The Middle East is rapidly emerging as one of the world’s leading regions of growth and influence.  In this development, the region is slowly but surely transforming through better gender balance at the top of the regions most powerful companies. Gender balance is called out as a priority for several leading Middle Eastern economies starting with the dynamic United Arab Emirates (UAE),  Saudi Arabia, Qatar.   Research shows that Companies with 30% women executives bring in as much as 6 percentage points more in profits; when considering a potential employer, 61% of women look at the diversity of the employers leadership team, 67% at whether it has positive role models similar to them, and 56% at whether the organization publicly shares its progress on diversity. Gender diversity & inclusion in organizations is a critical indicator of success. The importance of a more diverse leadership workforce is now increasingly accepted and advocated.  Research from House of Rose Professional’s proprietary Break the ceiling touch the sky® annual research indicates that several companies headquartered in the Middle East are now aspiring to global excellence when it comes to gender balance. That said  the Middle East is far behind the global best in class benchmarks on gender balance recorded by HORP since 2020. This underscores a  a massive need for the upskilling and acceleration of women in leadership across the largest Companies in the Middle East, given that gender balanced led companies are proven globally to deliver better business and organizational results.

House of Rose Professional (HORP)  has since 2014 invested in developing and enabling over 45000 women leaders around the world (including the Middle East) to greater success via its training brand Break the ceiling touch the sky®.   The 2025 Break the ceiling touch the sky® list of the Middle East’s Most Inspirational Women in Leadership is the 2025  listing  was created to inspire and enable the next level of leaders in the Middle East and in support of House of Rose Professional’s  Mission 2029 for a Better World –   which aims to shape a better world via better diversity & inclusion, better leadership and better business. The Measure for MISSION 2029 for a Better World is to  quintuple the number of Female CEOs  and double the number of male (advocates for diversity) CEOs in the World’s 500 largest Companies by 2029.

Five factors are used in the determination of the 2025 Break the ceiling touch the sky® list of the Middle East’s Most Inspirational Women in leadership.  Career achievements; scale of influence; active and visible advocacy for gender equality; active support of other women in leadership within and outside of their own organizations/ Companies;  and sharing of their best practices for success across broader industry  (and at Break the ceiling touch the sky® – the success and leadership summit for women).  

The 2025 Break the ceiling touch the sky® list of the Middle East’s Most Inspirational Women in Leadership is focused  primarily on the Corporate world  and is  curated by House of Rose Professional from its review of female executives in over 500 Companies operating across the Middle East  including data from the 2024 and 2025  Break the ceiling touch the sky 101 Best Global Companies for women in leadership (BTC 101 Global Index), and regional gender balance data curated by HORP.  

The final list of the 2025  Break the ceiling touch the sky® list of the Middle East’s  Most Inspirational Women in Leadership will be announced and celebrated at the  2025 Middle East Africa  Edition of Break the ceiling touch the sky® – the success and leadership summit,  to be held on Sept 8, 2025 in Dubai.  Companies and individuals can register for the summit, and contribute to the overall development of the next level of female leaders and allies for gender balance at the summit.

Leaders  nominated onto the list are  informed exclusively  by House of Rose Professional executives – Joseph Rose (consultant@houseofroseprofessional.com) or Anthony Rose (anthony@houseofroseprofessional.com).  No other parties or individuals are authorized to contact leaders on the list.  Additional nominations to the list will be considered by exception between now and June 30 from Companies that have signed up to participate at the 2025 MEA Edition of Break the ceiling touch the sky®.  The final list will be publicized widely across the global network of Break the ceiling touch the sky® and its partners to an audience of several million.