Muslim Women in Charge; The World's Most Powerful Women

The World's Most Powerful Women

Muslim Women In Charge

Elizabeth MacDonald and Megha Bahree 08.30.07

Dr. Nahed Taher, the first woman chief executive of Saudi Arabia's Gulf One Investment Bank, has been increasingly busy these days.

The former senior economist at the National Commercial Bank has been immersed in plans for financing public sector projects, including expansion of the terminal that handles Mecca pilgrims at Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport. Dr. Taher has also been overseeing financing for a water desalination plant for Saudi Arabian Airlines, as well as Saudi copper, zinc and gold mines.

Taher is unusual in a country where women are prohibited to drive, vote or hold high-level government office, and in a region where poverty and tradition deprive many women of control over basic choices, from what to wear to when to get married. But business women like Taher are gaining power despite these unusually tough odds.

Despite the barriers, 10 women executives from the Middle East made our World's 100 Most Powerful Women ranking this year. How are they managing to break through the glass ceiling?

Good old-fashioned capitalism has played a role. The economic liberalization of several Muslim countries in recent years, and the privatization of large chunks of government-run companies, have helped Muslim businesswomen get a greater foothold. "Now opportunities are open to everyone," says Laura Osman, the first female president of the Arab Bankers Association of North America. "The private sector runs on meritocracy."

In fact, banking in the Muslim world is populated by a growing number of women, even in the historically all-male executive suite. Sahar El-Sallab is second in command at Commercial International Bank, one of Egypt's largest private banks. There are more women climbing the ranks behind her. Today, four out of 10 of Commercial International Bank's employees and 70% of its management staff are women.

Similarly, Maha Al-Ghunaim, chairman of Kuwait's Global Investment House, has steadily grown the investment bank she founded to now manage more than $7 billion in assets. It recently won permission to operate in Qatar and next wants to establish a presence in Saudi Arabia.

Muslim businesswomen now also sit at the top ranks of mega-conglomerates. Imre Barmanbek (No. 88) runs one of Turkey's largest multinationals, Dogan Holding, which recently went through a shift in operational focus from finance to media and energy. Lubna Olayan helps oversee The Olayan Group of Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest multinationals in the Middle East with investments in more than 40 companies. And the top ranks of the conglomerate run by the Khamis family of Egypt include several women.

Originally from India, Vidya Chhabria (No. 97) is chairman of the United Arab Emirates' Jumbo Group, a $2 billion multinational that operates in 50 countries, with interests in durables, chemicals and machinery products. It also owns Jumbo Electronics, one of the Middle East's largest distributors of Sony consumer electronics, as well as worldwide brands in information technology and telecom products.

In the government sector, Muslim women are also winning posts. Sheikha Lubna Al-Qasimi (No. 99), minister of the economy in the United Arab Emirates, has cracked down on stock market shenanigans with tougher rules, transparency and corporate governance.

In March 2007, the Supreme Judicial Council of Egypt, the country's highest court, chose 31 women to be judges, 30 of whom now work at courts around Egypt. Afghanistan's constitution reserves a quarter of its seats in its lower house and 17% in the upper house of its parliament for women--a higher percentage than the number of women now in the U.S. Congress (14%).

None of this means that the going is easy for Muslim professional women as a group. In 2002, the first Arab Human Development Report, issued by the United Nations Development Programme, found that women occupied an average of only 4% of all seats in the parliaments of Arab countries, compared with 11% in sub-Saharan Africa and 13% in Latin America and Caribbean countries. The report blamed these figures in part on women's inequality under the law, and also noted that just one in every two Arab women can read and write.

By delivering the bad news, though, the report may have had a galvanizing effect. It "really shocked everyone in the Arab world because it came from within," says Dr. Nailah Hamdy, assistant professor of mass communication at the American University in Cairo. That meant that the report's criticism of women's second-class status "could no longer be perceived as a foreign idea," she says.

For a lucky and determined few, opportunities do exist. "Just being a woman in our part of the world is quite difficult," says El-Sallab of Egypt's Commercial International Bank. "But if you have the proper education, credibility and integrity in the way you handle your job, intelligent men will always give you your due."