Today we’d like to introduce you to Doaa Saber- CEO And Founder.
Hi Doaa, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My story is really a collision of two worlds I’ve always lived in at once – the professional world and the personal one.
I’ve spent my career deeply immersed in communications – as a marketing strategy consultant, a university professor, an online communications executive, and someone who has always believed in the power of words and image to shape how the world sees you. I understand branding. I understand messaging. I understand how important it is for a person to feel represented and confident in how they show up – in a boardroom, in a classroom, at a family gathering, or on camera.
But for years, as a hijabi woman who made the choice to wear hijab her entire life, I kept running into the same wall: the market just wasn’t keeping up with us. Shopping for hijabs often meant limited options, underwhelming quality, or styles that didn’t match the confidence and glamour I – and so many Muslim women around me – wanted to express. We were being asked, quietly, to compromise. And I refused to accept that.
After the pandemic, something shifted in me – in a lot of us, really. We came out of those difficult years wanting to reclaim ourselves. To shed the heaviness and step back into life with purpose and joy. That feeling, combined with my background in communications and my lived experience as a hijabi woman, became the spark for SHINE THE HIJAB – a proudly American brand rooted in Florida, born from the perspective of a Palestinian-American woman who grew up in Qatar and splits her life between the U.S. and Qatar. Two cultures, two worlds, one very clear conviction: Muslim women deserve better.
We deserve the ease of finding luxury, comfortable, trendy, and durable hijabs for every occasion – without compromise, without settling. Whether you’re a bride preparing for your big day, a businesswoman heading into a meeting, a student on campus, or someone whose skin and hair need a gentler fabric – SHINE has something for you, in every color, pattern, and material nature offers.
Today, SHINE THE HIJAB is more than a brand to me. It’s a statement. It’s me saying to every hijabi woman: you don’t have to choose between your faith and your confidence. You can have both. You should have both. And I wake up every day committed to making sure that’s possible.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Honestly? No – it has never been a smooth road. And I think anyone who tells you entrepreneurship is easy is either lying or hasn’t really built something from scratch.
The first challenge was timing. SHINE THE HIJAB was born out of the pandemic – a period that was difficult for the entire world, let alone for someone trying to launch a brand. Building something new while everything around you feels uncertain takes a different kind of courage. But sometimes the most meaningful things are born in the hardest moments, and for me, that stillness during the pandemic is exactly what gave me the clarity to say – this needs to exist.
The second challenge was one I didn’t fully anticipate – normalizing the conversation around hijab-wearing in the Western market. We weren’t just selling a product. We were challenging a narrative. Modest fashion has historically been overlooked, underserved, and frankly underestimated in the mainstream fashion world. Getting people – suppliers, partners, even customers – to see hijabi women as a serious, thriving, and deserving market took consistent effort and conviction.
Then there’s the challenge of operating across two worlds. As a Palestinian-American woman who splits her life between the U.S. and Qatar, I was building a brand that had to speak authentically to Muslim women in the West while staying deeply connected to the broader global Muslim community. Bridging those two realities – culturally, logistically, and strategically – is something I navigate every single day.
And of course, there were moments of self-doubt. Moments where I asked myself if the world was ready for what we were offering. But then I’d think about every hijabi woman who has ever walked into a store and walked out empty-handed – not because she didn’t want to buy, but because nothing there truly spoke to her. That image never let me quit.
My background in communications and marketing strategy helped me stay focused and navigate a lot of the early obstacles. But at the end of the day, what carried me through was belief – belief in our mission, belief in our community of hijabi women, and belief that Allah s.w.t. supports those who act with sincerity and purpose.
The road wasn’t smooth. But every bump made the brand stronger – and made me more certain that SHINE THE HIJAB is exactly where it’s supposed to be.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
What do I do? The honest answer is – I build bridges.
Bridges between ideas and execution. Between brands and their audiences. Between faith and modern life. Between the classroom and the boardroom. That’s really what my career has always been about, and it’s a thread that runs through everything I touch.
By training and by passion, I am a communications expert and marketing strategy consultant. But over the years, my work has grown into something much broader and more layered than any single title can capture.
