Dr. Nahed Taher is Group President and Director of Islamic Finance of National Standard Finance. Dr. Taher also serves as Co-Chief Economist at National Standard.
In this role, Dr. Taher represents National Standard to GCC, African and other Middle East governments, banks and the regions largest corporations and policy makers. National Standard was the first international company to introduce credit financing techniques in the GCC. Dr. Taher is a pioneer and visionary in the Saudi and GCC banking markets as the first female CEO of a bank in the region and an expert in Islamic Finance.
Dr. Taher has been ranked by Forbes magazine as number 72 of the 100 most powerful women in the world. She was also ranked by the Financial Times as no. 25, 24, and 23 respectively of the top 50 businesswomen in the world in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Dr. Taher also received the award of Businesswoman of the year 2006 by HH Prince Hamid Al-Nihayyan, In addition, she received the award of “Saudi Businesswoman of the year 2007” by HRH Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud. Lately in September 2009, Dr. Taher was ranked as no. 25, 24, then 23 among the top 50 business women in the World by Financial Times in 2009, 2010 and 2011 consecutively, and among the top 100 women of Finance and Leadership in Crisis by Dow Jones in 2009.
Dr. Nahed M. Taher holds dual Masters Degrees in Financial Economics and a PhD in Monetary Economics from Lancaster University in the UK. Recently she was awarded an honor professorial degree from Lancaster university for her contribution banking and finance in the world.
Dr. Taher is the prior founder and a Board of Directors member Gulf One Investment Bank. Since 2005, Dr. Taher served as the CEO of the bank until stepping down in 2017 to join National Standard Finance. By holding this position, she is the first female CEO of a Gulf based investment bank. Prior to that Dr. Taher was a Managing Partner of Compass Consulting, a financial advisory company in Saudi Arabia and was the first female to get a financial advisory license in Saudi Arabia. Prior to Compass, she was Chief Economist and Chairman of Risk and Portfolio Management Committee at the National Commercial Bank (NCB) in Jeddah, where she was the first female to be hired in a senior management position among 4,000 men in the bank.
Dr. Taher has represented the Saudi Arabia government, the private sector, and Saudi Arabia Chamber of Commerce in many high level international business and banking events.
Dr. Taher served as a professor and head of the Economics Department at King Abdul Aziz University (KAAU). She was also a co-owner and a financial advisor to various private companies in the Kingdom.
Dr. Nahed is a board member in a number of Saudi private companies and committees including:
Chairman of Moya Water Company
Chairman of Alafaq Insurance Company, KSA
Board member of Jasarah home health care company
Member of the Supreme Committee of Environment in Saudi
Member of the foundation board of IMD University in Switzerland
Member of the international Advisory board of Lancaster University , UK
Member of the international Advisory board of King Abdulaziz University
Member of the Board in the OECD-MENA region Financial group
International Board member of the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center of Energy (KAPSARC)
Member of Young President Organization (YPO)
A board member in the Saudi German business group