Securing a Seat, Shifting the Sector
Securing a Seat, Shifting the Sector
SANAD's Advisory & Capacity Building arm, partnered with the Women in Business Arabia, an online network community of 40,000 businesswomen, to support the Women on Board program.
Impact spotlight
In Jordan, Asma Abbadi faced deep-rooted cultural resistance to women in leadership. Despite these challenges, she steadily built her career, becoming a director at Jordan Kuwait Bank. Determined to advance further, she joined the Women on Board program—an initiative supported by SANAD’s advisory and capacity building arm, to prepare women for advisory roles through targeted training and certification.
Through the program, Asma gained the governance expertise and confidence needed to take her seat on the board of Middle East Payment Services (MEPS). Her journey reflects the power of targeted support in helping women break through barriers and lead with impact in traditionally male-dominated sectors.
One of the challenges I encountered was the cultural resistance towards accepting women in leadership roles.
Despite efforts to promote women empowerment, there were still some challenging internal cultures to overcome.
Asma Abbadi | Board member, Middle East for Payment Services (MEPS)
Impact of the partnership
Standing firm as a strong advocate for women’s empowerment, SANAD’s advisory and capacity building arm partnered with the Women in Business Arabia, an online network community of 40,000 businesswomen, to support the Women on Board program. The program is aimed to strengthen the pool of qualified and certified women advisory board members through a comprehensive training to equip them to provide companies with guidance on strategy and formal governance structures.
The program also provides initial practical experience to the women advisory board members by matching them with women-led and owned SMEs, who are in need to improve their business governance structures, ultimately supporting the upscale of their business operations. Abbadi was one of the women advisors selected for training and certification in 2022 from Jordan.
Alignment with the fund
The program has supported over 70 women who are eligible to sit as board members. In return these women have coached more than 80
women-led or owned SMEs, who have all adopted corporate governance structures into their organizations, which will allow them to shift the business sector by growing, becoming more resilient and thriving within the industry.
Empowering women economically as thought leaders and career drivers, further underscores SANAD's mission to foster for female inclusion and positions the fund as a market enabler who seeks to raise awareness and shift the mindset to create inclusive growth in its target region.
