Follow The Leader: Aisha Abdulmalik, Founder, Aisha Jewels "My biggest source of happiness is not the exponential growth we have achieved over the last ten years, but rather the fact that we still maintain the key pillars upon which we built Aisha Jewels, but only in a bigger way."

This article is a part of the 2024 edition of Entrepreneur Middle East's annual Follow The Leader series, in which enterprise head honchos from the region talk strategy, industry-specific tactics, and professional challenges as they lead their respective businesses to success.

In 2014, a few months ahead of her 18th birthday, Aisha Abdulmalik—who was still a high schooler in Bahrain at the time—declared that she wanted to use her innate artistic talent and creativity to design her own jewelry line, Aisha Jewels, which would combine tradition with technology. A little over 10 years since that decision, the company has cemented its position as a successful homegrown brand among its loyal customer base in Bahrain and beyond. "The emotions are quite mixed, actually," Abdulmalik says. "Like other things in our lives, we can only tell that we have grown and passed certain milestones by comparing ourselves to how we were at prior milestones. My biggest source of happiness is not the exponential growth we have achieved over the last ten years, but rather the fact that we still maintain the key pillars upon which we built Aisha Jewels, but only in a bigger way. We started the company on the principles of 'creativity, happiness, and giving,' and we continue to do so with ever-growing fervor."

Envisioned as a brand that seamlessly weaves in the Khaleeji culture and heritage of the Gulf (particularly Bahrain's) into its core design, Aisha Jewels is a high-end jewelry brand that offers handmade necklaces, rings, bracelets, and earrings made of yellow or white gold, which are intricately decorated with the finest gemstones and pearls. One of Aisha Jewels' noteworthy collections is the Talaed, which features delicately designed ornaments made from gold, natural Bahraini pearls authenticated by the Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (Danat), diamonds, and other natural gemstones. Another collection by the brand is Wehaj, which offers a selection of jewelry items made of 18-karat solid gold, adorned with meticulously polished and cut natural diamonds and precious stones. Clients can also order custom-made jewelry by visiting Aisha Abdulmalek's Design Studio, which offers in-person services such as testing skin undertones, shortlisting colors to match them with a customer's personal taste, or even expert assistance in designing a given piece.

The Wehaj Chic Intense Ring is made up of 18 karat yellow gold, pink sapphire, emeralds, peridot, and diamonds. Source: Aisha Jewels

In ensuring all of its collections and services are met with satisfaction by the end user, Abdulmalik notes that customer-centricity has always been at the heart of Aisha Jewel's mission. "Over the last 10 years, while our brand pillars have been solid and growing in depth and breadth, our operational model has kept being reinvented every three years or so to match new growth targets and enhance the experience of our clients and brand followers at the various touchpoints with the Aisha Jewels brand," Abdulmalik says. "The common thread running throughout the various operational models and systems since we started is a vision pursuing a genuine relationship with our clients (whom we've embraced to even call 'friends' internally!), using state-of-the-art technology, and paying attention to details in everything we do."

Speaking about her venture's results, Abdulmalik says that the company was able to grow its top line at a rate of 42% annually- starting right from the first year following its inception. "This naturally started very high, and it has slowed down recently as the base grows yearly," she continues. "However, it still means, for example, that at the end of 2023, we had seven times the sales we had five years earlier in 2019. We have also always been self-funded with no external debt/equity exposure. Plus, our only loan is a working capital line from our key banking relationship with KFH Bahrain, now Al Salam Bank, a Shari'ah compliant financial lender in the nation." Now, watching your venture grow from strength to strength is undoubtedly a dream every entrepreneur on this globe shares. But when you start a company at just 17 years of age, it is possible that certain decisions might later be perceived as having been "childish" or immature. But that doesn't seem to be the case at all for Abdulmalik, who, when asked what she would tell her teenage self today, replies, "I would say, 'Good girl, Aysha!' I would tell her you have done the one thing that a teenager would rarely do: realizing that older people are not uncool, and that listening to smart people and surrounding yourself with them is the secret to success!"

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At the top of this list of "smart people" that Abdulmalik refers to is her father, whose advice on business is something she continues to treasure. "My father is an investment banker who, by the time I started Aisha Jewels, had started his own practice helping regional businesses build new platforms, and restructuring challenging ones," Abdulmalik explains. "The first question he asked when I convinced him that I was serious about Aisha Jewels, and that I wanted to build it with my own money, was: 'Have you heard about the concept of the 'death valley curve' for startups?' I think the answer was very obvious on my blank 17-year-old face, as he went on without waiting for an answer, listing a few things which I went on to completely memorize. So, today, while I delegate much of the financial part of the company to colleagues who are smarter and more specialized than me, there are some key points which I continue to repeat like a mantra: the first being that young companies die because of a lack of liquidity, not profitability; so watch your cash. Second, don't be misled by trading volumes or accounting profits if they don't translate into positive cash flow. And lastly, early-stage debt creates a false sense of prosperity, so avoid it as much as possible."

