Umitta Musawa Imam on Building Aqua-Tots Dubai and Why No Failed Business Is Wasted

Umitta Musawa Imam’s path to business ownership was never a straight line. She studied Biomedical Sciences with dreams of becoming a forensic detective. She trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London, only to discover she did not enjoy cooking. She ran a learning centre in Lagos. She launched a lingerie and nightwear brand from her bedroom. Through every chapter, she held a quiet conviction that she was building toward something, even when she could not yet see what it was.

That something turned out to be Aqua-Tots Swim Schools Dubai, where she is now co-owner of the largest Aqua-Tots facility in the world. Born in Kaduna into a family of twelve children and raised between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, Umitta describes her route to entrepreneurship as a series of turns, honest admissions and restarts, each one teaching her something the previous one could not.

Looking back at the ventures that did not stick, she does not see detours. She sees a curriculum. Entrepreneurship, she says, was always the thread. She just had to live through enough chapters to recognise it.

Who Is Umitta Before the Titles?

Before the businesses and the borders, Umitta describes herself simply as a mother of three, a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend. She calls herself a people person at heart, driven by the ability to make a difference, create opportunities and positively impact those around her.

Growing up, she was surrounded by remarkable women — her mothers, aunties and other women in her family, many of whom dedicated themselves to their homes and families. She valued that role deeply and lived it for many years, happily raising her children and building a family life. Yet she also felt another part of herself remained unfulfilled. She wanted to build something of her own, something with purpose that could reach beyond her immediate family.

She draws inspiration from the successes she has witnessed around her, including her sisters, her in-laws and her business partner Dalal, who spent 13 years building Aqua-Tots in Kuwait into what Umitta describes as an incredible success story. Family shaped her, she says, but so did an inner desire to create something meaningful and leave a positive mark on the people around her.

What the Journey Has Demanded

Umitta has lived and studied in the UK, tried her hand at several ventures in Nigeria, and moved around with her husband and family. Along the way, she has had her share of things that did not work out as planned.

One example is Iqraa Learning Center, a Quran and Arabic learning centre for children in Lekki, Lagos, which she set up with three partners who were also family members. Eventually, all of them left Nigeria — a phenomenon she refers to as “japa” — and the centre could not continue as planned. It was taken over by the community.

Moving to Dubai meant starting again in a completely different environment. Building a business in a foreign country is challenging enough, she notes, but bringing in a franchise from another country meant learning an entirely new system, including regulations, approvals, culture and local ways of doing things.

The journey, she says, has demanded patience, adaptability, perseverance and many sleepless nights. One lesson stands out: not everything you start will succeed, but every experience teaches you something that prepares you for the next one.

The Texas Swim Lesson That Started Everything

The idea for Aqua-Tots came from an unexpected place. Umitta was watching a friend’s daughter take a swim lesson in Texas when the entire experience caught her attention — the customer service, the environment, the Caribbean music playing, the comfortable seating, even the coconut scent of the lobby. Everything, she recalls, simply felt right.

One moment in particular stayed with her: watching a special needs child complete a full swim lesson, enjoying himself while the instructor remained fully in control and the parent watched from the sidelines. There was something about that moment that felt right, she says. It was not one big thing but all the small details together.

She remembers thinking she wanted to bring the concept to Lagos. That, she says, was where the Aqua-Tots journey began.

From Texas to the World's Largest Aqua-Tots Facility

The road from that Texas swim lesson to opening the world’s largest Aqua-Tots facility in Dubai was not a straight line. Umitta initially intended to launch the brand in Lagos, since that was where the family lived at the time. But life changed, and they moved to Dubai.

Eventually she met her business partner Dalal, the Aqua-Tots Master Developer for the Middle East schools, who had spent 13 years successfully building Aqua-Tots in Kuwait. The two shared the same belief in the brand, and Umitta believes their strengths complemented each other.

From there, the process required a huge amount of planning, investment, patience and perseverance. Finding the right location, designing and building a facility of that scale, navigating approvals and assembling the right team all involved countless moving parts and challenges. Sometimes, Umitta says, she has to remind herself how far that casual visit in Texas has travelled with her.

Leading With a Life-Saving Mission

Aqua-Tots does more than sell swimming lessons. For Umitta, the mission is about teaching a life-saving skill, and that changes everything. It means a real sense of responsibility must sit behind every decision — from the quality of the instructors and how they are trained, to the safety of the facility and the experience given to every child and parent.

