FT top 50 women in world business

25

Name: Nahed Taher
Nationality: Saudi
Age: 45
Company: Gulf One Investment Bank
Sector: Financial services
Location: Bahrain
3-year TSR: N/A

Nahed Taher is co-founder and chief executive of Gulf One. She was also the first woman to make it to the top of a Saudi bank. But even before that she was breaking barriers. After earning a PhD in economics at Lancaster University in 2001, she turned down a job at the International Monetary Fund, returned to her country and became the first woman promoted into the executive team of National Commercial Bank, the biggest bank in the Middle East.

Taher was asked by CNN in 2007 whether she found it strange that she could sign multi-million-dollar deals in Saudi Arabia but not drive to the office. “I will leave this to my dearest King Abdullah to decide,” she said. “I cannot go against the wind, but driving for women is definitely a necessity now, it’s becoming an economic need.”