Athlete Sarah Attar appears to have shattered some very thick glass ceilings when she became the first Saudi Arabia woman to appear in an Olympics in London last year.
Her debut may have been inauspicious in its sporting achievement, but ‘the Kingdom’ has since been forced to loosen its appalling treatment of women. Simple actions such as driving a car were banned for women, but a recent diktat has told Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia (religious police) not to arrest women for doing so.
Business appears to be changing as well. This week, Tata Consultancy Services has created an all-female Business Process Services centre in Saudi Arabia; an initiative designed to promote the employment of women in Saudi Arabia, in partnership with GE and Saudi Aramco. The three partners will work together with the intention of scaling up the new venture to create up to 3,000 jobs for Saudi professional females.
The three global businesses have joined together to open the first-of-its-kind shared services centre, which will be staffed primarily by female Saudi graduates in alleged support of the Saudi Government’s socio-economic development strategy.
The project is designed to both drive job creation for women in Saudi Arabia and deliver business value for TCS and its partners by opening up access to a wealth of female talent within the country.
About bloody time, too…
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
