Saraya Aqaba is the first of four major developments launched by Saraya Holdings. The high-end tourist and residential resort will cement Aqaba to the world tourism map and establish Saraya Holdings among the region’s leading property developers.

If Lawrence of Arabia were to return to Aqaba today, he would not believe his eyes. What was then a backwater within the enormous Ottoman Empire, is now a major port city with a growing population of 100,000 and, if government goals are met, Jordan’s second economic center after Amman is set to double in size by 2020.

The main catalysts for the city’s rapid growth in recent years have been the modernization of the port and the establishment of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone. Easy access to the sea, tax cuts and other business incentives, combined with Jordan’s entering the World Trade Organization and the signing of a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, has lured dozens of factories to the Hashemite Kingdom’s southernmost tip.

However, the city is yet to fully capitalize on its potential as a tourism destination. Although blessed with beaches, coral reefs, year-round sun, and situated in close proximity to such treasures as Petra and Wadi Rum, Aqaba remains largely a transit city. The main problem is a lack of infrastructure in terms of hotels, cafés and restaurants, as well as leisure activities. Apart from a dive in the sea or a less exciting glass-boat ride, there just is not much to do. But that is about to change.

Big plans in the works

In recent years, a number of tourism and residential projects worth billions of dollars have been given the green light, among them Tala Bay, Ayla Oasis and Saraya Aqaba. All three are mixed-use developments consisting mainly of mainly high-end residencies, retail and hotels. Arguably the most prestigious among them is Saraya Aqaba, the first of four major projects under development by Saraya Holdings (SH). The company’s main shareholder is Saad Hariri, son of the late Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s former prime minister and by many regarded as the mastermind behind Solidere’s regeneration of Beirut.

According to Ali Kolaghassi, SH’s vice-chairman and CEO, “the company aims to create high-end real estate, hospitality and leisure opportunities throughout the Middle East and North Africa, focusing on destinations that have high growth potential. Through our projects we hope to help turn carefully selected locations into world-class tourism destinations.”

Regarding Saraya Aqaba, SH is the main, but not the only shareholder. Its partners include Jordan’s Social Security Corporation (SSC), Arab Bank and the Aqaba Development Corporation, while Saudi Oger, one of the Hariri business empire’s main pillars, is the project’s main contractor. Much like Solidere in Beirut, SH in Aqaba will function both as a leading developer and asset manager.

First announced during the 2005 World Economic Forum, Saraya Aqaba is a mixed-use development built on 617,000 square meters of land around a man-made lagoon, which is to add 1.5 kilometers of seafront to Aqaba’s 27 kilometers of shoreline. The project is worth an estimated $1 billion and will consist of more than 600 high-end villas, townhouses and apartments, as well as 6 luxury hotels, a retail area complete with restaurants, cafés and nightclubs, as well as leisure facilities, such as a water theme park, an amphitheater and a sports complex. The hotels will be managed and operated by the renowned Emirati Jumeirah and American Starwood chains.

A recent walk over the construction site, situated in between the InterContinental Hotel and the palm tree gardens of King Abdullah’s palace, revealed nothing yet of the future glory being erected. The infrastructure and foundations have been laid, and some of the villas are starting to take shape. Prices have not been determined yet, but according to a construction manager one should reckon with a price tag of $2 million to $4 million depending on type of villa and location.

The project is set to be completed by 2009. Next-door neighbor, the $1 billion Ayla Oasis, will follow a few years later, as it seems have encountered some problems in creating a 17-kilometer long manmade lagoon. There are in fact strong rumors that the Saudi-Jordanian project has been (partly) sold to an Emirati investor. Tala Bay, located some 15 kilometers to the south of Aqaba is nearly completed. The question is: who is going to buy?

Are there enough tourists?

“We mainly target Jordanians, as well as Gulf Arabs, looking for an escape from the city or second home in a destination resort that offers the highest standards of service,” said Kolaghassi. “But we will also target the European market with an eye on second-home buyers.”

Kolaghassi said not to fear the competition by similar projects targeting a similar clientele. “Jordan has great potential and is currently witnessing an era of prosperity,” he said. “It has a healthy investment environment, and enjoys stability and security. Its central location places it within easy access to a number of countries. The number of foreign visitors who chose to come to Jordan in 2006 was an estimated 6.5 million, which represented a 13% increase compared to 2005. If anything, we are currently facing a shortage of hotel rooms throughout Jordan, and especially in Aqaba, which right now has only 2,000 rooms.”

However, it should be noted that some 3.2 million of the 6.5 million foreigners that entered Jordan in 2006 were same-day transit visitors, the majority of whom Syrians who work in Saudi Arabia and Saudi nationals heading in the opposite direction for a holiday in Syria or Lebanon. What’s more, last year Jordan only registered some 300,000 package tour tourists. Nevertheless, taking into consideration the ongoing political turmoil elsewhere in the Levant, as well as Aqaba’s strategic location between sea and mountains, most experts predict the country to attract a growing number of tourists who might normally head to Damascus or Beirut.

