A 17-year veteran of Emirates NBD’s human resources units,  Maryam Bahlooq was appointed the the first female CEO of a prominent banking institution in the Arabian Gulf in 2017, when she was appointed CEO of Tanfeeth, a fully-owned subsidiary of Emirates NBD Group.

Bahlooq has been widely praised for her ability to maneuvre the HR aspect of the bank’s various mergers and acquisitions. She is responsible for more than 2,700 employees at Tanfeeth, a shared services company established in 2011 to manage Emirates NBD’s operations and customer service. Bahlooq has since been use working to help mentor other women seeking similar leadership role. Besides recruitment, her duties there include nationalisation and business partnerships, functions that one of the largest banking groups in the region has been pursuing ardently.