I work with governments, corporations, nonprofits, and educational institutions – helping them find their voice, sharpen their message, and show up in the world with clarity and purpose. Whether it’s developing a full communications plan for a public sector entity, crafting a marketing strategy for a brand that needs to reach a new audience, or designing an event that needs to leave a lasting impression – I bring the same thing to every table: strategic thinking grounded in real human understanding.
Academic work has always been central to who I am too. As a university professor, I don’t just teach communications – I live it. I bring real-world campaigns, real challenges, and real solutions into the classroom, because I believe the next generation of communicators deserves to learn from experience, not just theory.
I’ve also spent years working in online communications at an executive level – navigating the fast-moving, ever-changing digital landscape and helping organizations stay relevant, authentic, and impactful in spaces that didn’t even exist a decade ago.
And then there’s the creative side. Brand design, visual identity, campaign conceptualization – I’ve always believed that great strategy without great design is only half the story. The two have to work together, and I’ve been fortunate to lead projects where both came alive at the same time.
But if you ask me what I’m most proud of – it’s SHINE THE HIJAB. Not just because it’s my brand, but because it is the fullest expression of everything I know, everything I believe, and everything I am. It took my expertise in communications, my eye for design, my understanding of consumer behavior, my experience in strategy – and fused it with something deeply personal. My identity as a Palestinian-American hijabi woman who has lived between cultures, between countries, and between worlds her entire life.
With SHINE, I didn’t just design hijabs – I designed a movement. A collection that spans everyday styles to bridal occasions, from eco-friendly natural fabrics made from oranges, bananas, aloe vera, and sugarcane – to sports hijabs built for active women who refuse to slow down. Every piece carries a message: that you don’t have to choose between who you are and how you look.
What sets me apart? I think it’s the combination – the rare mix of academic rigor, executive experience, creative vision, and lived cultural understanding. Most strategists understand markets. Most designers understand aesthetics. Most professors understand theory. I’ve had to understand all of it – and then apply it across cultures, languages, industries, and continents.
I don’t just consult. I immerse. I don’t just plan. I build. And I don’t just design. I tell stories through every detail.
That’s what I do. And I’m just getting started.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
If I had to sum up the most important lesson this journey has taught me, it would be this: trust the intersection.
For most of my life, I lived at the crossroads of multiple worlds – Palestinian and American, East and West, faith and ambition, academia and entrepreneurship, creativity and strategy. And for a long time, I think part of me wondered if that complexity was a disadvantage. If being “too many things at once” would make it harder to be taken seriously in any one of them.
The journey taught me – sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently – that the intersection is exactly where the magic lives.
SHINE THE HIJAB would not exist if I were only a marketing consultant. It would not exist if I were only a professor, or only a designer, or only a Muslim woman frustrated with her shopping options. It exists because I am all of those things at the same time – and I finally stopped apologizing for that and started building with it.
The second lesson – and it goes hand in hand with the first – is that purpose is your most powerful strategy. I’ve worked with governments, corporations, nonprofits, and academic institutions throughout my career. I’ve sat in a lot of strategy rooms. And the organizations that truly move people, that truly grow and endure, are always the ones that are crystal clear on why they exist – not just what they sell or how they operate. That principle shaped every communications plan I ever built for a client. And when it came time to build my own brand, I made sure purpose was the very foundation – not an afterthought.
The third lesson is one every entrepreneur and every woman needs to hear: don’t wait until everything is perfect to begin. The pandemic taught me that life doesn’t pause for the right moment. The right moment is the one you decide to act in. I launched SHINE THE HIJAB in one of the most uncertain periods in modern history – and looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. That uncertainty forced me to be resourceful, intentional, and brave in ways I don’t think a “perfect” moment ever would have.
And finally – community is everything. The hijabi women who found SHINE, who trusted us, who wore our hijabs to their weddings, their job interviews, their first days of school, their everyday moments – they didn’t just become customers. They became the reason. Every message, every review, every “finally, something made for us” – that is the fuel that keeps this going on the hard days.
So if there’s one thing I’d tell anyone starting their own journey – whether in business, in communications, in life – it’s this: your story is not too complicated. Your background is not too mixed. Your faith and your ambition are not in conflict. Trust where you stand. Build from that place. And don’t be afraid to shine.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shinehijab.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shinethehijabco
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shinethehijabco
- Twitter: https://x.com/shinethehijabco
