Pakistan Single Window partnered with the LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship to hold a mentorship and capacity-building session for women entrepreneurs at the LCE auditorium on the LUMS campus, run under PSW’s Khadijah Women Entrepreneurship Program. The session brought together aspiring women entrepreneurs, academic leaders, and industry veterans to discuss entrepreneurial growth, digital trade integration, and the specific role mentorship plays in scaling female-led businesses, positioning trade facilitation and founder development as connected rather than separate priorities.
Three business leaders served as mentors during the session, Aasia Saail Khan, Founder and Director of LAMA, Saulat Salahuddin, Founder of Pronto Spaces, and Shehla Javed Akram, Founder of the Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry Lahore, giving participants direct access to founders who have built and scaled their own ventures rather than relying solely on academic guidance. Dr. Shehryar Shahid, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at LUMS, led specialized entrepreneurial training alongside the mentorship component, pairing structured academic instruction with the more informal, experience-based guidance the mentors offered directly.
Participants received guidance spanning navigating market complexities, building brand identity, leveraging digital platforms, and expanding businesses sustainably, a combination that addresses both the strategic and tactical sides of growing a business rather than focusing narrowly on any single skill. The session also reinforced LCE’s broader role in venture creation, illustrating how structured academic incubation paired with direct mentorship access can meaningfully accelerate early-stage startup growth compared to founders navigating those same challenges in isolation.
The Khadijah Program has received the WTO Global Award for Gender Equality in Trade and forms part of PSW’s wider effort to advance gender inclusion in trade by combining trade facilitation with mentorship, giving women founders the technical knowledge, regulatory understanding, and digital skills needed to compete internationally rather than solely within domestic markets. PSW CEO Syed Aftab Haider said empowering women entrepreneurs requires mentorship and industry exposure alongside technical trade tools, framing the LUMS engagement as part of PSW’s commitment to connecting aspiring women leaders with experienced professionals while building a technology-driven foundation for Pakistan’s trade ecosystem. LCE Director Jazib Zahir added that the partnership with PSW strengthened the center’s effort to integrate practical elements into its curriculum, noting that entrepreneurial thinking, digital skills, product-market fit, and scaling capacity remain essential for success in the modern workplace. The program continues expanding across academic institutions and industrial clusters nationwide, linking university talent with established industry figures to help ideas develop into commercially viable enterprises.
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