Illustrative for SH’s sky-high confidence in the future of Jordan is the company’s announcement during the 2007 World Economic Forum that it is to construct a second prime tourism resort on the northern tip of the Dead Sea. Among other elements the project will consist of three worldclass hotels, a spa and health resort and several sport facilities, including an 18-hole golf course.

Like Aqaba, the Dead Sea has witnessed a lot of construction activities in recent years. Over the last five years, the KHCC and a handful of five-star hotels were built, while two more leading hotel branches are under construction. In addition to SH, Bayan Holding and Emaar have announced plans to construct major spa and health resorts, including an 18-hole golf course, on the shores of the Dead Sea.

“The Dead Sea is considered a religious tourist destination thanks to the many sites surrounding it, it is a health destination due to its mud, salts and water, and has recently become a MICE destination (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions),” said Kolaghassi. “Thus, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has been held at the Dead Sea for the past several years, and at this year’s WEF it was impossible to find a room for many of the guests, who eventually had to stay in Amman and commute to the Dead Sea every day.”

Still, the Dead Sea is not an entirely risk-free destination. The main problem is that, due to overexploitation of water resources such as the Jordan River, the lowest point on earth is currently sinking by about one meter per year. So, while the mid-1960s the Dead Sea level remained stable at 392 meters below sea level, today it has decreased to -418 meters. In Israel, some hotels used to be right on the shore, but now their visitors have to walk up to 100 meters before being able to float on the salty sea.

Yet most investors seem not too worried as they have put their hopes on the Red-Dead Canal, which is to bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, whereby the fall of the water to the earth’s lowest point is to produce enough electricity to empower a desalination plant. Last April, the $5 billion project made a tiny step closer to reality when the World Bank issued a $15 million tender for a feasibility study.

“The Red-Dead Canal will reach the Dead Sea from the south, while our project is situated in the north, which is in fact the furthest possible away from the future canal,” said Kolaghassi. “Studies and designs regarding the project have not yet been completed, but the Red-Dead Canal aims to raise the water to pre-1962 levels, or some 396 meters below sea level. The buildings in our Master Plan are placed in such a way that the foundations are well above this level, and hence the Red-Dead Canal will have no impact on our project.”

Saraya Holdings also building in Oman, UAE

Remarkable for a company that has not even completed its first project is the fact that SH is developing two more mega-projects outside Jordan. On an island off the coast of the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, SH is to create Saraya Islands on a total surface area of some 1.1 million square meters, consisting of a village and four “islands” that are separated by an artificial lagoon, yet interconnected by roads and bridges. The islands will contain luxury villas, apartments and hotels, will be pedestrian-friendly and are organized in such a way that most public spaces are located in the central village, while more exclusive and private areas are located on the islands. Each island will be a gated community for the exclusive use of residents and Saraya Islands clients.

On June 3, 2006 SH signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Omani Ministry of Tourism to launch a project with the Oman Tourism Development Company. The MoU requires the two parties to develop a worldclass tourism project that offers distinguished residential and entertainment facilities for visitors and Omani residents alike.

Ras al-Khaimah and Oman, and to a lesser extent Jordan, have long remained off the beaten track compared to such tourist destinations like Dubai, Egypt and Lebanon, but are currently rapidly developing their infrastructure in the hope to catch up. It is remarkable that such a relative newcomer on the block as Saraya Holdings has managed to sign for four such prestigious projects in a spell of less than two years.

No doubt, the Hariris’ political clout and connections must have played a major role, yet arguably even more important is the sound reputation, throughout the region, of Solidere’s regeneration of the Beirut city center. No wonder then, that not only Saad Hariri, but also his brother Baha and Solidere itself are currently venturing into project development outside Lebanon in an attempt to capitalize on precisely that reputation.

Although spread across the region, SH’s four developments are by no means separate entities. At the recent Paris Air Show, Saraya Private Aviation signed an agreement with Piaggio Aero for six P.180 Avanti II planes, introducing this type of aircraft for the first time in the Middle East.

“We recently launched Saraya Private Aviation, an aircraft charter operator designed to offer exclusive option of executive flights,” said Kolaghassi. “The idea is to provide our customers with the possibility to travel from one Saraya destination to another or anywhere between the Middle East and North Africa and the rest of the world.”

In the shadow of the twin pinnacles of the Emirates Towers, the most iconic of the dozens of skyscrapers which now align Sheikh Zayed Road in central Dubai, a brand-new financial district is gradually being assembled.

