6 Saudi women on Forbes most influential list

Six Saudi women have earned places on the Forbes Middle East’s Most Influential Women 2018 list, with the Kingdom’s Lubna Olayan bagging the top spot among the 100 women select.

To formulate the ranking of the most influential businesswomen, Forbes said it considered several factors, including revenues of the companies that they lead; the title, scope and impact of their roles; amount of experience; growth of their firms, and other initiatives that they have led in the last three years.

Argaam has compiled a list of Saudi women who made it to the list, as follows.

#1 Lubna Olayan, CEO, Olayan Financing Company

Lubna Olayan is CEO of Riyadh-based Olayan Financing Company, one of the Kingdom’s most successful conglomerates with operations across the Middle East.

In 2004, she became the first woman to join the board of a Saudi publicly listed company after being elected to the board of Alawwal Bank, and she currently serves as the board’s Vice Chairman. She is also a member of the boards of various local and international listed companies, and sits on sits on several international advisory boards, including those of Rolls Royce, Allianz SE, McKinsey & Co and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Moreover, she is a regular presence at the prestigious World Economic Forum in Davos.

#4 Rania Nashar, CEO, Samba Financial Group

Rania Nashar was named CEO of Samba Financial Group in February last year, making her the first female chief executive of a listed Saudi commercial bank. She has over two decades of experience in the banking sector having served as a board member of Samba’s global markets subsidiary and a Pakistani unit.

In her time with Samba, Nashar worked on its merger with United Saudi Bank, oversaw the development of its digital services, and helped the bank’s transition to a fully Saudi institution following Citibank’s decision to withdraw its management agreement.

#17 Nabilah Al-Tunisi, chief engineer, Saudi Aramco

Nabilah Al-Tunisi began her career with Saudi Aramco in 1982. Besides working on the Aramco-Dow joint venture, she has developed software to monitor oil assets, implemented automation systems to speed up the transport of oil and gas, led engineers on alternative energy solutions, and managed oil and gas projects worth $40 billion. She was promoted to chief engineer at Aramco in 2015.

#44 Latifa Homoud Alsabhan, CFO, Arab National Bank

Latifa Alsabhan was named chief financial officer at Arab National Bank in February 2017. The news of her appointment followed announcements of two other Saudi women being appointed to top positions in the financial services sector: Sarah Suhaimi, who was named chairperson of the Saudi Stock Exhange (Tadawul), and Rania Nashar, who was appointed as CEO of Samba.

#83 Enji Al-Ghazzawi, EVP Operations, Riyad Bank

Enji Al Ghazzawi serves as Executive Vice President of Operations at Saudi-listed Riyad Bank. According to her LinkedIn profile, she began her career with the lender in 2004 as Payments Department Manager – Operation Division. She was appointed EVP Operations in October 2014.

#98 Sumaya Al-Nasser, founder, Sumaya 369

Sumaya Al-Nasser is Saudi Arabia’s first internationally certified female life and career coach. She specializes in self-development, as well as relationship and career coaching.  Al-Nasser, who holds a PhD in theology, has trained more than 200,000 people and delivered more than 12,000 hours of coaching.