With women representing less than 30% of the Lebanese labor force (despite over 50% having a university degree), one could be excused for assuming that the traditionally male dominated world of finance would be the last bastion to fall under the onslaught of career-minded females. Yet over the years more and more competent women are forcing a change in the traditional mindset.
“It’s harder for women in this business, especially in the Arab world, where there is a tendency to take women less seriously,” Roula Habis, a funds and products desk manager at Financial Funds Advisors, says. “It’s a man’s world so you have to be tough to be in it, but women can compete and they have proven themselves to be good managers. The industry is changing, notably because you’ve had several successful women who have proven themselves. This has helped change mentalities.”
Despite being one of only four female brokers on the floor of the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE), Lara Dib says she has rarely experienced any discrimination.
“I haven’t had to face many problems as a woman,” the young mother says. “Occasionally you will find an elderly client who prefers to work with men, but these are rare. Your regular investor is aware and highly educated – he will be able to gauge whether you are competent or not. Furthermore I work with a lot of banks and companies, where you also have women dealers.”
Changing lifestyles as a result of a shift in mentalities has further contributed to the promotion of women in the financial world.
A growing number of working women are choosing to have their children in their mid to late thirties, giving them more time to establish a career.
“The culture is not what it used to be,” Serene Mawlawi, managing partner and founder of ProFinance, notes. “For those who are married, there is now a greater tendency to think that you don’t know what will happen further down the line, so a woman needs to get an education and a job. Parents are also giving their daughters more leeway. For instance more are now willing to let their single daughters move to Dubai if a good job opportunity presents itself.”
Yet if mentalities have changed in Lebanon, the rest of the Middle East has not followed suit as rapidly, making for the occasional challenge posed when negotiating with foreign clients.
“It can get a little tricky when you are doing business with clients from the Gulf, although most of these countries, such as Dubai, have become much more open over the years,” says Mawlawi. “It is generally just with the Kuwaitis and especially the Saudis that I may need to be a little bit more aggressive. The Saudi bureaucracy can also be difficult, in terms of granting visas for instance. I wouldn’t send any of my female employees alone to Saudi Arabia.”
Women over Men
Despite the occasional challenge posed when dealing with clients from the Gulf, Mawlawi, whose company has four women and one man, still prefers to hire women. She finds they tend to be more detail-oriented and focused.
Dib concurs. Her company, Credit Commercial et Foncier (CCF), also has a majority of women and was transformed from a real estate company to a financial institution by her sister Carole Dib, the assistant general manager.
“It hasn’t been a deliberate recruitment policy, but we find that women tend to more hard-working and can put up with more,” the broker, who completed her MBA while working full time, notes.
Women who try to rely too heavily on other assets than their brain cells however, are unlikely to complete the race to the top.
“Mentalities have changed – connections and beauty are not enough,” Dib comments. “If you are not competent, you will lose your position.”
As a result, incidents of sexual harassment remain virtually unheard of.
“You are talking about people’s personal investments here, their own money, so it has to stay serious,” says Habis.
But without resorting to the arms of seduction, several women acknowledge that their gender can actually be an asset.
“The presence of a woman eases the atmosphere in a male dominated world,” says Habis. “And as a woman, it might be easier to obtain a meeting with a client. But once you get there, you’d better be professional and present something good, otherwise it won’t work. If you succeed in doing that, the interaction will shift away from the male-female dynamic, to one of two equal partners doing business.”
According to Dib, male clients tend to be less aggressive with women, leading to fewer confrontations and more constructive collaboration.
The upside to the economic downturn
If hard work and degrees are helping women get their foot in the door, the economic slowdown from which Lebanon has suffered over the course of the past decade has not necessarily played in their disfavor.
As local job opportunities dwindle, more men than women have chosen to pack up their bags and seek fortune abroad. With educated youth being advantaged in the emigration process, there has been a decrease in men competing for jobs in the financial industry.
Furthermore, women are willing to accept lower salaries than men, giving them a comparative advantage when applying for entry level positions.
“Women are more willing to sacrifice themselves at the initial stage,” says Dib. “They will take a lower salary, say $500 a month, with the strategy of later being rewarded for their hard work. Men tend to want to start in high positions with greater remuneration immediately.”
Men are also more frequently restricted by the burden of having to provide for their families, thereby automatically setting their minimal salary requirements above those of their female counterparts.