Overlooking this 110-acre site, which is still dotted with cranes and buses ferrying around legions of construction workers, stands a futuristic cube-like building whose intended role is to become the heart of the region’s financial arteries.

The “Gate” — more than a little reminiscent of the Défense arch which dominates one of Paris’s key business districts — is the showpiece of the first phase of the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), an expansive and ambitious government-led venture, which aims to put the Emirate firmly on the world’s financial map.

The DIFC wants to house many things under one roof: an independently-regulated regional base for financial services firms; a world-class securities market; an commodities trading platform; an international investment arm; and a free zone.

Some of these goals are closer to being achieved than others, and the jury is certainly still out as to whether Dubai can one day seriously compete with London or New York as one of the world’s major financial centers.

But such an ambition hardly sounds out of place in the city which regularly recites its desire to be a “hub” for most things, and the consensus is that enough big names have now signed up to the DIFC that Dubai may well emerge as one, if not the, financial powerhouse of the region.

Trying to take the lead

With economic diversification on the lips of decision-makers in the Gulf, and more and more wealth being invested back into the region instead of Europe or the US, there is much at stake for those countries competing to become a financial player.

“All of the region’s financial centers are doing very well right now, which is hardly a surprise when you look at the pace and scope of economic growth in the GCC,” says Simon Williams, chief economist at HSBC Bank Middle East in Dubai.

“Each center is pursuing its own particular model, with Dubai trying to position itself as a regional hub and, longer-term, as a player within the international financial system, too. To a large extent, it’s been a success.”

If one were to take one of the DIFC’s immediate primary functions, which is to establish the leading base for major financial services companies operating in the region, then it has certainly managed to attract an impressive clutch of A-list multinationals.

Since the first company inked its name in September 2004, the DIFC Authority has issued licenses to some 420 firms, with noteworthy new additions for 2007 including Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, Calyon, Schroders, Barclays and Merrill Lynch.

“When we looked to open an office in the GCC, we had three candidates: Bahrain, Doha and Dubai,” says Naoki Tamaki, Representative at the Japan Bank of International Cooperation, which opened its DIFC office in September 2005.

“Bahrain was attractive because it already had long experience in the financial sector, particularly in terms of banking regulations, whilst Doha has the Qatar Financial Center,” Tamaki told Executive.

“We chose Dubai because there was a large rise in the number of Japanese businesses established here, there was a good level of infrastructure, and because it was already a logistical hub for the region.”

Free for all

Like the many other free zones in the UAE, the DIFC can offer its members full corporate and income tax exemptions, as well as 100% foreign ownership and no restrictions on the repatriation of capital. Under present regulations, non-free zone companies locally established in the UAE market must be at least 51% owned by an Emirati partner.

This independent status means that the DIFC has attracted not only financial services providers and related firms, but also marketing companies, real estate developers and others for whom it makes sense to be based in Dubai’s emerging business district. Moreover, most of the other free zones in the Emirates tend to be either geographically isolated from the emerging city center, as is the case with Jebel Ali, or are too industry-specific, a label which applies to Dubai Internet City or Dubai Media City.

The DIFC is also independently regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), a body which drew up specific rules for the DIFC based on international practice laws. Unlike the other bourses in the UAE, for example, the DIFC does not come under the regulatory jurisdiction of the UAE Central Bank or the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority.

Yet while the DIFC has issued hundreds of licenses, the physical infrastructure is far from being ready, with a number of licensees citing delays in finding commercial space and subsequent hold-ups in relocating their staff to Dubai from other offices.

Once the infrastructure is complete, though, the DIFC wants to evolve into a fully-functioning business district with its own hotels, serviced apartments and transport system. Construction is being phased, with the Gate and the surrounding buildings representing a first stage. By 2010 there should be four million square feet of office space, as well as hotels, serviced apartments, bars, restaurants and some 31,000 car parking spaces.

Setting up shop

The fees payable to the DIFC Authority for incorporating a new company in the centre, or opening a branch of an existing firm, are not particularly onerous, and average around $2,000, plus an annual commercial license of $3,000.

However, the rub comes when calculating the actual cost of doing business in Dubai itself, which is certainly higher than Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, even if Doha is rapidly catching up on Dubai as one of the most expensive places in the world to live and work.

The costs of renting an office in Dubai were the 10th highest on the planet in 2006, according to a report by property consultants Cushman and Wakefield.The DIFC Authority says that current annual rents are $82 per square foot, although in some cases it is thought the companies which signed up early on benefitted from preferential rates or locked-in, long-term contracts which mean they now pay far less than market costs.

Nor do staff come cheap. According to a 2007 Mercer Human Resource Consulting report, Dubai is the most expensive city to live in the Middle East, after Tel Aviv. It was ranked in 34th place worldwide, although had dropped down the rankings largely due to the slump in the US dollar, to which the UAE dirham is pegged.