In 2018, Aisha Abdulmalik was joined by her brother Abdulaziz Abdulmalik as a founding partner of Aisha Jewels; today he also works as the company's Creative Director.Source: Aisha Jewels

Now, while her father's guidance was the first step of reassurance that came Abdulmalik's way in her entrepreneurial journey, another such moment came in 2015, at the very first Jewelry Arabia exhibition, an annually held luxury event in Bahrain that showcases the latest designs in jewelry, gemstones, and luxury watches. "The Devji Group of Companies [a Bahrain-grown business conglomerate with a key presence in the jewelry industry], who have been our family friends for decades and are Aisha Jewels' only manufacturing partners until now, gave me a desk within their booth at the exhibition to showcase my few pieces," she recalls. "We sold them all, and we got orders for new ones. That gave me a pretty obvious indication of a market hungry for exquisitely designed high-end jewelry pieces." According to Abdulmalik, holding on to this ethos—despite being in a market prone to shifts in consumer behavior and demand—has helped Aisha Jewels stand out in this landscape. "We were contrarians in betting that going high-end would be successful if you provided exquisite handmade designs, sourced the highest-quality natural materials, and provided a memorable brand interaction experience—even if that meant your cost, and in turn, your price, would be higher," Abdulmalik says. "Everyone told us that the market was shifting toward retail strategies focusing on standardized, mass-produced products that would result in beautiful and affordable designs. We agreed with that as a general market trend, but our bet was that our target clientele base would be happy to pay for higher quality products, and would wait ten weeks until we produced them, as they always run out of stock. So, we went the other way. It sounded crazy to most, but it worked very well for us, and we feel that we have only scratched the surface."

A few years into the venture, Abdulmalik was joined by two familiar faces at Aisha Jewels: her brother Abdulaziz Abdulmalik, who joined in 2018 and is currently the company's Creative Director, and her cousin Awatif Al Samaim, who was appointed General Manager in 2020. Today, the team behind Aisha Jewels comprises of a group of young Bahrainis, who are mostly women. But the demographics of the team wasn't intentional, Abdulmalik says. "We don't seek to fill quotas based on gender or nationality," she says. "The team formed organically—it just happens to be mostly Bahraini women. It started with my brother, co-founder, and currently Creative Director, Abdulaziz, deciding to join. Then, once we saw significant growth, Awatif joined us as a third partner, and currently General Manager. The rest of the team came together organically, as our most important prerequisite for hiring is purely based on talent and potential. I think it all worked for the best of Aisha Jewels."

The Majarra necklace. Source: Aisha Jewels

That said, a workforce with women in the majority has indeed led to a lot of advantages for Aisha Jewels. "The core of what we strive to create is a jewelry brand, deeply rooted in the regional culture, with everything you would expect to experience in the best global luxury brands," she says. "So, call me biased, but I do think that women have a unique ability to multitask, and Bahraini women in specific have a 360-degree vision when thinking about creating the right experience for our brand, especially given that the majority of our audience are Khaleeji women with a discerning taste and high sensitivity to detail." Abdulmalik has lent much of this perceptiveness to herself too- after all, a leader must perhaps, first and foremost, study one's own strengths and shortcomings. "I am told that I work very hard and push everyone around me to work as hard," Abdulmalik admits. "Over the years, I have come to realize that, surprisingly, this is not everyone's cup of tea. I noticed that some very talented people do not have the stamina to work at full capacity all the time. Because my father, who continues to be my mentor, Abdulaziz, and Awatif work very much like me, we only learned this the hard way by losing talent. To address this, we now spend a lot of time ensuring applicants understand our culture, and we have quarterly reviews to ensure everyone works at her/his own pace. That being said, some new colleagues still surprise us by being as driven as we are, if not more!"

It is with this drive and vigor that Abdulmalik and her team now hope to deepen their impact in the Middle East. In January 2024, the company announced its plans to enter the Egyptian market by setting up a base in the country. "We actually started as a virtual company with a state-of-the-art e-commerce platform that we meticulously crafted to cater to the needs of our audience in 2014," Abdulmailk explains. "This meant that we were technically global from day one (you can only imagine the panic we had when we received our first order from Canada!). But when it comes to active coverage, our focus now is primarily on the GCC, and we are determined not to look beyond it until we have achieved our regional targets. As I mentioned, we feel we have just scratched the surface, and we don't want to distract ourselves." On a final note, when asked what is next for Aisha Jewels, Abdulmalik displays the same self-assuredness with which she began this venture. "Well, we have always done the same thing from the first year we started: we never forecast/budget sales numbers, as we believe they are a result, not a cause," Abdulmalik declares. "We start by drawing a picture of the next level to which we want to take our brand and break it down into a list of deliverables focusing on our three pillars of 'creativity, happiness, and giving' to the community. Then, we ensure we can self-finance it, considering the 'death valley' fear of running out of cash. Finally, we work as hard as we can to achieve it—that's it!"

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