A True Story About an Inspirational Woman to Celebrate International Women's Day.

Chirine Harb is a Board Director and Chief Operations Officer here at Capital Asset Management. She is one of the most inspirational and energetic people you could meet.

This is her story...

*******************************************************************************************

I was born and raised in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.?

My parents were both hard-working and raised me to be the same. I excelled at school and sport, but unfortunately, the opportunities for girls in the mid-eighties was very limited. After high school, a girl had two options, either try and enrol into?the?one university in Riyadh where she could graduate in home economics or dentistry. Or get married.?

At the time, women couldn’t hold a job, drive a car or even travel unaccompanied. Our teachers, doctors, and nurses were all non-nationals.??

Don’t get me wrong, I had a wonderful childhood. I had school, hobbies, and friends, but I always challenged the status quo. I wasn’t alone, we all did. I was lucky, however, in that my parents listened when I said, "I need my freedom. I need to be able to understand the world and what it has to offer."?

After I graduated high school, my parents sent me to a university in Boston. The majority of my friends didn't live that far from home, and I can still remember wondering, "What have I done?" as I touched down at Boston Logan International Airport.

It was 1987 – mobile phones and google maps didn’t exist. I had to rely on my little notebook, where I had been frantically taking notes for months on where to go and who to speak to. It is all a blur.?

My high school studies were all in Arabic, so it was a major learning curve trying to understand textbooks in a language I barely spoke. It was a tough year but exciting at the same time. The city was stunning, and I experienced events that I would have never done if I hadn’t left Saudi Arabia. I attended my first ever concert, I watched a basketball game, I studied in libraries, and I got a waitress job. I was living the life of a normal university student and I was grateful because few girls in my country could.?

I met loads of amazing people from all walks of life – some, like me, were out of their comfort zone. I befriended scientists, musicians, engineers, and artists.?

University life was always buzzing and although for the first time ever I had a roommate and needed to use a communal bathroom – I was in my element. I worked hard and was determined to succeed.?

I didn’t.?

No matter how hard I worked, I failed every course that first year. I knew that the language was a barrier, so I spent nights with my head buried in my textbooks, trying to make sense of the words.

But I failed and failed again.?

So, I gave up and went home that summer defeated.?

A year later and after a good talking to from my parents and a crash course in English, I tried again! I went on to get my MSc in Architecture and landed my first real job in downtown Boston.?

On my first day at my new job, my boss (who later became my mentor and the reason I went on to get an MBA) asked me to clean the kitchen and tidy up the architects’ samples library. Shock! Horror! – I have an MSc!

I stepped into his office angry, with a fire burning inside me, ready to challenge him! Calmly, he said “Chirine, there are hundreds of you out there, you are not special! Your attitude toward work, whatever it may be, will determine the rest of your career. Only your attitude, not your degrees, not where you are from, or your status.?

With my tail between my legs, I went back to the samples library and threw myself into tidying it up.?

I wasn’t always passionate about architecture, I was good, but not great. My passion, as it transpired and after shadowing my mentor for 18 months, was how he ran the business. He was the epitome of hands-on, stuck-in, and rolled-up sleeves.?

There is nothing he didn’t know about the firm, and he didn’t even own it. He ran it like it was his own. This design firm employed 50 people, and he was the go-to person for each one of them. When people came to him with an issue or problem, his first response was always, “How can I help?”?

My career

I couldn’t stay in the US for very long after that – I had a student visa that came to an end, and I wasn’t granted another one. Armed with an education and experience, I moved back home and looked for a job – It was difficult to find one. There weren’t that many architecture or design jobs for women, so I worked with my father, who is a civil engineer, working from home. Organising his drawings and contracts. I also worked with my mother translating Arabic into English.?

When the work dried up, I decided to move to Dubai. It was a booming city and Arab expatriates were in demand, and I worked as a designer for 5 years before moving to the UK where my husband was from.?

I arrived in London at the age of 32 and thought that it was a fantastic opportunity to change careers. London was the heart of the financial world, and I was fascinated by it. I was lucky enough to get a part-time role in a financial services firm where my responsibility was opening mail and delivering it to different departments. Here I was starting over, but instead of tidying up a library or cleaning a kitchen, I was delivering post!?

My mentors’ teachings constantly echoing in my head – 'How can I help?'

He was right—working hard and displaying the right attitude gets you recognised. Offering help when people don’t expect it creates trust. As the years went by, I was promoted several times and moved organisations to not only better myself, but to help others do the same.?

At Capital, we pride ourselves in helping our clients?experience true wealth?by understanding what the magical phrase ‘true wealth’ means to them.?

As the Head of Operations, my role is to create the infrastructure that allows us to do exactly that. I work with an incredibly talented team of individuals whose sole purpose is to help our clients. I create an environment for the team to grow, flourish, learn, and achieve by always asking, “How can I help?”

It only really dawned on me recently how powerful a question that is.?It’s saying,

"I’m not going to tell you what to do, I am not going to fix your problem or hand you a solution. I am empowering you to figure out what it is you need to get you back on the right track.??Use me, my expertise and knowledge to guide you and if there is anything more you need – I will help. "

Overcoming difficulties in Saudi as a little rebel and being defeated when I thought I could never be.?

Having the resilience to start over repeatedly, has led me to this moment, where I can be the leader that I always wanted to be.?

I look forward to speaking with you and will always start by asking,?‘How can I help?