Mashal Waqar

Senior Consultant

Mashal Waqar is a co-founder at a femtech startup removing the stigma around women's health and self-care in the MENAP region. She was previously co-founder and COO at The Tempest, a global media company bringing personal narratives and authentic storytelling to millions of readers.

Mashal is passionate about startups and intersectional advancement for women. Her work highlights include scaling The Tempest to crossing 10 million monthly readers, launching a business accelerator taking women entrepreneurs from early stage to revenue in 60 days, and working on accessibility initiatives with UNHRD and RIT Dubai.

Mashal was on the 2019 Forbes Middle East 30 Under 30 list, 2019 Entrepreneur Middle East’s Achieving Women of the year, 2020 Women in Marketing Changemaker of the Year, and the 19th WIL Economic Forum Young Leader of the Year. She’s also on the advisory board of NOMAD, Brulee Beauty, and The News Run. She has previously co-authored a research paper on challenges faced by female entrepreneurs in Pakistan.

Despite being an introvert, Mashal is a frequent speaker on topics related to entrepreneurship, accessibility, and women's advancement; she has given two TEDx talks, and has been a speaker at Stanford University and Harvard University conferences. She holds a BS in Computing Security from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).