JEDDAH, 24 November 2004 — Saudi businesswomen are among the Kingdom’s participants at an upcoming Middle East leadership conference set in Dubai.
Their participation in next month’s women in leadership conference comes in the context of encouraging reports from the World Bank (WB). The WB estimates that the Kingdom’s female labor force participation has grown by 604 percent in the past four decades.
The period has also witnessed a jump in the number of women across the work force in the Middle East at an enormous rate, according to IIR Conference Director Michelle Boyd. The WB estimates that female labor force participation has grown 691 percent in Qatar, 668 percent in Bahrain and 548 percent in the UAE. Such rapid growth has seen many women advance from junior level employees to middle level managers.
“However, just as in Western countries, women are dramatically under-represented at senior levels of management,” Boyd said, adding that many of the women who have attained senior management positions in the region will be participating in the event.
Some of the region’s most dynamic and successful professional women will come together for the conference, said Boyd. IIR Middle East is organizing the conference — Women in leadership: The Middle East forum for the progression and empowerment of women in business — at a Dubai hotel from Dec. 12-15. The conference will address a range of burning issues on the status, empowerment and integration of women into the regional work force. IIR Middle East is offering special registration discount for delegates who register via the newly launched Khadijah bint Khuwailed Business Women’s Center at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry on Sunday (Nov. 28). Women in leadership will feature presentations from 39 leading business women of 11 countries in the region representing a wide range of professions, from banking, finance and wealth management to education, IT, engineering, administration, sales, marketing, PR and event management, among many other disciplines.
