JEDDAH, 25 April 2006 — A Saudi woman has for the first time been chosen to participate in a US State Department program that seeks to offer an opportunity for women leaders to interact with Fortune 500 companies.
Soha Aboul Farag is a banker with 17 years of experience. She was chosen out of ten candidates from the Western Region to participate in this one-month program. She will join 25 others from around the world in the program that kicks off on April 30 in Washington.
The “International Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership” will provide these women leaders a chance to spend a week meeting with White House officials, members of Congress, and officials from other US government departments, chambers of commerce, the World Bank and Georgetown University.
After these meetings each woman will be assigned to a company from the Fortune 500 list of companies in accordance with her interest to be mentored on leadership by senior executives selected from Fortune’s list of most powerful women leaders. The aim is to provide mid-career women like Aboul Farag with a chance to develop their leadership and business skills while gaining experience in the cutting-edge US business environment.
At a roundtable discussion with journalists at the US Consulate, Aboul Farag talked with excitement and anticipation about this opportunity.
“It will provide me with exposure, knowledge and interaction with a different part of the world. It will be a very good experience and I hope I represent my country well,” she said.
Aboul Farag has a long and impressive career in banking with an interest in supporting women in business and technology as well as encouraging young women to fulfill their ambitions.
“There are many success stories of women here and the trend has been to support women in financing, regulations, training and exposure. What we need is to break the ice of fear, to be strong and aggressive. The laws offer women rights, but many of them aren’t aware of this. It is mainly traditions or lack of support that sometimes stand in our way; we have to fight for that support,” she said.
As for her, she had the support and understanding of her family, husband and three children throughout her education and career.
Aboul Farag said that after the tour of Washington DC, she would head off to Los Angeles to mentor at the Latham & Watkins law firm. She said that she is mainly interested in the company’s corporate department that offers services in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and other finance related aspects.
“People in the US don’t know what we have and this will be a chance to represent us as Arabs and Muslims,” said Aboul Farag.
When she returns at the end of May she would like to share her experience with as many people as possible.