Offering large enough packages to lure world-class talent to Dubai is therefore a strain on budgets, but spending the extra pennies could still be worthwhile in terms of competing in what is an increasingly busy marketplace.

“Financial services companies are relocating greater numbers of their staff here from more established locations, and even if the cost of living and operating in Dubai continues to rise, they are choosing to come here in order to compete effectively in the market,” says HSBC’s Williams.

“A lot of the services that would previously need to be handled outside of the region can now be done in Dubai itself — the days of suitcase bankers are largely over,” he says.

Moreover, as many international firms with offices in Dubai point out, there are also many important “soft” reasons why the Emirate offers a more attractive lifestyle than its regional competitors.

“We also took into account that Dubai is an easier place to live than other GCC cities,” says the JBIC’s Tamaki. “Although if Saudi was to relax some of its business and lifestyle restrictions, then I think many companies, particularly banks, would open in Riyadh.”

Eggs in many baskets

As well as trying to attract investors with the wider Dubai “package,” the DIFC strategy also wants to bolster its credibility through the various subsidiaries which fall under its umbrella, not least of which is the Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX).

The exchange, which began trading in September 2005 amid much PR fanfare, set out with the ambition of becoming a state-of-the-art securities trading platform, straddling the markets of the East and West and offering the same regulatory sophistication as London or New York. 

But it has so far failed to live up to expectations, and despite the growing number of Islamic bonds listed on the exchange, trading volumes have been disappointing,

Another division of the center, DIFC Investments, has been busier. Acting as the DIFC’s investment arm — and the sole shareholder of the DIFX — it listed a $1.25 billion sukuk bond on the exchange in June to fund its ongoing international acquisitions in the financial sector.

The latest of these was a 2.2% stake in Deutsche Bank in May, which made the DIFC the largest institutional shareholder in the German bank, whilst at the time of writing there was also speculation over the possibility of a bid for OMX, the Scandinavian bourse.

Lots of energy

One of the newest entities of the DIFC to come into operation, meanwhile, is the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), an energy commodities exchange which wants to lead the way in trading crude oil futures contracts within the region.

The DME is a partnership between Tatweer, a member of the state-owned Dubai Holding Group, the Oman Investment Fund (OIF), and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). It launched operations on June 1st with an initial listing of Oman-based oil contracts.

“I am very pleased with the contract volumes and open interest so far, having set records on the second, third and fourth day of trading,” Ahmad Sharaf, the DME’s Chairman, told Executive. “After only 12 trading days, we reported an exchange-wide open interest of 5,414 and upon the conclusion of 15 days of trading the DME surpassed 50,000 contracts traded.”

“As our contract continues to trade in larger volumes and open interest continues to grow, the market will become increasingly comfortable with the DME as a concept and its futures contracts as better risk management tools. The DME recognizes that some customers may wish to wait for certain milestones or volume thresholds, but I am very confident that the DME is well on its way of establishing a global benchmark for Middle East sour crude shortly.”

Sharaf says that the DME can also try to find a niche by benefiting from the time difference between Europe and Asia and providing a hub for energy futures, options and other products such as jet fuel.

The way forward

The DIFC is a long-term project, and one point cited by a number of firms is that it has taken longer than expected to develop. Many challenges still remain.

“There are still teething problems, largely because the DIFC is still relatively new and lacks a long period of experience,” says Tamaki of the JBIC. “Many improvements have been made in terms of the regulatory environment, for instance, but occasionally some regulations will still be altered by the authorities without sufficient warning or consultation.” 

Others say that the broader regional problems of transparency and poor corporate governance are limiting listings on the DIFX, with local companies unwilling to conform to the same strict rules and regulations which govern more developed stock exchanges around the world.

But as a financial district the DIFC is already ahead in regional terms, feeding off the wider population and service-sector growth in Dubai and enjoying a first-mover advantage above places like Qatar or Saudi Arabia. Above all, there is a perhaps an urgent sense that this is a race against the clock.

“It is essential that Dubai makes this work,” says

HSBC’s Williams. “Unlike Qatar, it cannot rely on massive natural resources to sustain future economic growth, so developing the financial services sector into a regional or even global player is particularly crucial.”

Over the past decades, Arab women have seen immense progress in terms of education and participation in politics, and have made tremendous forays into the business world. The average literacy rate for women in the MENA region rose from 16.6% in 1970 to 52.5% in 2000. Since 1980, girls’ tertiary (university) education has doubled so that now 14% of young women go to university (compared to 20% of young men). On the other hand, female participation in the MENA labor force stands at a measly 32%, the lowest among all developed countries, on top of which the vast majority of women are working in the public sector.

