Aurora

About Aurora

Aurora50 was co-founded by Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan and Diana Wilde in 2020 with a powerful vision: to achieve gender balance in the workplace.A UAE-based social enterprise, our first, successful initiative was to increase the number of women on boards in the UAE through the Pathway20 accelerator, The Board Summit and Manarat invite-only club for independent GCC women board directors. An open letter from our co-founder, Diana Wilde Dear friends and fellow change-makers, Reflecting on Aurora50's journey fills me with immense pride and gratitude for the ongoing impact we create every day. It all began in 2020 when Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan and I shared a profound belief: that diversity holds the power to change the world for the better. Aurora50 emerged from a visionary dream - to make our world more inclusive. Starting at the top Our journey started with a courageous idea: to ignite change from the very top. In the UAE at the time, women held just 3.5 percent of board seats. Today that figure stands at 10.8 percent, and 5.2 percent across the GCC, according to comprehensive data released in our GCC Board Gender Index 2024, in partnership with Heriot-Watt University Dubai. We knew change was a necessity. And so we launched our first initiative - the board accelerator Pathway20. Little did we know that, four days later, the world would plunge into a pandemic. Yet despite the adversity, we found corporate partners who shared our vision, values and a determination to make a difference.