Sahar Askalan
Managing Proprietor, SAlegal
Inspiring women
Sahar is a UK-qualified Solicitor-Advocate who was trained and advocated in courts and before arbitration tribunals in the UK. Sahar is qualified to practice before the courts in the Sultanate and the UK. She has been running her law firm for the past seven years, being the first Omani woman to open her own legal practice in the Sultanate.
Sahar’s goal is for an Omani law firm to reach out and become international. She also envisages to develop and upgrade the standard of the local arbitration and legal services. Sahar hopes to inspire all girls and women not to shy away from fulfilling their dreams and overcoming all obstacles.
Sayyidah Rawan Ahmed Al Said
Managing Director and CEO, Takaful Oman SOAG
Ushering in a paradigm shift
Prior to joining Takaful Oman, she was the managing director and CEO of ONIC Holding Corporation. During her tenure in ONIC, she restructured the company to become a multi-million profit company after suffering huge losses in the previous period. She was instrumental in merging the company with one of the large investment companies to become the largest holding company in Oman. Before moving to the private sector, Al Sayyidah Rawan was the deputy CEO-investment for the State General Reserve Fund of Oman, leading the execution of many mega investments internationally. She has over 27 years of experience in financial industry including 20 years in the public sector. She is on the board of a number of reputed companies and financial institutions in Oman and in the region. She has been recently appointed as a board member of Oman Oil Company and its audit committee. She is also a board member of the Public Authority for the SME Development (Riyada), board member of Oman National Investments Development Company ONIDCO and chairperson of its equity and GCC funds, the chairperson of Oman Investment Corporation, deputy chairperson in Takaful Oman, and a board member and audit committee chairperson in National Bank of Oman, board member in Oman Oil Marketing, board member in International General Insurance Jordan, and National Finance House, Bahrain.
Seeniya Biju
Chief Operating Officer & Country Head – Aster Oman
Dynamic leader
One of Oman’s leading healthcare centres- Aster AlRaffah Hospitals and Clinics is headed by a dynamic and compassionate leader, Seeniya Biju. After joining the organisation in 2009, she played a pivotal role in developing and implementing a strategic direction and vision for starting further units in Oman. Seeniya and her team live their avowed motto of offering personalised and preventive health care for all, and her leadership and passion to excel has added many accolades to the history of Aster, Oman. Under her leadership, Aster Al Raffah Hospital, Sohar has now joined an elite group of healthcare organisations in the world. This 60-bedded, multi-specialty hospital has recently achieved the much sought-after Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation and earned the coveted gold seal of approval in quality and patient safety. Seeniya strongly believes that giving back to the society has always been the ethos of team Aster. She has set new benchmarks in taking initiative and providing community service and has been the driving force for embarking various social events and activities.
Shadya Al Ismailiya
Founder & Designer, Deema Oman
Ambassador of innovation
Shadya’s passion for arts and design goes back to her school days. Despite her 22-year long career in finance at the Ministry of Finance and Petroleum Development Oman, she intermittently continued to follow her passion through painting, home designing, jewellery designing etc. Eventually, when she set up Oman’s first indigenous fine jewellery, Deema Oman in 2008, Shadya was reinventing her passion for design. She strengthened her aptitude with formal professional jewellery designing course from Birmingham School of Jewellery. She carved a niche for herself by making traditional Omani jewelleries reincarnate as modern fine jewelleries and branding them as high-end products in global markets. Deema Oman was selected to represent Middle East designers at the 150th birthday celebration of Sir Henry Royce, the legendary founder of the renowned English car manufacturer; and in 2013, Deema was shortlisted among 10 designers worldwide to attend the 110th anniversary of the car. Deema Oman was invited by two Hollywood stars to set up a show for Hollywood stars in 2015. Shadya was chosen as the ‘ambassador of innovation’ by the Research Council, to travel across the Sultanate for promoting entrepreneurship.
Sharifa Albarami
Executive Partner and Co-owner, AlJazeera Global Services & Investments (AGSI)
Entrepreneurial zest
An entrepreneurship development consultant, mentor and businesswoman, Sharifa Albarami is one of the 30 Omani professionals qualified at the National CEO programme. She is also the founder of BizHub Entrepreneurship Centre
(www.bizhub-me.com) and is the primary consultant in the design, execution and management of Oman’s first start-up accelerator and seed fund initiative, the “CELL”, a CSR initiative for OMIFCO, an Oman Oil Company Subsidiary.
She is a certified entrepreneurship programmes manager and facilitator from the Cisco Entrepreneurs Institute. In addition, she is in Entrepreneurship 101 from MIT, US and an affiliate member of the European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds and Early Stage Market Players (EBAN). Sharifa is a member of the International Network of Small and Medium Enterprises (INSME) and a member of the Education Council, Oman
Sharifa Al Harthy
Vice Chairperson, MB Holding Company
Leading from the front
Sharifa has played a pivotal role in setting up the MB Group of Companies since its inception in 1982. Ever since, she has been instrumental in advising the group companies on human resources policy and development. She is currently the vice chairperson of MB Holding Company and plays an active role in nurturing and developing government and community relations. In addition to her role as vice chairperson, Sharifa heads the Mohammed Al Barwani Charity Foundation. The foundation aims to provide scholarships to students who are covered by the social welfare scheme, support patients who require medical treatment locally or abroad (covered by the social welfare scheme), support families under the social care (insurance) scheme, offer humanitarian aid in cases of emergency and disasters and support Omani Women Associations. She has a BA in business administration from Jordan University (Amman, Jordan), and also holds a Master’s degree in business administration from Texas Southern University.
Shatha Al Maskiry
Country Managing Partner, Protiviti Oman
With a Midas touch
Shatha Al Maskiry is the country managing partner of Protiviti Oman, and plays a regional role leading innovative initiatives for the firm in the Middle East. Her experience spans across global organisations such as Arthur Andersen, Shell and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Prior to joining Protiviti, she was in the US with PwC as part of business advisory. She managed fortune 500 clients and was the leader for private companies. She then returned home and joined Protiviti to lead and develop the firm in Oman in business risk and IT consulting, organisational development and capacity building. Shatha developed new service lines for protiviti; communication and change management, SME advisory services and launched “iSucceed”, an online leadership development tool. Shatha also writes business articles for leading newspapers and business magazines in Oman. In 2015, she was featured as an active thought leader in SME Advisor Middle East (English) and SME Arabia Advisor (Arabic). Shatha has a Bachelor of Science in accounting from the American University, Washington D.C., an MBA from the University of Surrey, UK. She is also a certified coach.
