From left, Nabila Al-Bassam, Mirvat Ahmed Malatani, Samia Ali Al-Edrisi and Nora Al-Shuhail. They all form an integral part of the forum and say the organization’s strengths were good leadership and mutual respect. (AN photo)

A decade ago, the climate for Saudi businesswomen was much different from what it is today. Frozen out of the Eastern Province organizations created for businessmen, women decided to create their own — and hence, the “Business Women’s Forum of the Eastern Province” was born.

“The forum came into being out of necessity,” said Nora Al-Shuhail, current forum president. “I was in touch with a few businesswomen who were in the field before me. We all faced similar problems. I would solve them one way, and my colleagues would solve them another way. Nabila Al-Bassam thought we should get together and pool our ideas and share our experiences so we could at least help each other.”

Al-Bassam was a gallery owner who had earlier worked for Saudi Aramco. She found business success, but she realized from her earlier experiences with the large company that women were often cut off from important information that would enable them to turn good ideas into good business.

“We would always say ‘Look, the businessmen meet once a month at the chamber of commerce, and we have no access to the facilities and services provided by the chamber,’” Al-Shuhail said. “So we could not benefit from delegations coming to visit the Kingdom. We couldn’t be part of anything that the chamber organized.”

Al-Bassam invited 40 women to her Alkhobar gallery in 1999, and the women realized how much they had in common. “We talked about how we had started our businesses and how difficult it was in the beginning. It was interesting,” said Al-Shuhail. “There were a lot of businesswomen we didn’t know. We thought meeting was a great idea, so we decided to meet once a month.”

Their common interests allowed them to begin enjoying benefits unavailable to them anywhere else. “We decided to make the meetings more fruitful, rather than more frequent,” Al-Shuhail said. “We thought ‘Why don’t we bring in a lawyer to talk about registering a company?’ Then we brought in a banker; then we brought in a financial expert. There was so much we as women didn’t know. By the end of 1999 we had an organization without ever having meant to establish one. It just happened out of necessity. We started writing bylaws. Samia Al-Edrisi, who was working with Saudi Aramco, helped us formulate the bylaws, membership rights, voting rights and how to vote. We liked it.”

The organization was born out of frustration with a business climate that ignored the needs of businesswomen.

“Before launching the forum, we went to the chamber of commerce and told them we wanted to be recognized,” Al-Edrisi said. “We kept following up with them. Then the chamber said it would form a subcommittee for women. Nine of the forum members became part of the 11-member subcommittee.”

Some businessmen were surprised by the ability of the women to accomplish things — perhaps more efficiently than the other organizations were capable of at the time. “You have to understand part of the group were women who were former Saudi Aramco employees — like myself, like Laila Al-Oraifi — a lot of women who had experience in management,” said Al-Edrisi. “So we wanted to provide our skills to this group of women — how to organize a group and how to conduct meetings. Many of the women who were very shrewd businesswomen in a very simple way had no idea about how to conduct a meeting or how to meet clients, so we took very basic steps. The first year was about taking those basic steps. We would meet for two hours once a month. We didn’t talk about side issues. We concentrated and focused on the topic of the month. It was really a great experience.”

After the chamber subcommittee was formed, some people thought it would supersede the forum, but the women on the subcommittee found the bureaucracy of the chamber stifled their ability to get things done, and over the course of a few years, most of the forum members resigned from the subcommittee. “We were meticulous in our approach,” said Al-Shuhail. “We divided ourselves into four groups to tackle four projects, but I think when you belong to a big organization, and there is a board, somebody has to approve the project. The layers of bureaucracy killed our spirit of trying to do something good.”

Despite the assertions of the chamber that the need for the forum had passed, the forum members resolved to keep it going. “We as a group have worked so hard that we are not going to kill it. There wasn’t a clear understanding at the time of what civil institutions were all about,” Al-Edrisi said. “For the second five-year term, our strategic aim was to become a nongovernmental organization (NGO). Here in our group we have bylaws; we have elections; we have board members. We meet all the requirements for becoming an NGO, and we have brought in a lot of speakers to talk to us about how to organize ourselves into an NGO.”

Al-Edrisi said the forum’s strengths were good leadership and mutual respect. “We had Princess Mashael bint Faisal who is an incredible leader and supporter,” she said. “But it is not just because she is a princess. We sit in a meeting as board members. We can disagree with her and outvote her. We have no problem speaking our minds. The whole reason for our existence is transparency with one another. We have several women from very wealthy backgrounds. We have others who are not so privileged. Constant leadership was provided by Princess Mashael but she is no longer the president because, according to our bylaws, you can only serve two terms on the board.”

As the forum has matured, the businesswomen have developed a focus for their concerns and also their hopes for the nation. “The country cannot rely on oil as the main source of income,” Al-Edrisi said. “There has to be diversification, and women — 50 percent of our society — are idle. We have to take an active part. The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a vital part of the economy. We as women can’t bid for any government project. Our individual capital cannot allow us to go and expand and spend all the money. There is no guarantee that a woman will succeed unless she comes from a business family that helps her.

“Women, like myself who start on their own, find it very difficult. So all members expressed a desire to crown our association of 10 years with a profitable project, and we have. Last year, we registered as the Eastern Forum Co. Ltd. for Advancement and Development (EFCO) with 24 members. I am the CEO of the company. The Business Women’s Forum of the Eastern Province now is a Department of Social Responsibility within this company. We are now an investment company. Our first project is in real estate. The second project will be announced next year in March or April. The objective of the company is for each one of us to have shares in the company. Everybody is a shareholder.”

Businesswomen interested in getting involved with the forum have to prove that they are businesswomen and not in absentia owners.

“We are very strict about new members,” Al-Shuhail said. “Every new applicant has to be recommended by two of our members who go and visit her in her workplace. We make sure that she is actually working and not somebody who only has a business in her name. She should be running a business; she should be on top of things herself, and know the ins and outs of the business but need help to expand and to learn more. Many of the women did not have marketing skills and some didn’t even know how to read a bank statement. They were dependent on their accountants and naturally, things were very haphazard. We thought if we as a group became disciplined, organized and committed that those qualities would translate into our businesses."

And for the members of the Business Women’s Forum of the Eastern Province, it has been a realization that by working in league with one another, the obstacles that regulation or society might create can be overcome. I cannot tell you how over the past eight or nine years it has been a complete metamorphosis — not just change — some of the women have gone through. How they have expanded their knowledge and how they have gone and taken courses,” Al-Edrisi said. “Some of them went for graduate work. Many have started attending conferences, things they had never done before. We are the only private organization in the Kingdom that is not assembled under the chamber of commerce. We want to retain out independence.”