The World Bank estimates that the MENA private sector is still significantly prejudiced against women, resulting in the bizarre situation that the best-educated women have the biggest problems getting hired. There is still a perception that women take away men’s jobs. Statistics, however, actually show a negative correlation between unemployment and women’s participation in labor. The World Bank calculated that had the MENA region used its female labor potential, the average per capita income could have risen by 2.6% during the 1990s, instead of the actual 1.9%.

With this month seeing the publication of a World Bank report on women entrepreneurs in the MENA region, Executive interviewed six Arab women — all highly educated, ambitious, driven, and persistent and all successful in their careers, some having salaried jobs in companies and others entrepreneurs — on the issue of women in business.

When in summer 1997 Nada Safa, having just finished her college degree in Economics at the Université St. Joseph in Beirut, inquired about a job opportunity at a leading Lebanese finance house, she was told “This is a man’s world. You are young and you have no experience, so I don’t think there is a place for you here.”

Determined to realize her childhood dream, one month later Nada arranged a second interview with another manager. She outlined a simple financial deal: she would work for free for a while and then, if they wanted, they could decide to give her a contract. “I told him it was an investment because I would be working for free during the summer. No risk. Zero capital. They might have a return, or they might not, but they had nothing to lose. I worked for a month for free and then they told me ‘You’re in.’”

Today, at 31, Nada Safa is a regional manager at Banque Audi Saradar Private Bank, one of Lebanon’s two biggest banks. And while she stresses that her difficulties in being accepted among her peers have mainly to do with her age, she nevertheless agrees that her gender does play a role.

Regional Specificities

Sahar al-Sallab, Vice-Chair and Managing Director of the Commercial International Bank (CIB), Egypt’s third largest bank, says that when she entered the banking sector in the mid-1970s it was normal for Egyptian women to work, not just in banks but throughout the economy. Her employers — first Citi Bank and since 1982, Chase Manhattan Egypt (which later transformed into CIB) — gave her the professional opportunities to gain experience, prove herself, and rise in the ranks. CIB now has a female vice-chair, 70% of senior management positions are occupied by women, over 60% of the staff is female and a quarter of the current Board of Directors are   women — more than double the S&P 500 average. As Al-Sallab puts it, “In Egypt, woman have been in banking, in law, in other areas for a long time and their participation is much higher than in other places in the region or even in Europe.”

Contrast that with the situation in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. The tale of Nahed Taher’s groundbreaking career in the Saudi finance system is well-known: Coming from a family of bankers and oil managers, and having written her Ph.D. thesis in the UK on the deficiencies of the Saudi banking system, she first became a financial consultant and then the first female chief economist at the National Commercial (Al-Ahli) Bank, which at the time covered a quarter of the Saudi banking sector, before, at age 42, she founded her own business — Gulf One Investment Bank, with a capital base of $1 billion — in 2006.

This is certainly a very impressive career, but at each step she had to convince her peers that she could do it. Some of her fears proved to be entirely unfounded, as Al-Ahli’s general manager and chairman supported her, and the predicted interference from the government and religious establishment never materialized, yet it was never clear if and when a backlash could occur and Nahed Taher was always aware of the fact that she was breaking new ground. She attributes the support she received to both the fact that Al-Ahli is headquartered in Saudi Arabia’s more cosmopolitan Western Region and that today, Saudi government officials are well-educated. As she says, “I’ve never received any single comment. I was the first woman to enter the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance — but nobody commented.”

For 30-year-old Dalal al-Dousari the choice of a career in the financial sector was easy — in Kuwait it was either that or going into the oil industry. Ultimately she chose finance because, “It is the decision-making field. You take everything from the other fields and then make the decisions. At the end of the day you’ll be able to be the decision-maker.”

According to her, some companies are open-minded and actively seek to employ women. One of her former bosses told her that he wanted women in his company because he believes that women are more precise and more faithful to their companies than men. And certainly, in Kuwait there have been female pioneers — just like Nahed Taher in neighboring Saudi Arabia — such as Maha al-Ghunaim of Global Investment House (“She sets the standard,” says Al-Dousari) and Sheikha Al-Bahar at the National Bank of Kuwait. But there is still much to be done and women do face discrimination at the workplace. According to Al-Dousari, “Decision-makers prefer men in certain positions to women. They say that men are more flexible, can travel on short notice, can do late meetings, that women will get married and then get pregnant and committed to their family, and then their children get sick … So they keep that in mind when they decide about whom to put into certain positions. Women have to work to prove that they are flexible, that they can do a good job. They have to put in an effort that is at least double that of their male peers.”

But even in everyday business they are faced with peculiar challenges resulting purely from the fact that they are women. At one point Dalal al-Dousari, now Vice-President for Investment at Amwal International Investment, was managing a multi-million dollar portfolio for an Islamic institution. She did all the work, devised the project, developed the strategy, and prepared the brief, only to learn that the client refused to let her do the presentation because she is a woman, although even after the presentation she would be managing the portfolio.

