Egypt's first lady of broking (page 1 of 3)

With investor confidence dwindling, this may not be the best time to be in the capital markets game, particularly in an emerging market. But Neveen El-Tahri, who for eight years has been at the helm of the brokerage firm she founded, is determined to stay for the long haul, through the peaks and troughs of Egypt's stock market fortunes.

An essential ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people, she says. "I love people. I think it is one of my best virtues. If I am sitting with the porter downstairs, I'll get along with him. If I sit with the ministers, I'll get along with them. I am easily adaptable." Making it in the business world takes more than hard work and people skills. "Success is partly luck," says El-Tahri one afternoon in her office. "I've been lucky in my choice of marriage. Many men wouldn't want a successful wife. I have a very loving and supportive husband."

Nor has being a woman in a male-dominated business culture held her back. "It's tough because they underestimate your capabilities. But at the same time, that toughness is the reason I probably succeeded. If they underestimate you, then it is quite easy to outsmart everybody else around you."

A diplomat's daughter and the eldest of three girls, El-Tahri was born in Cairo in 1958. But she could easily have been born in Panama where her father, Hamdy El-Tahri, was Egypt's ambassador to the country at the time. Life on the diplomatic circuit demands mobility and the family moved from Panama to Lebanon, Finland and Britain.

At the age of 15, Neveen El-Tahri returned to Egypt for good. Being constantly on the move was not easy, and she was searching for a place to call home. "It was such a difficult time because you move friends and you move cultures," says El-Tahri, who attended 11 different schools. "I couldn't speak any Arabic," she reminisces of her return to her birthplace.

"I really didn't want to leave Egypt. I wanted roots - unlike my sisters, who never got to feel the same, so they both live abroad. They've never lived in Cairo." Hamdy El-Tahri raised his three girls like three men, says his eldest daughter. Nermeen, the second oldest, is an executive with American Express in London and Jihan, the youngest, is a documentary filmmaker living in Paris.

Neveen El-Tahri graduated from the faculty of economics and political science at Cairo University in 1980. "I went to Cairo University because my father said it was the last chance I'd ever have to learn Arabic, and he did me the greatest favor in the world."

She married Imam Waked soon after graduation and has two children, Dina, 20, and Abdel Latif, 15. Her husband, a professor of medicine and a highly regarded liver disease specialist, heads the Liver Institute at Munafiya Hospital. "He is more my friend," El-Tahri says of him. "His success moves me to further success."

El-Tahri embarked on a career in banking at Chase National Bank, a joint venture bank between Chase Manhattan and the National Bank of Egypt. "It was the newest, hot marketplace," says El-Tahri. "There were many banks opening at the time and Chase was the largest." She spent her first year as a teller, which immersed her in the operational side of banking.

Selected to take an intensive six-month credit course at Chase Manhattan, she became a credit officer, which gave her a chance to apply what she learned in college: analyzing financial statements and deciding whether a proposed business venture is viable or not.