Sanja Milosavljevic: Hi, hello, good evening. My name is Sanja Milosavljevic and I’m going to be your host today in this entrepreneur podcast we are doing. The main aim of this podcast is to share stories of successful ladies in business and mainly ladies in business. Just to hear how they live, how they cope with the situation we are all living in right now and what is the state of entrepreneurship in their countries and what is their state doing to promote and help to improve the state of entrepreneurship. So, today my guest is going to be Fatine, she comes from Morocco and whenever we think in Serbia, or whenever I think of Morocco, I think of spices and I think of Sahara and I think of the movie Casablanca. So, Fatine – hello, how are you?

Fatine Mouline: Hello Sanja, how are you?

Sanja Milosavljevic: I am fine, and I am so excited to speak to you, to see you. And as we spoke earlier it’s just like…we haven’t seen for a year and a half and this conversation is like we’ve seen or spoke yesterday and then we- today, we are just continuing where we stopped the previous day. Thank you for accepting my invitation to participate in this podcast. I think that you have a very interesting story as a person and as a business woman. So, can you tell us something more about yourself? What do you do, what is your educational background and where is your focus right now?

Fatine Mouline: Thank you Sanja for your invitation. I’m really pleased to participate to Mondopreneur- or, Mondo-preneur? It’s like ‘the world’ and the ‘entrepreneur’.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yes, yes, that’s the idea!

Fatine Mouline: Thank you for the invitation, so let me introduce myself quickly. My name is Fatine Mouline, I hold a Bachelor’s and a Master degree from the Moroccon University but mainly English-speaker University. I got my Bachelor and Master in engineering and management sciences and I work right after my graduation in Toyota in the automobile world, then being consultant in consulting firms, so working mainly with the public institutions and managing their strategies and their organizing strategies. Maybe HR, communication. And recently I hold the expertise certificate in gender. So, I’m expert in gender equality and I work with several international organizations and several Moroccan firms as well to implement their gender strategies. Recently, and right after I met you Sanja in the US, after our IVLP program, the- I decided to dive into entrepreneurship experience and I’ve always been dreaming of working in retail. And having something for me in retail. So since I’m very passionate about decoration and design and having a cute house, I opened a franchise in Morocco. Its name is “Madame Coco” and since like November 2019 and it’s our first store in Africa and first store in Morocco also. And we- I’m trying to expand the business as much as I can, but I keep my consulting services entirely so, I have both now.

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s quite a lot. How do you manage all of that? I mean, I know that you are also a mom, so you are responsible and you have to share time with your children. But how do you manage all that?

Fatine Mouline: I cannot tell that it’s easy, it’s very, very difficult. I confess that I didn’t see my kids when I opened the store for almost two months. I go out from home at 7 or 6:30 and I go back at midnight, so it was crazy. But now I’m really, really happy to have my own business and the one I really dreamed of. Because having something that we really like and ordering something that we like that we share with people is particular. The consulting services is good as well, I like it. It’s not something where I get- or something I can get rid of because it’s always a new experience, always a new project. And I know that I’m defending a very nice cause which is women’s equality with men. So, both of them – I like them and I try to manage to have an equilibrium in my life with of course having the kids and my family as well as my first components.

Sanja Milosavljevic:  I know. It’s very difficult when I speak to my friends that either work somewhere or they run their own businesses. There’s always a lack of time for themselves. Because they work and they’re wives and they’re mothers. Especially in Serbia, when we speak about parenthood we actually mean ‘motherhood’, because mothers are the ones that are raising children. So most of the time they complain that they don’t have time for themselves. When they finish all their work, there’s-

Fatine Mouline: Yeah.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah. Because one day lasts for 24 hours and it can be very challenging. And without any kind of challenges like the pandemic or something worse from that. Just  being busy women and moms can be very tough and very harsh. So, let’s start with this COVID. It happened suddenly and it happened- it’s happening all over the world. So it’s not something that happened in, I don’t know, China and then we had two years to see what is happening and how the things are developing and we can be smart. Because this is something that is happening simultaneously all over the world. What is the situation in Morocco?

