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Ulkar Mammadzada recently launched her entrepreneurial start-up, DiscGo in the UAE and she tells our listeners all about this informational aggregator. DiscGo helps customers in the UAE quickly find offers available through the memberships/cards/apps they select — without opening multiple apps and searching one by one. We ask Ulkar to explain how she decided to embark on this entrepreneurial adventure after spending more than 10 years in corporate hospitality positions working in revenue management and hotel openings.
Ulkar also explains how she left her native country of Azerbaijan at the age of 17 to begin law studies in England but ended up studying hospitality at the prestigious Hospitality Management school, Glion, in Switzerland. She gives our listeners all the best reasons why hospitality was the best choice for her and how she has been able to transfer her hospitality skills to her new company. Ulkar also explains how the multi-cultural environment at Glion shaped her career, her ability to work in diverse environments, her communication style and her open, humanist approach to business relationships. Her enthusiasm and dynamic approach to improving systems and her ability to have a holistic overview has allowed her to create an application that gives the user an optimum experience while making sure that the technology does not replace the human touch.
Finally, Ulkar shares her frank evaluation of what it really takes to become a young entrepreneur, the daily “wins” that keep her on track and enthusiastic and how much she has learned in six months. Above all, she assures us that despite the every day challenges she faces, she wouldn’t change her decision for anything.
Originally from Azerbaijan and having never traveled before moving to the UK at the age of 17, Ulkar ended up living in five countries by the time she graduated from Glion Hospitality Management School. After graduating, Ulkar decided to settle in the UAE for multiple reasons and she has worked for some of the largest hotel companies in the world: Hilton, InterContinental, Minor Group, Marriott (Design Hotels), as well as Kempinski.
In February 2026, Ulkar decided to quit her corporate job to launch DiscGo, a tech startup without much of a technical background, but with a lot of passion and a knack for optimising systems. Her career has been built around analytics, commercial strategy, and people skills. Every move for Ulkar felt logical and natural in her career over the last decade, and she considers DiscGo as the next logical step.
