I joined Alyasra Fashion as their CEO in May, 2017. I had left the region almost a year before and returned to London to continue to focus on SALT and Lead Associates, (my advisory business). I met the chairman of the group in London, though at the time I was fully settled and not looking to come back to the Middle East. My husband had arranged the meeting with him which he didn’t tell me about, because he knew that if he did I wouldn’t go, (that’s another story) I genuinely did not want to go back into the corporate world.

Surprisingly the meeting was refreshing, I loved the way he thought, his vision, his knowledge of own brand creation amongst many other things. He was interested in Lead Associates and wanted me to connect him to some global brands. I explained that, after 20 or so years in the industry and having built a successful reputation and global network, the only way I would agree to introduce him to brands was if I fully understood his business. I knew little about it and had to fully understand both its capacity and potential to take on brands and moreover to deliver their requirements successfully. That's just the way I work.

We agreed to go out to Kuwait and spend a few days with the business, I was pleasantly surprised it was a great business, 250 stores, across 5 regions, good teams and like many businesses it had reached a point where it required some fixing before he could take it to the next phase. They had never hired a CEO, for 25 years the family, like many regional businesses managed it directly and successfully, however now it required change. Long story short, after three months of working together they offered me the role, not only as their first CEO, I am proud to say their first Female CEO. 

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