‘Can a hijab-wearing woman lead efficiently?’: How Emirati engineer and artist Maryam AlBalooshi proved critics wrong

‘Can a hijab-wearing woman lead efficiently?’: How Emirati engineer and artist Maryam AlBalooshi proved critics wrong

Published: Tue 19 Dec 2023, 9:32 PM Last updated: Tue 19 Dec 2023, 10:57 PM

What did childhood entail for Emirati women who have now come to represent modern UAE society? A society in which women are equal stakeholders in the social, cultural and economic progress. Ask Maryam Ali AlBalooshi, and she is likely to tell you that it was normal if not an easy one. Not easy because there were fewer examples of female accomplishment. Today, it is women like Maryam who have become the faces for women’s empowerment in the region, trailblazers who don not one but many hats.

A chief climate change negotiator for the aviation sector, Maryam is an accomplished author who has already written seven books so far and a calligraphy artist who has worked with some of the leading brands in the region. “We did not have much entertainment growing up,” recalls Maryam, who studied to become a chemical engineer. “Hence we were focused on working hard and making something of ourselves, a reason why you will find many women in my generation to be leaders or founders of ventures that are relatively new.”

A woman in the climate dialogue

COP28, hosted by the UAE this month, has