Eleven years ago, fewer than half of UAE women were in the workforce. Today, the majority are. We went inside one global incentives business to find out what that looks like.
Founded in Dubai and now operating in over 100 countries, Merit Incentives designs and delivers customer loyalty programmes, employee engagement initiatives, and sales incentives for large enterprise clients, among them banks, airlines, and telecom companies. With a strong presence across Saudi Arabia, Europe, and the UK, it’s a business that has scaled significantly since its inception, and continues to grow.
That growth is happening against a broader shift in the region. Women’s participation in the UAE labour force now stands at 54%, up from around 42% a decade ago, according to World Bank data. This has an incredible benefit, and PwC’s Women in Work Index estimates that improving female participation across the OECD to the level achieved in Sweden could boost total OECD GDP by US$6 trillion.
Across the Middle East, and particularly in GCC countries, growing the number of female employees expands the talent pool. The gender-equality agenda is progressing in countries including the UAE, KSA, and Egypt, though challenges remain: limited support after career breaks, deep-seated social norms, and persistent bias.
When we spoke to Merit CEO and co-founder Julie Barbier earlier this year, she was clear that the business’s commitment to its people goes beyond a diversity headline. “It’s not just about supporting women,” she told us. “It’s about creating an environment where diversity and different perspectives are valued.”
Mentorship and coaching, for one example, are applied internally as much as externally…encouraging people to challenge each other, to grow, and to develop.
For Julie, this isn’t abstract. Merit operates across some of the fastest-changing markets in the world, and she sees the business as having a genuine role in supporting that shift, creating opportunities and developing people across the organisation, not just at the top.
We wanted to see how that translates in practice. So we caught up with two of the women who make Merit work day-to-day.
Heba Wahba — Operations & Partnerships Manager
Heba’s role sits at the intersection of operations, partnerships, and delivery. She describes it as bringing ideas to life, connecting the internal dots so that clients get meaningful experiences and partners feel the benefit of working with Merit. It’s a broad remit, and one that suits her.
For Heba, the philosophy is straightforward: trust first. Business is personal, and she believes the relationships you build are what create opportunity, not the other way around. It’s a mindset that fits naturally with what Merit does, working in loyalty and engagement for some of the world’s largest enterprises.
Ask her what she values most about working at Merit, and the answer is the people. She talks about talented, supportive colleagues at every level, and a genuine sense of shared purpose in helping clients create experiences that matter.
Outside of work, Heba rows on the Nile. She says it’s where she recharges, challenges herself, and takes in some of Cairo’s best views, a pursuit that, like her work, is steady, purposeful, and very much her own.
Zarmeena Munir — Account Manager
Zarmeena is the bridge between clients and the teams behind the scenes. Her focus is on clear communication and seamless delivery, making sure nothing gets lost between what a client needs and what Merit produces. It’s account management in the truest sense: not just managing relationships, but actively holding them together.
Her approach to work is grounded in two things: effort and integrity. For Zarmeena, the two are inseparable. You work hard, you work smart, and you do it honestly. It’s a simple principle, applied consistently.
Like Heba, when asked what she loves most about Merit, Zarmeena comes back to the team. There’s a culture here, she says, that runs from senior management down, supportive, responsible, and genuinely invested in the people around them.
Away from work, Zarmeena is a creative. She makes art, shoots photography, and has a long-held dream of opening a sanctuary for homeless animals one day. It’s the kind of ambition that tells you something about a person, and it’s a detail that stays with you.
It’s all about people
Women account for 50.1% of the global working age population, yet hold only 35.4% of management positions worldwide, according to the International Labour Organisation. The gap is real, and still wide. But the direction of travel matters – and so does what happens inside individual businesses every day.
As Julie told us, her broader goal is straightforward: helping people align their skills, values, and opportunities, so that everyone feels they’re progressing in the right direction. Not just women, but everyone.
Only the people within a business can make that change – and it’s evident, from Heba and Zarmeena, that Merit is a place where that’s already happening.
Merit Incentives is the sponsor of WiiN’s latest mentorship cohort. To find out more about Merit, visit meritincentives.com.
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Written by Elaine Keep www.elainekeep.com