Fatine Mouline: So, actually the COVID-19 is an event that impacted all of the world, the whole world. Economically and also socially. Morocco has been impacted as well, many businesses have been impacted like all of the other countries. And as you said we didn’t have time to prepare. So it was like a surprise for us and- you know, the virus has spread over the world and we were just trying to find how we can deal with it. So I would say that Morocco was in the beginning of the COVID crisis and was a very good example of managing this crisis. And there the foresight of his Majesty the King Mohammed VI we tried and there his decisions of course were decided- they decided on the lockdown since mid March. So in the beginning of the crisis, when we found like I think two or three cases, we locked-down the whole country. So I would say that the King preferred the health of the citizens than the economy. And it was a really good decision because you know, Morocco has good infrastructure and health but not really good luck, so we tried to manage this crisis by first locking-down, then trying to develop our infrastructure, so the industrial part was very excellent in managing this crisis because many manufacturing firms, especially for example in iron object or in other industrial sectors, they transform their manufacturing firms to for example producing masks, or respiration machines. So, we were very agile, we adapted to the crisis at a very good speed and for example in Morocco, after ten days of the lockdown everyone was obliged to put on a mask. So we had the obligation to put a mask on and the masks were available in the supermarkets, in the small shops. You could wear masks anywhere. Not like other countries where it was very, very difficult to find masks. The same thing for hospitals, we built particular and I would say military hospitals in several cities to receive sick people with very high respiration machines. So, I think that Morocco managed, especially in the beginning, very, very good the crisis. Economically, we have a very nice initiative, so his Majesty the King put a COVID fund to help not only entrepreneurs but also employees and especially people who are not working and having their family. So this COVID has seen the participation of entrepreneurs, of public institutions, of people like the independent people, and I think we had more than 34 million euros in this fund and people who lost their job, or they- whom they stopped their jobs, they got a salary. Well, a small salary, but at least they got something from the government. As well as people who are working in the informal sector, or non-formal sector, so they got like help from the government from this fund. So, I think this part was very, very well managed and other parts of this crisis was helping companies, especially companies whom they have specific expenses like rent and other expenses to get some money to survive. So we have an initiative called ‘Oxygen’, it’s like oxygen. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Nice choice of word, yes.

Fatine Mouline: Of the word, exactly. Where companies can go to a bank and ask for a loan and they can give back the loan for several years. So, I think we got very, very nice initiatives on the side. Now, it’s true that after the lockdown stopped like about, by mid-June and the number of cases started to…

Sanja Milosavljevic: To rise again.

Fatine Mouline: Yeah. Yeah, dramatically.

Sanja Milosavljevic: So, how are you dealing with this new situation?

Fatine Mouline: Yeah, just to give you an idea about the numbers. So we moved from 100 cases to 1000 or 2000 cases a day. So it’s like a very, very big change. So, now after we opened like a- when we removed or got over this lockdown, the government tried to see where we have many cases. For example, if we take the capital city, if we have for example I would say 200 cases, then we will lock-down only the city, or only the neighborhood. We were trying to localize the virus and to not- to avoid infecting the economy of the whole country. So many cities are working normally, until one of them is having like a huge rise in the COVID cases, then we stop this city from working. And so on and so forth. It’s difficult to manage. I know that the government, they have a commission for this, called Comité de veille économique, and they- they are like managing and overseeing the pandemic closely.

Sanja Milosavljevic: So, when this thing happened and you locked-down the country, did that affect tourism? Because people from Serbia like to travel to Morocco for a vacation or for a holiday or whatever. So do you rely on tourism a lot, and is that in connection with the rise of the new cases? Because you said you opened in mid-June and that is something that- that’s the beginning of the holiday season for European countries. So, do they-

Fatine Mouline: No. Actually- no, we didn’t open the borders. So, yeah. The borders are still locked until now. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Aha, okay, okay.

Fatine Mouline: So, only the movements from one city to another were allowed, and people were allowed to get back to work and the restaurants were open again and the coffee shops, and the- so, because in the beginning all the restaurants were closed. All the shops were closed. Now, after mid-June, all the shops opened, the restaurants opened. The economy started to live again, but the borders were still closed. However, we received our- the Moroccans who are living abroad or those who were stuck abroad. We received them, but the condition to get back in Morocco was to have a PCR test, so a COVID test and the test of course should be negative to get in Morocco. For tourism – yes, it was really impacted. I can tell you that many people lost their jobs, many hotels closed for sure. Several hotels lived just by internal tourism. So only Moroccans who were travelling intra-cities, who were really giving life to these hotels. But, you know, the sector, yes it was really impacted. Now, the government put a fund for this and it like- they extend the help for the tourism sector employees, so that they cannot- so that they won’t stay with zero euro in their pockets, but at least have a minimum wage for them.