“So imagine, I had to give my brain to a man, who doesn’t know anything about the project, and to tell him what to say, how to present, what sort of questions to expect and how to answer them — and he went to give the presentation. My bosses apologized and explained that the client had made the demands but I think they should’ve insisted on sending me or not done the project. But the outcome will be that everyone will think that the presentation was my male colleague’s work, because nobody knows that it was my work.” Another time she had to hand

 Financing for Arab businesswomen in 5 countries (World Bank)

 a project to a male colleague because it involved traveling to Saudi Arabia, which meant that, again, she had lost a great professional opportunity. And, as she says, this will certainly influence the senior managers’ decisions when it comes to promotions.

For Lina Hundaileh, a Jordanian entrepreneur who founded and manages Philadelphia Chocolate Manufacturing Company, since she runs her own business the obstacles she faces because of her gender may be different from those encountered by the Kuwaiti banker, but they still exist. On the one hand, she says that there are instances where business meetings are held in exclusively male spheres — like the Qat-chewing majaalis in Yemen that are strictly off-limits to women — or done over after-hour drinks at the bar, where a woman might feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, despite speeches and grand announcements by the political leadership to empower women, she says they are often nothing but kalaam faadi (empty rhetoric) and when it comes to such issues like electing women to offices the traditions persevere. When she wanted to be elected to the Chamber of Industry, Lina Hundaileh stood a good chance of wining the election because by then she had established a good reputation and a wide network. But she had not counted on the resistance of her male peers.

“Businessmen came to my house and wanted to convince me to withdraw. And I accepted to withdraw because they did it in the Arab way — they didn’t drink the coffee of my father and brother-in-law until I withdrew. And now they are blaming themselves because I could’ve added value.” Thus, even a woman’s long-term success in business does not automatically translate into true acceptance. She adds, “It’s easier to implement decisions in my company since I am the boss, but when I go outside my environment, outside my comfort-zone, I will again face obstacles. Where people don’t know me, I again need to prove myself.”

The two Lebanese women interviewed show that there are extremes even within one country. Where Nada Safa had to work for free to prove that she was good (and determined) enough, and then worked her way up — back office, analyst, front office, trader — to arrive at a level where she is respected and could choose in which institution to continue her career, Rula Abu Daher had the luck to be hired by MTC Touch, one of Lebanon’s two GSM operators, whose CEO believes that women, when given a chance, can do as well as men. After her university degree in Engineering (a major chosen because she had heard that there were few women and sought the challenge) she joined MTC Touch and, after a year of training, was promoted to CTO, the only female chief technical officer in a GSM company within the region. As she put it, it was a meeting of similar characters. “I already had a sense of independence and I happened to join a company that does not do any gender discrimination. Half of the management are women. MTC is an exception.”

About that ‘glass ceiling’

Despite the regional variations, based on different historical experiences and developments, all interviewees agree that there is a glass ceiling when it comes to women’s careers. In a country with a long tradition of women in business, the ceiling is very high, as Sahar al-Sallab confirms, “In Egypt, I don’t think there is a glass ceiling on the medium-level management, but there is one on the senior, the chairman level.” In Jordan, according to Lina Hundaileh, “in the high-ranking businesses, you don’t see women.” Dalal al-Dousari, pointing at old-boys-networks in the region, even says that “It’s not a glass ceiling — it’s a concrete ceiling.” Some companies, like Rula Abu Daher’s MTC Touch, are notable exceptions, since there are led by visionary CEOs who’s maxim is “The sky is NOT the limit.”

Of course, one should not forget that a ‘glass ceiling’ for female employees is not a particularly region-specific issue. Nahed Taher points towards the relative situation of women in the Middle East compared to other regions when she says, “Definitely there is a ‘glass ceiling.’ But relative to the global banking industry it is everywhere. In the UK there is no female CEO banker. In the future, the support will be there. But women will need more experience. Right now they don’t have it yet.”

Must women work harder to succeed?

The often-cited argument that women have to work harder than their male peers in order to be recognized as competent professionals is not echoed by all. Nahed Taher thinks that “it might have existed when I was younger, but now they know me.” Nada Safa did have to prove herself more than others, but she puts it down to her young age, not her gender. However, both Lina Hundaileh and Dalal al-Dousari think that women have to work twice as hard to prove that they are as flexible, as good at their jobs as their male colleagues.

The main challenge is the widespread perception that women’s family responsibilities are preventing them from giving their jobs full attention. Indeed, in the framework of a World Bank report Women Entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa: Characteristics, Contributions and Challenges, to be released this month, businesswomen from across the region identified the work/family balance as the most challenging issue they face.

