Women in Family Business

Muna Al Gurg has been instrumental in shaping innovative approaches in her family’s firm.She fondly remembers the stories her father, and company founder, Easa Saleh Al Gurg, told her about navigating the business through Dubai’s early development period in the 70s and 80s. Those experiences helped reinforce Muna’s belief that the ability to adapt in ever-shifting commercial landscapes lies at the core of most family enterprises – especially in the MENA region, with its history of frequent and swift transformations. However, she also stresses the importance of establishing a solid governance foundation to support the critical decision-making process of current and future family business leaders. Muna credits her father’s time as a post office clerk — a position he was fiercely proud of — as a grounding influence in the family business, while also showing what can be accomplished through unwavering hard work and ambition. In this episode, Muna Al Gurg, who is now Vice Chair and Director of Retail for the Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group, one of the UAE’s leading diversified conglomerates with a portfolio of over 30 companies, talks about the innovative mindset she believes has always been essential for family businesses to thrive, the new opportunities that exist for firms willing to challenge traditional models, and the ‘three Ps’ that she believes should be the ethos of every family business: Profitability, People, and Purpose.

The knowledge that we will inevitably face circumstances beyond our control is part of being a business owner. The steep changes caused by the recent global pandemic showed the capacity of whole industries to pivot at seemingly a moment’s notice. The hospitality sector is particularly sensitive to these global ebbs and flows. Few nations know that better than the UAE, whose hotel industry has been significantly reshaped by the region’s rapid growth over the past 30 years. For Shaikha Al Nowais, Vice President of Owner Relationship Management at leading hotel management company, Rotana, successfully addressing her industry’s transformation has meant investing in people and drawing on the powerful internal constants of attitude, approach, and perseverance. In this episode, Shaikha discusses how investing in the development of people leads to dedication, commitment and, ultimately, success. Shaikha also details the many important lessons she learned from her father, company co-founder, Nasser Al Nowais, and how he helped shape her strength and conviction, especially when facing adversity. Shaikha believes that accessibility and engagement are key to generating the new ideas that businesses need to confront the inevitability of change.

After answering her father’s call to help with the family business, Cecily McGuckin saw the need for modernisation and change in the company, ultimately taking on the task while also navigating the operation’s overwhelmingly male culture. While evolving to meet current and future challenges is an important strategy for every business hoping to safeguard their future, Cecily feels that balance and candid communication are key when restructuring an organisation or introducing new technologies in the name of efficiency. People will always be an essential part of Queensland Sheet & Steel, and Cecily has developed her leadership style to take advantage of the value they bring. In this episode, Cecily McGuckin, CEO of Queensland Steel and Sheet, one of Australia’s longest-running, family-owned steel distributors, talks to us about her extraordinary journey to becoming the first female CEO in Australia’s steel industry, how to build on the first generation’s legacy while managing necessary change, and why a people-centric culture is a winning formula.

A recent report by the International Energy Agency projects that renewable energy will become the largest global source of electricity by 2025 – that’s enough energy to power all of China in 5 years. Considering this revelation, it’s becoming increasingly hard to imagine a time when investing in renewable energy was a gamble, especially in oil-rich regions like the Middle East. Such investment is a prime example of the visionary thinking it takes to transform an unconventional solution into the best way forward. On this episode of WiFB, Joumana Hosri, CEO of Sacotel ZNSHINE, and a “Visionary Leader of the Year” award recipient, talks about joining her family’s firm at age 24 and spearheading initiatives in a male-dominated business environment. Joumana also talks about the critical decision-making process and passion that fuelled her enterprise’s transition to sustainability, and the first-of-its-kind joint venture that made her family’s company one of Lebanon’s top solar power and green energy businesses.

A recent UBS study revealed that 59% of widows and divorcees regret not being involved in long-term financial planning when they were married, and 98% would advise other women to take an active role in finances immediately[1]. With women’s wealth set to outpace global wealth over the next several years[2], it’s never been more important that women are prepared to confront their financial futures. Marina Vaughan Spitzy, Director and Founder of Tecolote Advisory, a firm that specialises in helping women and their families take stewardship of their finances, experienced the struggle with wealth management first-hand when her family was faced with the sudden loss of her father — an increasingly common succession scenario. In this episode, Marina talks about how her family’s experiences motivated her to help others build healthy relationships with wealth in the family, what kind of education is required to give everyone the same level of understanding and access, and why it all is so essential for the success of multigenerational legacies. [1] https://www.ubs.com/content/dam/WealthManagementAmericas/documents/2018–37666-UBS-Own-Your-Worth-report-R32.pdf [2] https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/managing-next-decade-women-wealth

Today’s businesses face unprecedented uncertainty. Even before 2020’s pandemic fundamentally upended the status quo, disruption was taking the form of new technology, market globalisation, and ageing demographics. Companies have had to change to meet their goals, but have their boards evolved with them? The board room is coming under increasing pressure to prove its value as the traditional business models from which it sprang undergo transformative innovation. In this episode of WiFB, Meghan Juday, Board Chairman of Ideal Industries, a diversified family-owned business that designs and manufactures products for electrical, lighting, and infrastructure industries, discusses the challenges she faced and the revelations she boldly acted on when becoming the first female Chairman for her family’s 107-year-old company, in an industry overwhelmingly dominated by men.

KPMG Private Enterprise has famously published numerous studies and thought leadership articles on women in family businesses from across the globe, but none of these publications has looked exclusively at the role of women in Saudi Arabia. Until now! With the number of women in the Kingdom’s workforce increasing over the last decade, and women assuming leadership roles in Saudi companies, many of which are family businesses, their contribution and influence deserved a closer examination. In this episode of WiFB, Kholoud Mousa, Partner & Head of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity and Buthainah Albaity, Director Private Enterprise – Family Business & Family Offices, share insights and findings from KPMG’s recent publication, The Power of Women in Family Businesses. The study was local to Saudi Arabia, featuring in-depth interviews with 14 female family business leaders from across the Kingdom and focuses on the changing role of women in these enterprises.