Word: rotana
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Saudi men may have to start getting used to such situations. True, Rotana remains an anomaly protected by the position and progressive ideals of its owner - global investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. And Saudi women still can't drive and legally can't even leave the house to shop, let alone get a job, without a male family member's permission. Yet under the guidance of a few members of the Saudi royal family - in particular the current King, Abdullah - the kingdom is slowly changing. Mixed-gender workplaces are becoming more common, especially in banks...
Like those of its competitors in New York or London, the sleek glass and steel offices of media company Rotana are filled with preening attitude and fashion-conscious staffers: assistants teeter in shoes that might have absorbed much of their monthly paycheck; executives parade the halls in power suits and pencil skirts. But Rotana isn't in New York or London; it's in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, a country in which women normally adhere to a strict dress code in public - a black cloak called an abaya, a headscarf and a veil, the niqab, which covers everything...
There's another reason many Saudis would find Rotana shocking: men and women working side by side. The sight unnerves enough men who come looking for a job that human-resources manager Sultana al-Rowaili has developed a trick to see if a male applicant can handle working in a mixed-gender office. She arranges for a female colleague to interrupt the initial interview, and watches to see if the man loses concentration or stares too much. Sometimes even that isn't necessary. Many men are undone by the very idea of being interviewed by a woman. "They...
...find that it makes little sense to keep half the country's human capital cooped up at home. Nor will the newly emerging class of Saudi professional women willingly go back to the way things once were. "We are not a bunch of Barbie dolls," says al-Rowaili, the Rotana television executive. "All of us have faced so many challenges to get here. We are pioneers. And we are going...
Services Hotels run along Islamic lines, such as Dubai's Villa Rotana, offer quieter and more family-friendly places to stay. Banks that operate according to Shari'a law are doing well during the global downturn because they tend to be more conservative...