Sahar al-Sallab, too, had to balance her family with her work when she was sent for training to Europe: “My company didn’t treat me as a woman — they treated me as a person. But that meant that they didn’t accommodate the fact that I had children, so I had to exert more effort, and also incurred more expenses, in order to take them with me.” The World Bank report notes that other challenges for women entrepreneurs are learning financial management skills, finding and keeping good employees, access to capital and the high cost of public services. However, throughout the region female and male entrepreneurs face difficulties to access capital, as banks in the MENA region are generally not geared towards financing small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). The report adds that, “the situation may be

Types of financing used by businesswomen in 5 countries during 2006 (World Bank)

exacerbated for women-owned SMEs, due to lower availability of collaterable assets, gender bias among lending institutions, and a lower level of financial management education among women entrepreneurs.”

Character type ‘successful woman’

Within the particular environment of the MENA region, where women still need to struggle to establish themselves in the business world and to convince their peers as well as society that they are as good (or even better) than men, it seems to take a certain kind of woman to succeed: goal-oriented, driven to excel, impervious to obstacles and, yes, stubborn. Says Nada Safa, “I knew what I wanted to do since I was 13 years old, and I went for it. If I had doubted, I wouldn’t be here today. But even now, I always consider I haven’t achieved anything — I’m not satisfied.” Lina Hundaileh avers that, “There was nothing in my dictionary that would say that I could fail. I only saw success at the end of the road. Ambition and working hard helped me to convince my business partners. And even now I continuously learn to stay up-to-date.”

When Rula Abu Daher became CTO of MTC Touch, “many people thought that I would fail, would give up after a few months because I would not be able to deal with the responsibility and the non-acceptance. But I did not give up — I persisted. The fact that I wanted to prove myself as a female might’ve pushed me more than it would a male in my position. So there was this inner motive that pushed me to keep proving myself.” Of course, this mirrors the experience of women in the business world all over the globe, and is not restricted to or special to the MENA region.

Despite the individual strength necessary to succeed, family support remains crucial since, as Nahed Taher puts it, “if there had not been the strong support from my family, I may still have embarked upon my career but not reached the results.” Most of the other women also received support from their families and attribute their success to the fact that their parents encouraged them to follow their dreams, chose the college majors they wanted, and ultimately provided a comfort zone during their professional careers. But “going against all odds” can be a strong motivation, too. After Nada Safa’s father died when she was still a teenager, the family had to struggle and this instilled in her a strong motivation to “make it from zero all the way up. I had to prove yourself. I had to rely on myself. For me it was unacceptable to fail because I couldn’t afford to fail.”

Not surprisingly then, their recommendations to other young women who espouse careers in business and finance read like quotes from self-help books: “Nothing is impossible.” “Follow your dream.” “Believe in yourself.” “To really achieve anything you have to start by yourself.” But then, their male peers — in the region and anywhere else — give (and get) the same advice, with one exception. “You have to create a momentum at home whereby you get a career, whereby you gain financial independence,” is Sahar al-Sallab’s advice to Egyptian girls. Yet in that, too, there is no ‘cultural gap’ between East and West.

Becoming male?

One thing that all women interviewed resent is the idea that, in order to succeed in business, women have to give up their femininity. Rula Abu Daher insists that she is “keeping the feminine side in me – the way I dress, talk, do my hair. You want to do this proving you can do it by being a woman, not by becoming a man.” Nada Safa, like the others, insists that women are different from men and that there is no point trying to mask that. “I dress appropriately, but feminine.” Making male colleagues learn to understand that a successful woman doesn’t become a ‘buddy’ can even have implications outside the workspace, as Dalal al-Dousari observed. “One can be feminine and be professional at the same time. One still can be a lady while wearing a business suit. I still insist that my colleagues treat me as a woman and open the doors for me. I’ve trained my colleagues and it is getting better. And it even has an impact how they treat their wives at home!”

Foreign Perception

Often, Arab businesswomen not only have to deal with prejudices at home but also while traveling abroad. When Lina Hundaileh went to the United States, “they didn’t believe we have really successful businesswomen in the region. They looked at us as being Arab, Muslim … and I was frustrated.” Egyptian banker Sahar al-Sallab concurs, “In the West I always get perceived not just as a banker but also as an Arab, Muslim woman. They ask me how I got into this position, how my country let me go into this position.”

Apart from the cultural prejudices businesswomen also have to deal with global stereotypes towards women in general. Rula Abu Daher made the experience that, “Abroad, they don’t expect a woman to be a technical officer. 3% of world senior positions are occupied by females — so it’s a world-wide issue. Many times when I met people, they always thought I am in marketing or a sales-person, not a technical person.”

And then Arab businesswomen, especially those in high-ranking positions, are also treated as exotica to be showcased. When Dalal al-Dousari attended the May 2007 World Economic Forum in Jordan she received a slew of meeting requests, many more than her male, and senior, colleagues. TV stations asked to talk to her, CNBC even exclaiming “Finally we have a woman to interview!”