Sanja Milosavljevic: What is the minimum wage in Morocco?

Fatine Mouline: Yeah, it’s around 250eur.

Sanja Milosavljevic: It’s not much, but it’s similar in Serbia. Yeah, I know. What about those industries and sectors that are connected to tourism? If I own a dry-cleaning service and I work with a hotel and I wash their- I don’t know, towels and bathrobes, or agro-industry where I am a supplier for food and drink for a restaurant? What happened to them? Did they transform in a way, or did they also suffer a lot?

Fatine Mouline: Yeah. As I told you before, Morocco showed a particular, I would say, characteristic which is agile first and adaptation, so they adapted to the current situation and resilience. It’s important to talk about resilient people. And here, you know, the agriculture it consists of- or accounts for 14% percent of the GDP, the Moroccan GDP. And in the beginning of the crisis, there was like panic “we won’t find food, we need to buy so much food and stock food”, people would buy like hundreds of yogurts. It’s like, you know, WWII. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know, I know. It was the same in Serbia. Like, buying toilet paper and canned food. Everyone was buying that. Yeah.

Fatine Mouline: Exactly, so flour, yogurts, milk, you know? Then, like, sugar, the most important component in everyone’s home. But the government had a very good communication campaign and just to assure Moroccan people that we are a country of agriculture and we are producing so many food and grocery- I mean, goods? So, stop doing this, you will find whatever you want. And it’s true, it’s true. Franky, whenever you go to the supermarket you can find whatever you want. What we have done, we stopped importing like, you know, specific butters, specific creams, specific pasta. I know that you, you produce pasta, but we tried to eat and buy local. Which is very good. So, the Moroccan people started selling more into the local market and added their offer to the local market. I think that even for people who, for example, who have cleaning shops, who used to work for hotels, now they started working with hospital. You see? To clean the sheets, change the towels and so on. So I think that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce did a really good job on this campaign, as well as the commission of the Comité de veille économique where several different holders took part of this commission, from different ministries like the Finance one, the Industry one, the Social one and so many other ministry departments. I mean, governmental departments. They did a really, really good job. So, yes we adapted our offer to the local needs, but some sectors like tourism I know they suffer a lot.

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know, it’s the same in Serbia. Not just the local tourism in Serbia, but we don’t travel that much in Serbia, we travel outside the borders. So, many tourist agencies and people in the tourist sector or service sector suffered a lot. Can you tell us something about the state of entrepreneurship in Morocco? I really don’t- I don’t have any information or any idea – do you have startups, do you have hubs, do you have small-scale businesses? How are they organized? Where do they place their products? Do they use – I don’t know – social media to place their products? 

Fatine Mouline: Yeah. So, actually the state of entrepreneurship in Morocco has evolved during this, I would say, last decade. We had so many very, very nice initiatives from either local organizations or international ones to help entrepreneurship in Morocco. So we had incubators in different universities, we have so many- techno packs, the packs to receive startups and so many startups were really success stories in Morocco and we have some funds to finance all these. So whenever an entrepreneur wants to present a very good idea with a good business plan and with good arguments, we have an agency that can receive this, study the project with the business men and women and help them into the real edition of their dream. However, it should be a really defendable project, and the entrepreneur should have like minimum assets. Not really- not necessarily financial, but at least a good realization that is already proven, I would say. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s interesting, sorry, but I really don’t have any idea. Because most of all I live in my own bubble and I look at- I don’t know, Western countries or the States to see what are the new models and how to, let’s say, innovate or improve my business. It’s not something that I’m proud of, but I don’t know anything about the state of entrepreneurship in Morocco and I’m very glad to hear what you said now. Is there any particular sector or industry that startups are interested for, like IT sector or agro-food or something like that? Or is it diverse? Is it just different?

Fatine Mouline: I think that the IT is playing like a- the big part of- occupying the big part of the market. But we also have small, very small businesses like cooperatives that are using the local product and selling and transforming local products started to have like an important percentage in this map. And just for you to know, I can tell you that in Morocco we can count around 1.8 million companies. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Really!

Fatine Mouline: Yeah. 1.8 million registered companies.

Sanja Milosavljevic: And how many citizens are there in Morocco?