“Single women will be living at home with their parents, whereas married women are generally the second source of income in the household,” says Mawlawi. “Therefore, they will be willing to take a pay cut. Job satisfaction will play a greater role for women than money.”
As a result of this, women overall tend to earn less than their male colleagues, by an estimated 10 to 20%.
Less cut-throat than the West
The Arab financial industry remains a comparatively young one by European and American standards.
As a result, the job conditions have yet to reach Wall Street norms, where 100 hour work weeks and an up or out mentality prevail. The more humane job terms in Lebanon, where work weeks average 50 hours, have made it easier for women not only to enter the industry, but to stay in it after having had children.
“When I worked for Lazard investment bank in London, I would get projects that required that I stay in the office until 3 am, Monday through Sunday, for months,” says a senior corporate finance associate. “Among the 18 partners in the firm, only two were women, and they were single and without children. These types of women would be the only ones promoted. I would never have envisaged starting a family while working there. Here in Lebanon, I would consider it.”
The quality of life in Lebanon also makes the long working hours more bearable, according to Mawlawi.
“When I worked for City Bank in New York, I would get out of work at 10 pm and simply go home,” she says. “Here, you can work hard and play hard. Being able to have even just two hours of fun once you get out of the office affects your performance positively. And the fact that you have the sun and the beach gives you a proper break during the week-end. In New York, I got burnt out and needed to take vacations. Here, I haven’t had a vacation in years. The lifestyle allows you to work much harder.”
Twice the effort
Yet if women’s access to the industry may be less insurmountable than it once was, climbing the ranks whilst juggling a family life remains a daunting task, before which many are forced to cave in.
“In order to spend time with my daughter, I come into the office from 8 am to 2 pm, then I spend the afternoon with her, and go back to work from 9 pm to 1 am, unless I have a business dinner I need to attend,” Mawlawi explains. “With my first child, I worked full-time.”
“By the end of the week I am exhausted,” adds Habis, who had her two children before she began working in finance ten years ago. “You can manage, it’s just a question of organizing yourself, but it’s really tough. I work from 9 am to 6 pm, but the American markets don’t close until 11 pm, so you continue to follow up and stay in touch with the clients once you’ve left the office. Sometimes you check the markets in the middle of the night. It really is non-stop.”
All agree that compared to the amenities working mothers are offered in Europe and America, Lebanon still has a long way to go.
“Most nurseries close too early, at 3-4 o’clock, and I haven’t even been able to find one in the Solidere area,” Dib complains. “If it weren’t for my mother helping me out with the childcare, as well as my husband, and wouldn’t have been able to do it. Fortunately in this region, you have at least a solid family network that can back you up.”
According to Mawlawi, there are many options that would facilitate the task for working mothers, and that remain unexplored.
“There are no flexible work schedules available here like in the West,” she says. “One could work part time, or work from home – a lot of our work doesn’t have to be done at the office. As long as one is performing and meeting targets, one should be able to stay on. I would also like to see large companies who can afford it, such as banks, provide in-house child-care for their employees.”
Government intervention unwanted
Partly as a result of the challenges posed to combining motherhood with the demands of a challenging career, the number of women in the upper echelons remain few.
“At the very top, senior levels, it is definitely very male dominated, I will go to meetings and there will be only one other woman there, if any at all,” Mawlawi says. “At the mid-management level you will find more women, approximately 30 to 40%.”
“I have been working on the floor at BSE for four years, during which the number of women hasn’t increased at all,” notes Dib.
However few view government intervention as being the answer to promoting women in the industry. Whereas Scandinavian countries have experienced a certain degree of success with government imposed gender quotas for board of directors of listed companies, few consider these types of measures appropriate for Lebanon.
“There is already too much government interference here,” Mawlawi grumbles. “Besides, you would run the risk of sectarian quotas being mixed into it, so unless it managed professionally, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Others see the problem first and foremost as a cultural issue among Lebanese women, on which government regulations would have little effect.
“The problem is not with the government, it’s with the women,” says Dib. “Women don’t tend to be ambitious here. In our culture, a woman’s priority should be her house. She might get a good university degree, but once she gets married and has babies, she will quit her job.”
A fervent believer in women being the architects of their own success, Habis maintains that Lebanon will be better served by not being forcefully rushed.
“Just look at our government: a few years ago, there were no women there,” she argues. “Now we have to or three, who made it due to their competence. They did so slowly, but they did it on their own. We’re on the right path. Government intervention wouldn’t be right at this point. Women will become CEOs on their own.”
