By Shaima Bin Hussain
In Kuwait, when we say “private sector,” the first thing that comes to mind is a bank. It’s part of our culture, not because banks are necessarily better, but because they’re the most visible and familiar. We know the bank names by heart, but we know little about investment companies, other parts of financial services, or even sectors outside finance altogether. So when a Kuwaiti woman thinks about a private-sector career, a bank is usually her first choice, and sometimes the only one she knows. Which makes me wonder: do we choose banks because they suit us best, or simply because they’re the names we know? And who painted that picture for us?
We know women have a strong presence in Kuwaiti banks, making up roughly a third of the workforce. But step into investment firms and the picture goes blurry. There’s simply no published data on how many women work there or how far they rise. And as we move up to executive seats, the numbers thin out, in banks and beyond.
I won’t pretend I know why. What I have are more questions than answers, and I think they deserve to be asked out loud.
Did she choose banking, or was it the first door that opened?
When we see so many women in banks, it’s easy to assume they chose banking. But did they? Or was the bank simply the first door that opened after graduation? Did she even know there were careers in asset management, funds and investment analysis? Who told her about them?
And even if she chose, was the choice truly hers? Or was it shaped by family advice and by what’s familiar around her? A bank is a name everyone knows, while investment firms and other financial institutions stay out of the picture.
I try to separate three things: what women are drawn to, what’s actually open to them, and how much authority they get once they’re in. Numbers alone can’t tell these apart.
Two sectors, or different roles?
From the outside, the two sectors look like different worlds. Banks are deposits, loans and customer service; investment is portfolios, funds and market calls. But anyone who has worked inside knows the line is blurrier than that. A woman in a bank’s treasury or private banking team may be closer to the world of investment than a colleague in another department of the same bank.
I’ve moved between banks, investment companies and private banking over my career, so I keep asking: are we really comparing two sectors, or should we be comparing roles? And where exactly do women stand: at the table where investment decisions are made, or next to it?
Where exactly do women stand: at the table where investment decisions are made, or next to it?
Getting in is only half the story
The other half starts years later. Who gets the big client? Who is handed a portfolio, a budget or a team? Who gets invited to the investment committee or the credit committee?
In our study of executive positions at companies listed on Boursa Kuwait, we noticed that most women executives work in support and control functions: HR, compliance, marketing. Did they end up there because they love that work? Or because those were the only ladders on offer?
The women who left
And what about the women who left? Why would a talented analyst walk away from an investment firm after a few years? Was it the pressure, the hours, or a feeling that the circle where deals get made had no room for her? I don’t know. And I suspect many others don’t either.
Questions only women themselves can answer
These are questions I’d love to hear answered by women themselves, not by statistics:
- Why did you choose a bank, or an investment firm, and who influenced that decision?
- Is the department you’re in today your first choice? Where would you like to move, and what’s stopping you?
- Have you ever been trusted with real money: a portfolio, a fund, a budget?
- Who, or what moment, changed your path?
- If you could go back to your first day, would you take the same road?
- What keeps you here, and what might make you leave?
I don’t have ready answers, and I don’t want to assume them. What I want is for us to understand before we judge, and to build research that starts from women’s own experiences, not from our impressions of them.
Join the conversation in Geneva
That’s why I’m looking forward to AWIBFA, the Arab Women in Banking and Finance Conference & Awards, taking place in Geneva on 22 January 2027, where I’ll be speaking. Not because it will hand us the answers, but because it will bring together, in one room, women from banks, investment firms and wealth management across the Arab world and Europe. Each of them holds a piece of the picture we’re trying to see.
If you work in finance, have left it, or are thinking of joining, your story matters. Your presence and your voice could be exactly the starting point we need to understand what women want from this industry, and to design, together, what helps them reach the top.
So come, and tell us: where did you start, and where do you want to go?
Read more from Shaima Bin Hussain on Woman Banker: From Knowledge to Wealth: Why Financial Culture Precedes Financial Success.
