In May 2000, Harvey Nichols Riyadh threw open its doors for the first time, granting Saudi consumers the western luxury retail experience they so craved. Choosing Saudi Arabia’s capital as the brand’s first foray into international expansion seemed curious. At the time, pickings in Riyadh were slim for the fashionable and discerning; there were only a handful of small, isolated boutiques, and no major international department stores. But of all the emerging luxury markets in the world, Harvey Nichols gambled on mine.
Our nomadic Bedouin heritage makes us Saudis natural consumers, constantly searching for whatever is new and more useful for our survival. In the past that could have meant a new saddle, but today it may mean a car or a handbag. In today’s Saudi Arabia, there is a trend driven by a young population who have inherited this Bedouin outlook, a generation on the hunt for something for now, not necessarily for some- thing lasting. As a result, Saudis are not known to be thoughtful consumers – but this is not because we’re thoughtless. As Muslims, we aren’t meant to have attachment to the ‘stuff’ of life: so while we easily consume, we easily give away. When you see a Saudi woman buying 10 versions of a shirt in every size and colour, she plans on distributing them to her ‘tribe’ of loved ones, just like her Bedouin ancestors did.

It seems a confusing paradox, just as confusing perhaps as when people realise I am a female CEO of the company that owns Harvey Nichols Riyadh. Just like the rest of Saudi Arabia, it’s not what people expect. However, CEOs face the same challenges everywhere, irrespective of gender, but being a woman executive here requires a certain level of resilience.

Our culture has strict traditional beliefs about interaction between the sexes, and the laws of our nation reflect that. In an effort to employ more Saudi women and simultaneously observe the cultural and religious morals of our society, this January the Ministry of Labour issued a series of guidelines that businesses must meet over the course of the next six months to accommodate the new mixed-gender staff. Six months! Our unofficial national motto is ‘Tomorrow, God Willing’, so this time frame is frankly culturally unsympathetic to our collective tendency towards procrastination!

These new guidelines dictate everything from the distance a stockroom manager must keep from a sales girl, to the relegating of all-male groups of clients to specifically designated ‘ManZones’ within our store. Despite this, there are still many questions and ambiguities to be addressed in trying to fulfil ta’neeth (the Arab word for the feminisation of the labour force). How, for example, is a salesgirl to go into the stockroom where she has to deal directly with the male warehouse manager if the Ministry of Labour mandates they can’t be within two metres of one another? Solution: a wall with openings for communication and the retrieval of goods. And what will happen to men’s cologne sales? Cliché notwithstanding, they account for a significant portion of our sales! So do I really have to move colognes from their counters to a new isolated ‘ManZone’?

Staying ahead of and surpassing the mandates of the Ministry on hiring, training, and employing more Saudi women is perhaps my biggest daily challenge and greatest reward. Saudi women aren’t used to selling, and our numbers reflect that. How do I motivate a salesgirl to provide excellent customer service? Most of these women are not accustomed to communicating directly with strangers, and now we are ask- ing them to not only enthusiastically engage customers but also perfect the art of the upsell. Seasoned female trainers from Lebanon will train this new sales force, teaching them the finer points of customer service. It’s a massive expense, which includes the cost of flights and housing for a two-year period. For every five girls I train, three will leave me for a slightly higher pay cheque. Many, however, will stay for our perks, including foreign language instruction, in-house day care and personal chauffeurs – as the current laws prohibit women from driving.

The trade-off for these advancements is the forced firings of seasoned ex-pat male staff. From a business perspective, these are men who carry a depth of knowledge of consumer trends and buying habits, and I am effectively obliged to let them go. But the sooner young Saudi women enter the retail job force, the sooner they will climb the wealth ladder and grow into my future customers. It is a welcome change and will be a boom to our business, and our country too. Some days, I walk the store, and it’s not just a retail operation I am looking at. I see great social and economic change, and it plays out on my sales floor every day.