Qualification: BSc Civil Engineering, MSc Engineering

Years of Experience: 17 years

Language Capability: English, Afrikaans, German, Turkish

Experience:

Naadiya is a serial entrepreneur by passion, an engineer by training, is Co-Founder at WomHub, a boutique advisory firm and incubator supporting clients reach diversity and inclusion & building future talent pipelines as well as working with female founders to support growth of women owned STEM businesses.

She serves as the Chief Innovator with her focus being on entrepreneurship, gender, future skills and the future of work,  AI and cybersecurity. WomHub has built the first female founder innovation space in Africa. Naadiya co-founded WomEng, a global social enterprise developing women and girls for engineering and tech.

She is an angel investor, a Venture Partner at Five35 Ventures and Launch Africa.  She was a Co-Chair for the Saudi Arabia B20 Task Force on the Future of Work and Education and the B20 Italy special taskforce on women empowerment & B20 Indonesia Taskforce for Women Empowerment. Naadiya serves as an independent board director at the Momentum Metropolitan Foundation one of the largest financial institution foundations in South Africa providing grants on core thematic areas of youth employment. She is a Trustee of the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance and member of the Investment Committee for the Harambe Prosperity Fund, A member of the Expert Council for the Aspen New Voices Fellowship and is an emeritus board director for the International Youth Foundation based in the USA, the former chair of the board at the TQMF trust and board member at Pegasys Strategy and Development.

Naadiya serves as an advisory board member for the University of Cape Town Faculty of Engineering, and was a Global Future Council Member with the World Economic Forum: Gender, Education and the Future of Work. Naadiya co-owns a successful restaurant group in Cape Town designing and building out the business for 3 restaurants. Naadiya is a renowned speaker and was named “Top 20 Young Power Women in Africa” by Forbes Magazine as well as one of the top people in tech in Africa by Los Echos (the French version of the Financial Times). She has unique insights having sat on both sides of the table as a funder as well as a non-profit beneficiary. She has worked with organisations across Africa as well as the USA and UK, and has key expertise in the development space. 

Naadiya has worked across 26 countries to revolutionise the face of engineering through diversity, inclusion, innovation, entrepreneurship and education leaving no one behind in a tech-enabled future. She is passionate about cybersecurity, equitable technology, fostering prosperity in emerging economies and engineering better societies.