Saudi bourse names first female chair

riyadh/dubai — NCB Capital chief executive officer Sarah Al Suhaimi will become the first woman to chair Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange, the largest bourse in the Middle East.

Al Suhaimi was appointed chairwoman of the Tadawul, replacing Khalid Al Rabiah, the exchange said in a statement. She is expected to keep her position at NCB Capital, the investment banking unit of National Commercial Bank, a person familiar with the appointment said. Al Suhaimi was the first female head of a Saudi investment bank when she assumed the role in 2014.

She was elected by the exchange’s board, which includes representatives of the central bank, the finance ministry and the commerce ministry, the exchange said.

Al Suhaimi’s appointment is significant for Saudi Arabia; more Saudi women entering maledominated fields such as banking and engineering. She is one of only a few women with a top job in Saudi finance. Before joining NCB Capital, Al Suhaimi was chief investment officer at Jadwa Investment and a senior portfolio manager at Samba Financial Group. Her father, Jammaz Al Suhaimi, was the head of the Capital Market Authority, the market regulator, until 2006.

The kingdom’s $439 billion stock exchange, which opened to foreigners in 2015, is seeking to attract more overseas investment as part of the country’s plans to diversify the economy away from oil. It’s working with index provider MSCI to be reclassified as an emerging market in the hope of triggering billions of dollars of inflows, Tadawul CEO Khalid Al Hussan told Bloomberg in January. — Bloomberg /Reuters