Fatine Mouline: 34.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Million. Okay. Okay, okay. I mean that’s a huge number, I’m so surprised now.

Fatine Mouline: It’s a huge number, and I can surprise you also – only 10-12% are managed or created by women.

Sanja Milosavljevic: How come? Why is that? Is it- I mean, the low numbers of women running their own businesses is something that is similar in Europe. We have 20-25% of companies that are run or led by- or managed by women. What’s the situation in Morocco?

Fatine Mouline: In Morocco, I cannot tell you why exactly, but what I can tell you is that we have never monitored women participation into entrepreneurship. So we never had like actions to encourage women to be a real entrepreneur. Whenever we talk about entrepreneur for us, by culture, is a man. You see, it’s the man. We have a man that goes to work and he needs to feed the family and it may be cultural. But now, with the new programs that are running and new initiatives I can tell you that the government is like, doing a huge effort to change the mindset.

Sanja Milosavljevic: So- sorry, continue.

Fatine Mouline: For example, the Ministry of Finance is having a project which is called like gender-based budgeting and it is making sure that in all the sectors we monitor the woman participation and if it’s low – why? Should we train more women, should we help them finance more projects, should we train them to manage – you know, to have a work-life balance. So, you see, when we start to look into the numbers, then we said ‘Ooops. How come that women are not really present in the entrepreneur map?’

Sanja Milosavljevic: Well, that’s good because something similar is actually happening right now in Serbia. Like gender-based budgeting and- I think that UNDP is doing that project, or running that. I think it’s part of their project. So, basically we then have the same cultural base. Because also in Serbia or in the Balkans, women are less in business, but once they decide to run their own businesses, they actually- the success rate is greater than the businesses that men start. Because once the woman is determined to run her business, she is cautious and she takes her steps step by step – so, baby steps. She doesn’t- I don’t know, go to the bank and take a huge loan. She does everything with caution and that’s why most of their businesses survive, in longer run. So, but it’s similar here. We are also living in a man’s world and it’s very hard to compete with that. When I- it’s an anecdote, but I like to tell that anecdote. Like, men easily get in contact and they easily broaden their network of associates.

Fatine Mouline: Exactly, that’s what I wanted to tell you. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah. So, it’s the same in Morocco?

Fatine Mouline: It’s the same. I actually – as I said before – I helped so many Moroccan organizations to have implement their gender diversity policy and I conducted many, many focus groups with different kinds of women. So blue-collars, white-collars, managers, beginners, newly recruited freshmen, senior rankers…and the feedback was almost the same. Is that women, when they finish their job or work at 5, they go home to take care of the kids. Men, when they finish at 5, they go to the coffee or to the restaurants to socialize. So it’s…it’s a culture, you know.

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know.

Fatine Mouline: It’s a culture. The same thing here, but now since we know what’s the problem, people are trying to make some changes. And they are trying to push in women and to help them have their own businesses. I read somewhere, I don’t remember – it was a report – that says for example that when a woman reads a job description or a job announcement and she found this phrase and for this job description matches 80% of her profile, she does not send her CV.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Why?

Fatine Mouline: However, when a man sees this job description, even if it does not match at all his profile, even if it’s 50% matching his profile, he will send his CV.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Why do we do that?

Fatine Mouline: I think we have some auto-blocking.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Censorship. Auto-censorship. 

Fatine Mouline: Maybe, yes. Or, we are so perfectionist, you know? We want everything to be perfect. So this profile, I’m still missing one component – no, no, no I cannot send my CV. You know?

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know, I know, I know.

Fatine Mouline: I think it started changing now and we have in Morocco different initiatives. I personally participated in so many initiatives here in Morocco for economic inclusion of women. So we implemented a program called ‘My solution’ in Arabic what they have here in Morocco is financed by the US department of labor. And its main objective was to help women integrate in the professional environments and not only integrate but also to get promoted and to have some leadership skills and some good managerial skills. I also participated in a program called ‘Econowin’, so whenever a woman wins, economies win as well.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah, perfect. Perfect, perfect.

Fatine Mouline: So it’s more influenced by the GIZ, so the German cooperation. And we helped at least 15 firms to have their own gender policies. And I’m part of many networks of women here in Morocco to just spread the idea and spread the interest around gender equality and really I think that things are changing now.

