform in Denmark and the UAE last year. What has been most special for me has been seeing the weight loss results of our members.

However, working in the more male-dominated industries of strategy consulting and now digital tech, the biggest challenge for me has been the lack of female role models. I believe role models are important for inspiration and support early on as well as at critical crossroads in a woman’s career.

I also believe it is important to create more opportunities for established female leaders in tech to connect with young, aspiring talent – this helps to inspire and encourage more women to enter the digital tech industry.

An advice that I would give to aspiring (female) entrepreneurs is ‘just do it’ (‘follow your heart’, ‘build that business’, ‘take that risk’), but I actually think careful planning is important for any major business or career decision. Carefully assessing the opportunity at hand, speaking to your network and mentors, and weighing out the pros and cons can help you dive into a new business endeavour with more certainty.

Going forward this year, we have ambitious plans for Wema Health – to scale in the markets we are already active in and expand into new countries in Europe and the Middle East. We also want to expand our technology platform and unlock new and existing features. In terms of the industry, I expect 2023 to not be easy for young digital tech startups given the increasing difficulty to raise funding in the challenging economic climate. I, therefore, expect it to be the year in which companies with a clearly profitable business model prevail versus those that are focused on high growth only.

Read: Women in tech: Joanne Savage, director marketing – EMEA, at Fitbit – Google