Tima Deryan.
Tima Deryan
Tima became the 1st Lebanese woman and youngest Arab to summit Mount Everest at 26 years old. On the 22nd of May, 2019 at 7:21 am, she stood gratefully and humbly on the highest mountain of the world after a two-month expedition during one of the deadliest seasons on Everest.
Before summiting Everest, Tima had climbed 18 high mountains around the world including 6 out of the 7 summits (highest mountain on every continent) and became the 1st Arab woman to climb Ojos del Salado, the highest active volcano in the world. With her passion for exploring and redefining limits, mountaineering came as a second nature to her. Staying true to her wanderer spirit, she aims to continue leading an adventurous lifestyle and never stop climbing.
Tima grew up traveling the world collecting bungee jumps and memories of nature and extreme sports. She pursued her licenses in both skydiving and advanced scuba-diving as she made both the skies and the oceans her playgrounds. But, for her, nothing compares to being on the mountains. When on Elbrus, her first summit, Tima knew that this was not yet another hobby; but a natural and essential aspect of her life- just like breathing. It’s where her soul sparkles and her light shines. It’s where she feels she is the best version of herself. And so, it was no surprise that after Elbrus, she decided to focus on mountaineering.
The once-finance professional working in a multinational firm, gave up her career ladder for the love of mountains. Life changing decision is an understatement as she threw herself in a new path she knew barely about. Yet, she explored and excelled and later ventured into entrepreneurship by launching two startups while still climbing around the world.
When she’s not on a mountain, Tima, founder of Mountain Gipsy and a professionally certified coach, believes that her mission is to give back to the world what the mountains gave to her. As such, she works with people from all backgrounds and circumstances to develop an invincible mindset so they can achieve their most ambitious goals by becoming more resilient, creative, confident, and courageous. Moreover, she dedicates her time to support and raise awareness for essential socio-economic topics that are shaping our world. She’s an advocate of children, youth, and women’s rights, and an activist of environmental issues. She works with various organizations to equip children, youth, and women with the means to follow their passion, develop their leadership skills, and carve their own path for a better future. In parallel, driven by her love of nature, Tima campaigns on environment issues such as climate change, deforestation, and waste recycling. She is regularly featured in both international and local media outlets, including Reuters, CNN, New York Times, South China Morning Post, Vogue, Gulf News, The National, and Al-Nahar.
Tima’s priority remains being in the outdoors and going for any adventure that life has to offer. Her next goal is to complete the Explorer Grand Slam – a challenge to climb the highest mountain on every continent and ski to the last degree of the both the North Pole and South Pole. This is such a human challenge that only 71 people (15 women only) have ever completed this challenge! more people and women went to space!