Breaking ground in Qatar

Once upon a time, not very long ago, there was an eight-year-old Qatari girl who dreamt of being a business tycoon. Today, Suhaila al-Hareb, the girl, is evidently the only woman in the country to have entered the real estate field.

It wasn't easy.

"I had to fight a lot with my family to get into the business," says Suhaila, 30, who started her real estate agency called Al-Hareb Trading and Contracting two years ago.

"Women in Qatar are not encouraged to do businesses which are apparently meant for men," she says matter-of-factly.

Suhaila, dressed in a black veil, recalls the first time she went up to her father to tell him of her decision to venture into cutthroat real estate business. "I was very scared, because I was sure my family would not agree to it. But I was also sure that I would go through with it whether or not they agree," she says.

Her family thought she was joking. But when she responded to the laughter with a straight face, "Father, it's either this or nothing. To be or not to be," the sounds of laughter died. Instead, shock and anger took over.

"'Women don't do this', they told me. But I wasn't ready to accept such a remark," says the real estate broker, adding, "They said, 'fine, you want to do business, do a business of clothes or open a beauty salon, but not real estate. How can you compete with men?'"

"If women all over the world can compete with men, why not in Qatar," says Suhaila, who recently participated in the Arab and European Businesswomen Forum in Spain on her own "to prove Qatari women too can compete".

Even though it's still a little hard for her family to accept or be happy with what Suhaila does for a living, she knows, "they are very proud" of her.

"I can see it on their faces. But they'll never say it," she says.

Before venturing into the field, Suhaila, a college-dropout, went to a millionaire businessman, who she refuses to name, in Qatar for a few tips.

Of the several nuances Suhaila was taught, one found a permanent place in her mind. "'Make money', he told me when I asked him for the one most important thing I should remember," Suhaila tells Gulf Times.

Why did she not finish her studies? There's no reply. Just a shrug and a smile. "You don't have to be a student in a college," she says moments later. "You can also be a student without college. A student of practical life - that's what I am."

Suhaila wants to be the richest woman in the world. "I have only just begun", assures the five feet eight inches tall dusky businesswoman.

She started off her business, "with QR 25,000", in a small one-room office. Today, even though she works with a small staff of six people, the office is "very luxurious", says Suhaila, the only Qatari woman to be granted membership of the Dubai Women Chamber and Commerce.

Last year, her company made a "profit of QR 200,000," Suhaila proudly reveals.
Suhaila was gifted with the traits required to be a successful businessperson.

As a kid she regularly went to the supermarket and bought surplus chocolates and candies and kept her fridge always stocked. She would sell them to her friends at "double the price".

"They used to say 'I am your friend, give it for free', but I never gave it free to anyone no matter how close they were to me," she laughs.

She applies the same trait in her business. "Someone who has a building comes to me and says he wants a rent of QR 70,000 per month from it. And I rent the building out for QR 100,000. The balance is my profit. Simple," she says.

But it isn't as simple as she makes it sound, with hundreds of real estate brokers in the fast-developing Qatar providing razor sharp competition. "There's no room for error," Suhaila says.

"You miss a customer, you lose a customer, and your competitor gains a customer."

"It's fun," she says. "It's like a game. You lose some, you win some. Either way, at the end of the day, you know someone out there is bothered that you're there too."

When she's not giving her competitors a tough time, which is rare, for the self-confessed workaholic, Suhaila loves to "read fiction - especially mushy love stories, and watch movies. I adore Hindi movies."

She's a great fan of Bollywood mega star Shah Rukh Khan and Hollywood veteran Mel Gibson. "They have this manly charm about them, without being heavily built, which the young actors lack. They're too boyish," says Suhaila.

How she understands Hindi, and speaks the language "thoda thoda (Little little)", is a secret she doesn't want to reveal.

"There are secrets in Qatar. Everyone has them," she says and suddenly bursts out into a laughter.

At the moment, Suhaila is working on her dream project - a Cordova Palace in Qatar like the Arab-Islamic ones built in Spain. Just that Suhaila's going to turn it into a five-star hotel. "The study for it has already begun," Suhaila says.

Cordova, termed as the "jewel of the world", was an ancient city in Islamic Spain, which has now vanished into history. The city that existed centuries ago consisted of hundreds of mosques, public baths and on the outskirts a royal palace, which took 100,000 men and 20 years to build.

"The hotel will have the same feel of Cordova," Suhaila says.

She's looking at land for the palatial hotel, which she promises will be "extra-ordinary - something Qatar would be proud of", in Wakra, Shamal, and Dukhan. "Inshahallah, it'll come up very soon."

Another thing that's going to come up very soon is Suhaila's four-by-four Range Rover car the real estate broker always wanted to own. "I love that car. It signifies power. You'll be seeing me on the Qatar roads very soon inside my dream car."

She's ambitious, she's talented, she's shy (at times), she's scared yet confident she can make it to anywhere, she likes looking good (considering she was selecting her own pictures to be used with our photographer), she's just like any other woman that exists in any part of the world. Only covered, from head to toe, and from within.

But Suhaila's lifted the curtain.

"We can fly into the sky if you lend us support," says the woman who has begun her ascent.