She also wants her team to understand the impact of their work. Every child who becomes confident and safer in the water is one more child better equipped to protect themselves. Yes, she says, they are building a successful business, but ultimately she wants to build something that matters. If they can help create a generation of stronger, safer and more confident swimmers across the region, that, for her, is success.

Lessons From Lagos: Iqraa Learning Center and Lily Rosa

Before Aqua-Tots, Umitta ran two much smaller ventures in Lagos, and she says she learned a great deal from both.

Iqraa Learning Center was a non-profit project, but it still had to be run as a business that could sustain itself. Through it, she learned that when parents entrust you with their children, their money and their time — three things incredibly precious to any parent — they are entrusting you with something of immense value. It taught her about responsibility, consistency and creating an environment where both children and parents feel comfortable and cared for. She carries that lesson with her today.

Lily Rosa, her small nightwear and lingerie business, was even smaller and completely different. Run from her bedroom and managed entirely on her own, it taught her about customers, understanding what people want, presentation, branding and, ultimately, how to sell.

Both experiences, she says, taught her one of the most important lessons of entrepreneurship: you start, you learn, you make mistakes, then you adjust and keep going. She has also had a few failed attempts since moving to Dubai, but all of them have given her something to take into the next venture.

Building Trust Across Cultures in Dubai

As a Northern Nigerian woman running a global business in the UAE, Umitta says she has never really seen her background as something she had to overcome. One reason she has enjoyed living in Dubai, and ultimately why the family decided to stay, is its diversity. She genuinely enjoys meeting people from different walks of life, learning about their cultures and understanding different perspectives.

She sees herself as adding her own culture and experience to the melting pot that is Dubai. Her team at Aqua-Tots Dubai reflects that mix, with colleagues from India, Syria, Sudan, Ecuador, Czechia, Cameroon and many more countries.

Her upbringing gave her values she carries everywhere: modesty, respect, dignity and consideration for others. Interestingly, she notes, those align beautifully with one of Aqua-Tots’ core values: “Seek first to understand before trying to be understood.” For her, that means listening before judging, understanding where someone is coming from and recognising that not everyone will think or communicate the way you do. That mindset, she says, is incredibly important when leading a team and serving families from so many different nationalities and backgrounds.

Ultimately, she believes trust crosses cultures. If you respect people, listen to them, keep your word and remain genuine about who you are, you can build meaningful relationships almost anywhere.

Raising Three Children While Running a Major Facility

Umitta’s husband jokes that Aqua-Tots has become her fourth child and that he has been abandoned. The comparison is not entirely unfair. She has three children at completely different stages of school — one in senior school, one in middle school and one in junior school — so family life alone comes with three different schedules and three different sets of needs.

A hard day can mean dealing with something urgent at Aqua-Tots, such as a crack in the pool deck, a power challenge or a staff issue, while also remembering a parent-teacher meeting, a family that needs to eat and a husband who would like to see his wife at home.

The hardest part, she says, is that she genuinely wants to give 100% to every part of her life, and she has had to accept that there simply are not enough hours in the day to do that. So she prioritises, dealing with what needs her most at that moment, delegating some things to others and trying not to be too hard on herself about what has to wait. Then she wakes up the next day and does it all again. Some days are beautifully organised; some are complete chaos. That, she says, is simply the reality of building something while raising a family.

Advice for Nigerian Women With Bold Business Ideas

To every Nigerian woman with a bold business idea, Umitta’s message is simple: do not let where you come from define how far you believe you can go. There is so much talent, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit among Nigerian women, she says, and sometimes they just need to give themselves permission to think beyond what is familiar.

Her own journey was not mapped out. Her dream job was to be a criminal detective, or perhaps to work for Dubai Police, yet she found herself somewhere entirely different and loving every minute of it. An idea that came from watching a swim lesson in Texas, intended for Lagos, eventually led her to build something in Dubai. She could not have predicted that when she started.

Her advice: be bold enough to start, be willing to learn, and do not be afraid to enter rooms that are unfamiliar. You do not need to have all the answers or the funds to begin. Most importantly, take your identity with you. Being Nigerian is not something you leave behind when you step onto the global stage — you should carry it right in front of you. Sometimes an idea can take you much further than you ever imagined; you just have to be willing to follow where it leads.