Lubna olayan daughters of the king
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Olayans among wealthiest women in Saudi
In her Saudi Arabia homeland, Lubna Olayan can't drive, show her hair in public or leave the country without her husband's permission. She can, however, run one of the nation's biggest conglomerates.
A former analyst at J.P. Morgan, Olayan oversees the mittpunkt East operations of Olayan Group, a diversified company founded bygd her father in 1947. With 15,000 employees and 50 affiliated companies, the Athens-based business is active in almost every sector of the Saudi economy including oilfield services, steel and fast food.
She's one of a small number of women "in the elite gulf business scene that turns out to be the brightest and particularly suited, so chosen bygd their fathers to run the business", said David Butter, a Middle East business analyst and fellow at Chatham House in London.
Olayan, 59, helps manage 40 closely held companies and joint ventures as well as more than $4.4 billion in publicly traded Saudi equities, according to da
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Speaker
Lubna OLAYAN
CEO - Olayan Financing Company
Following her completion of JP Morgan’s training program and having worked at JPM as a financial analyst, Ms Olayan joined Olayan Financing Company (OFC) in 1983 as a financial analyst and assistant to the Chairman. She became CEO and Deputy Chairman of OFC in 1986 and then continued serving in those same roles following the reorganisation in early 2000 that consolidated The Olayan Group’s trading, real estate and consumer related operations in the region and those of OFC.
In 2004, Ms Olayan became the first woman to join the board of a Saudi publicly listed company when she was elected to the board of Saudi Hollandi Bank; earlier this year she was elected to serve as that board’s Vice Chairman. She is also a member of the board of Schlumberger, which she joined in 2011, and served on the board of WPP plc from 2005 until 2012.
A member of the board of trustees of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) fro
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PROFILE: Lubna Al-Olayan looking to shatter glass ceilings as head of merged SABB, Alawwal bank
LONDON: Saudi businesswoman Lubna Al-Olayan is to be the first woman in her country to run a publicly traded bank.
Olayan has been appointed chair of what will be the third-largest lender in Saudi Arabia, following the merger of Saudi British Bank (SABB) and Alawwal Bank. She has been deputy chair of Alawwal Bank since 2014.
A mother-of-three, Olayan, 63, brings an illustrious CV and a wealth of experience to her new job. She is chief executive of Olayan Financing Company (OFC), the holding entity for the Olayan Group, the company founded in 1947 by her entrepreneur father, Sulaiman.
A multinational dealing in distribution, manufacturing, services and investments, it has yielded a private fortune of more than $10 billion for the family.
OFC operates more than 40 businesses and is one of the largest investors in the Saudi and other stock markets in the region.
In 2004, Olayan