Reflecting on the 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi

Plus: Living And Leading As A Ukrainian Entrepreneur

I am generally a women’s summit skeptic. Too often I find women’s summits performative, lacking the infrastructure to meaningfully address major gender equality issues like the pay gap, trans rights and reproductive healthcare access. So when I first learned I’d be working on Forbes’ 30/50 Summit, a women’s summit in Abu Dhabi focused on mentorship between women on our 30 Under 30 and 50 Over 50 lists, I raised an eyebrow; the Middle East is not known for its progressive record on women's rights.

My facial expression has since returned to normal. Though you don’t need to travel to an Abu Dhabi event to be a good feminist, the Forbes 30/50 Summit was quite meaningful as a vehicle to forge relationships between these two powerful groups of women,  and as a platform to project feminist leaders’ messages. 

Among the women whose voices it amplified from around the world were Afghan politicians-turned-refugees Zarifa Ghafari and Naheed Farid.

Ghafari became the mayor of Afghanistan’s Maidan Shahr, capital of the Wardak province, in 2019 at age 26. She has since survived three assassination attempts, and her father was killed by the Taliban for her work. Though women are banned from holding public office under Taliban rule, she has returned to Afghanistan to advocate for women’s rights, and at the summit, she was awarded the Young Changemaker Award by Forbes and Huma Abedin for her dedication to women’s rights against all odds.

Then there’s Farid, who became the youngest member of the Afghan Parliament at age 27 in 2010 and has founded various NGOs to support women in rural communities. When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan last year, Farid fled with her daughter but has remained a staunch advocate for women’s rights there. “We forget about the people of Afghanistan and the women of Afghanistan, and then we call ourselves human rights defenders. We have to take action when we go home,” said Farid, calling for action at the summit, as a fellow recipient of the Young Changemaker Award.

We also heard from Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Yulia Tychiskva, who is the executive director of the Aspen Institute Kyiv and recently fled her native Ukraine with her three children. “We are not afraid. We don’t consider ourselves refugees,” she said in conversation with Farid and Moira Forbes. “We are fighters.” 

Check out more from the 30/50 Summit here.

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Stream the talks from the 30/50 Summit, including conversations with Tyra Banks, Huda Kattan and Huma Abedin.

The Inside Scoop: Mentorship from Hillary Rodham Clinton

On International Women's Day at the Forbes 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered attendees one-on-one mentoring sessions, offering career advice, personal insights, and lessons learned across her history-shaping life.

Check out what she had to say.

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