However, this situation quickly shifts, once business meetings start and it becomes clear that those ‘exotic women’ know what they are talking about. As Nahed Taher says, “At the beginning they treat me as a ‘Saudi woman’ … but when they see me and I discuss business then it changes. And Forbes ranked me based on my competence and not because I’m Arab.” Or as Nada Safa succinctly puts it: “In meetings, nobody looks at me as an Arab woman or a Muslim. When you start talking money, they forget the woman or the Arab in the business.”

Positive change over time

Over the past years there has been marked change, even if — according to the interviewed women — it is still too slow. “When a woman is well-placed and has her position in society and her career she can do very well — they are seen differently now than 10 years ago,” says Nada Safa. Nahed Taher agrees and points to a changing economic situation in KSA. “There are two major factors: Women are now more educated. There is an economic need. During the Oil Boom in the 1970s women didn’t feel the need, because they all had money. Now, as life becomes more expensive, women want to be part of supporting their family. The sector is definitely reacting to that. Now opportunities are better: they are looking for qualified people, regardless if they’re men or women. Women proved their professionalism, their productivity, their commitment — also in industrial sector, even into the managerial levels.”

Sahar al-Sallab says about Egypt that, “It needs an intelligent man, a confident man to make a woman rise up the scale and give her the chance even to be better than him on the scale. So if they’re intelligent enough, they will accept it. And they are now accepting it in Egypt. Most of the compliments I get are from men. They believe and want women to be leaders in their own domain.” When, a few months ago, Rula Abu Daher was named ICT Woman of the Year, she says it radiated outward and “made other companies also think about appointing women to manager positions. I hope my experience can serve for others to succeed.” And indeed, the businesswomen are keen on not remaining alone. Says Nahed Taher, “It is my goal to be a pathbreaker and have other women following. If it was only me, then I would not have achieved anything.”

Who drives change?

Asked about how the change should be effected, the interviewees say that women themselves are driving it. As Nada Safa put it, “women are no longer saying they should stay at home and have children, because they can do all those things and work and stay a woman. We can do many things at the same time, it’s natural — we were born like this.” Indeed, many interviewees argue that women are naturally predisposed to succeed in business. Thus, Nahed Taher argues that, “The majority of women have proven to be the best for entrepreneurship — worldwide. Two major factors are in the nature of woman: She is patient to raise a family, to wait for things to grow. Also, a woman by nature likes to educate. So they educate their colleagues. Men, by nature, don’t have this patience.” Sahar al-Sallab goes as far as to say that women have the natural skills to be better managers than men, since “Women are more stable, because they have more compassion and are more sensitive. They can manage better. They are less ego-centric. They are more accommodating, making their male colleagues and subordinates think that most ideas come from them, and not from the female colleague or boss. It is an advantage that women have, if they use it.”

Lina Hundaileh sees that professional organizations, like Jordan’s Young Entrepreneurs Organization that she heads, offer crucial help to women who want to set up their own businesses. “We mentor them, we incubate their businesses. This makes it easier for young businesswomen.” Nahed Taher notices that, now that she and other women have opened the doors, young women are more encouraged to follow in their wake. Sahar al-Sallab even thinks that precisely the lack of opportunities for women in the region, compared to those for women in the West, motivates Arab women not to be complacent and to fight harder for what they want.

However, it is by no means clear if the example of these women is followed on a large scale, or if role models like Nahed Taher and Sahar al-Sallab will not remain exceptions to the rule. In a talk given at an Oxford conference on “Women of the Arab World: Setting their Agenda” in February 2007, Sheikha Lubna al-Qasimi, UAE Minister of Economy, pointed out that, while in UAE women now hold 30% of management positions, 32% of employees in the finance and banking sector are women, and 15% of all professors are Emirati women, this empowerment did not occur because the women themselves had driven the change and claimed their rights. Instead, it had been the government that pushed the women. Lina Hundaileh also calls for the politicians to — finally — implement their lofty promises into realities on the ground, in order to change the awareness of society — both among men and women. Sahar al-Sallab, hinting at economic incentives as agents of change, points out that, “There is a new challenge in that there are now certifications for institutions based on their gender policy, which — if achieved — would upgrade the institution.” She is referring to the ISO 9000:2000 standard that, according to the official website (www.gendercertification.com) aims “to provide tools for creating an enterprise culture where Equality is considered a quality factor integrated in organizational management.”

There are already many executives who realize that women can work as well as men can, and the women interviewed all benefited from such superiors, and unprejudiced fathers and husbands. In the end, it will take a combination of visionary executives, pragmatic government policies and women’s self-motivation to effect significant, lasting change.