Iman Oubou
Founder and CEO, SWAAY Media
Iman Oubou is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, published scientist, and a beauty pageant winner on a mission to change the women’s media landscape. She won the title of Miss New York United States and was second runner up at the 2015 Miss United States Pageant. Iman was awarded the “Women’s Advocate of the Year” Award in 2019 in Dubai and has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, Inc., Fortune, Vogue Arabia, and The Huffington Post.
She is the Founder and President of SWAAY Media, a leading publishing platform aimed at championing female thought leadership. By providing access to editorial and writing support, as well as a supportive community of like-minded women, SWAAY has helped thousands of women tell their stories, share their expertise, and elevate their voices. Partnering with companies like Unilever and WSJ, Iman has led national events that feature conversations about female empowerment and thought leadership in the workforce. Her podcast, Women Who SWAAY, has reached millions of listeners, was number two on iTunes in 2015 and ranked in the top five best podcasts for women entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine.
Before founding SWAAY, Iman started her career as a cancer research scientist and a medical missionary. She accompanied an organization called ‘Mission To Heal’ to South Sudan, Kenya, and Ecuador and organized a medical mission to her own native country, Morocco, in 2013 before moving to New York to work on the corporate side of biotech. She traded her lab coat for a science communication specialist position working with big pharma and startup biotech companies.
In addition to being named as one of the “female entrepreneurs to watch” by CIO Magazine, Iman also appeared as a keynote speaker at many conferences including the Harvard Women In Business, MIT STEM Conference and spoke at different corporate events including Nissan’s Circle of Women, Benefit cosmetics, and Unilever, to name a few. She was also part of the first ever all-female judge panel at Miss Universe 2018 and judged Miss Teen USA, Miss Earth USA, and other state pageants.
A champion of gender equity in the workforce, Iman has written her first nonfiction book entitled, The Glass Ledge (published by Sounds True); which is a disruptive guide to help women reject societal double standards and succeed by showing up as their authentic, vulnerable, and powerful selves. We’ve all heard of the “glass ceiling”. Yet even for women who break through the societal barriers to success, there’s another danger: the glass ledge. “When the very qualities that help us achieve greatness turn into self-defeating behaviors, that’s when we trip over the glass ledge,” teaches Iman. “Yet we don’t need to lose ourselves to become the ideal image of a hardworking, camera-ready woman. There is a better way to fulfill our dreams—one that allows us to be ourselves, on our own terms.”
You can hear from Iman in the panel Founders and Funders: Negotiating For Your Business at WIN Summit 2022 on June 1, 2022.
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