Money & Me: ‘My goal is to reach a personal net worth of $1bn’

Kanessa Muluneh, the founder of UAE-based premium family lifestyle brand Mulu, believes in the power of having multiple sources of income.

Although her clothing business is currently her main source of income, she has built additional channels to bring in money if needed, such as offering mentorship or business advice.

The Dutch citizen, who was born in Ethiopia, moved to Dubai from Amsterdam three and a half years ago because she felt like she was “hitting a ceiling in Europe”.

Although Ms Muluneh, 35, went to medical school, she never worked in the field because it was a subject she studied to make her parents proud. She ventured into entrepreneurship by creating a tool for the medical field, which she turned into a business and later sold to a large company.

She established Mulu as a clothing brand in 2018 in the Netherlands. Once a plus-size fashion brand for women, Mulu has now rebranded as a label for the entire family. It creates essentials across all age groups and sizes, with products available in more than 15 countries.

“I sold clothes to plus-sized women in Europe. After my pregnancy, I was plus-sized myself and needed clothes to go to the gym, so I started making them for myself. The brand did well in Europe and the US,” Ms Muluneh says.

“During Covid, my manufacturer in Pakistan was on the verge of a collapse so I decided to buy the company. Initially, I manufactured only for my own brand but now we do so for others, too. Now, we can create multiple brands under our label and we do everything in-house.”

She currently lives in The Villa community in Dubai with her husband, who works in finance, and three children aged eight, six and two.

Did wealth feature in your childhood? What did you learn?

I did not grow up in wealth. Although my mother’s lifestyle was very wealthy in Ethiopia, she had to flee the country, which forced her into a less gl