The UAE’s Minister of Tolerance, Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, has been ranked as the most powerful Arab woman by CEO Middle East magazine for the sixth year in a row.
Over a long political career, Sheikha Lubna has held several cabinet briefs, including as minister of foreign trade, minister of international development and minister for the economy and planning.
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She was the first ever woman to be appointed as a government minister in the UAE.
The CEO Middle East list ranks 100 Arab women from around the world according to the number of people whose lives they have touched and influenced.
In second place this year is activist, author and TV host Zainab Salbi, whose new show ‘Nida’a’ is designed to ‘celebrate the dreams and achievements of Arab women’. Salbi is the founder of Women for Women International, an agency which has impacted the lives of more than 1.7 million.
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Another UAE cabinet member, Reem Al Hashimy, who was named as Minister of International Cooperation in the recent government reshuffle, was placed third.
Other entries in the top ten included Dalia Mogahed, former executive director of the Gallup Centre for Muslim Studies and a prominent voice in the battle to sway public opinion about the Muslim world, and Katia Bouazza, the head of capital financing, Latin America, for global bank HSBC.
There were 29 new entries in this year’s list, the highest of which was Nawal El Moutawakel, a former athlete and now member of the International Olympic Committee.