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s good, I’m glad to hear that. Do you have any idea or any information in which sectors women usually open their businesses? Like, I know many women that run their own businesses in Serbia, but they’re mostly in the food industry. Or in some crafts. Like, I don’t know, clothes, or bags – they’re sewing bags or making clothes, designing clothes. But for the, I don’t know, auto industry, metal industry or something like the IT industry most of them – and the money is in those sectors – companies are run by men. What’s the situation in Morocco? What do women choose to profile their businesses?

Fatine Mouline: In Morocco it’s mainly service companies. So for example communications agencies, consulting firms, mainly services or banks – they work a lot in banks, so services in banks for example. But less in food and less in textile because the biggest textile companies here in Morocco are run by men and same thing for the food industry and agriculture. However, the sector of cooperatives, or very very small businesses, they are mainly run by women. Yeah, it’s mainly like local products or argan oil. You know, some saffron. They really- products that need transformation first by hand. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: So where do you see the – or do you actually see the role of the media in transforming the society to a more gender equal society? Who is responsible? Is it schools and universities? Is it policy-makers and the government? Or is it media, or is it the synergy of these three sectors?

Fatine Mouline: Of course it’s the synergy of all the sectors. Because it starts first from education. So we need to educate our girls and boys to equal chances. When we say equality, it’s mainly equal chances. When we want a job, men and women need to have equal chances to get the job. Education, of course. It’s the help of the government because you need to install some monetary or evaluation indicators to follow the evolution and the inclusion of women and men. And also, the women themselves. You know? We need to work on ourselves as well. And do not say “I cannot do it, it’s difficult. I will leave the father to manage this, it’s okay. The husband.”. No, we need to take the initiative and say “I have the same chances as man”. For the media – yes, the media can help as well. I can share with you a very nice initiative here in Morocco. We have, well, two main channels. One of them installed an initiative called ‘women experts in Africa’ and this initiative helped – well, among its objectives they have one objective to select the best companies that do the best ad on TV including men and women. And for example when they did the ad of, you know, the soap we use to wash glasses and bowls and plates, they use men to wash this. So it was a very nice idea. For us, especially in Morocco it’s always women who do this job.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Of course. What was the reaction? To that commercial? To see men washing dishes?

Fatine Mouline: Well, first this company got a prize from the local channel. And people liked this ad. Because it was very sensitive. The guy who washed the dishes was doing this because of- to help his wife and then his mom came. You know, I think that it will raise awareness within the society, so it was a good thing. And I think that it was well-perceived, that’s why they got the prize.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Perfect, perfect. Because in my opinion if we are talking about gender equality, it’s not enough to educate women, we have to educate men also. 

Fatine Mouline: Men as well, yes.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah, because if you just put an effort to educate women, they are still going to go out into the world and they are going to encounter reality, and that is that it’s still the men’s world. So, we have to educate both sides, not just the women. But mainly focus should be on women because sometimes as you said, we don’t take care of ourselves. We just let go some things to just…go as they are. So, do you have any kind of message to the world and to the people in Serbia? What would you say? Regarding COVID, regarding your life, regarding your business, whatever you like?

Fatine Mouline: What I would say, it’s like my motto – we need to seize the crisis and raise the opportunity. You see? And try to get the opportunity from the crisis. That’s the only way to get out of the crisis. And- I mean, this phrase we should use even in our normal life. Even before- because our normal life has so many complications and has so many obstacles and has so many problems, that we cannot- I mean, like, always have an opportunity. We always have problems, so we need to seize these problems and try to get some opportunity from them. That’s my main message to all- to Serbian people of course and all the world.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Thank you, Fatine, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation. You have so much knowledge and expertise and I think it’s a really good thing to actually hear your voice. Because most of my friends think of Morocco as a patriarchal country and we have prejudice regarding, I don’t know, African countries. So, I think this is a good way to start destroying those prejudices. I think they’re just obstacles in our mutual understanding and maybe developing some new kind of relationships. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time, and thank you for accepting my invitation to participate in this Mondopreneur podcast.

Fatine Mouline: Thank you Sanja for the invitation – I really appreciate and don’t hesitate to call me again to share with you more ideas, more initiatives and get more from you. Thank you so much.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Thank you. So, this was a conversation with my friend Fatine, she’s from Morocco. And if you like, you can always follow us on social media like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and you can always subscribe on our YouTube channel, you can listen to us on Soundcloud and Spotify. Stay good and stay in- well, actually, stay in good health and see you in a week.