Policymakers, CEOs, investors, academics and emerging leaders will meet in Kuwait on 17 and 18 October for a two-day programme designed to move women’s economic participation from discussion towards decisions.
Kuwait will host a new regional conference on women’s economic participation this October, bringing together senior figures from government, business, finance, academia and behavioural science for two days of discussion on how women can play a larger role in the region’s economic future.
The Women & the Economy Conference, scheduled for 17 and 18 October 2026, will be held under the patronage of Kuwait’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, in collaboration with Kuwait University and with the support of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences. The event’s newly released announcement describes the gathering as “two days of dialogue, data and decision-making”, with its programme built around women’s participation in economic life and the policies, capital and institutions that can expand it.
From today’s economy to the next one
The first day at Grand Hyatt Kuwait is structured around both the current position of women in the economy and the forces likely to reshape that position over the coming decade. An opening programme will be followed by a historical overview of Arab women’s economic role, including a contribution from Sheikha Jawaher Al-Sabah, before an Arabic-language panel examines present-day participation, challenges and success stories.
A second panel turns deliberately towards the future, focusing on artificial intelligence, fintech and policy. Lei Wa Lakom founder and behavioural scientist Taiba Hamad Al-Humaidhi will moderate the session, with a line-up that includes Oxford Risk behavioural finance expert Greg B. Davies, J.P. Morgan managing director Natacha Minniti and Satoko Nozaki, Digital & IT Director at SYH IKEA Kuwait. The published conference agenda also lists presentations, an international exhibition area and interactive workshops on financial literacy and economic empowerment.
The programme gives the event a broader frame than a conventional leadership conference. Rather than treating women’s economic inclusion as a standalone social issue, it places the subject alongside investment, technology, financial decision-making and the structural changes already moving through Gulf economies.
Kuwaiti business leaders join the programme
The speaker roster also brings together senior figures from Kuwait’s corporate sector. Badria Hamad Al-Humaidhi, CEO of Boubyan Capital, is among those announced for the present-day realities panel, alongside Agility CEO and board member Henadi Al-Saleh and Kuwait Finance House executive manager Shaikha AlMugahwi. Kuwait University’s Dr. Noura Khaled Shuaibi, who heads the university’s Women’s Research Unit, is also part of the programme.
For Taiba Al-Humaidhi, the conference extends a body of work already built around financial capability, women’s participation and behavioural decision-making. Lei Wa Lakom describes itself as an initiative connecting education, knowledge-sharing and financial inclusion, and lists Al-Humaidhi as its founder and CEO. Her recent work has increasingly focused on the question of what turns financial knowledge into lasting behaviour rather than information alone.
That makes the conference’s emphasis on implementation significant. Alongside the panels and workshops, the programme includes a youth and children’s session titled “Our Future in the Economy”, intended to bring a younger generation directly into a conversation about how present economic choices shape future opportunity.
The second day moves behind closed doors
The conference is designed to continue beyond the public stage. On the second day, organisers plan a closed high-level roundtable aimed at converting the previous day’s discussions into actionable strategies, with the results due to be published in a post-event report. A separate session with students is scheduled at Kuwait University in collaboration with the university’s Women Studies Unit. Registration for the conference is currently open through the event platform.
There is one test the event will only be able to answer after October. Conferences can assemble impressive speakers and identify familiar barriers without changing the institutions behind them. The organisers’ commitment to a closed policy roundtable and a published post-event report therefore matters because it creates a point against which the conference can later be judged: not simply by who attended, but by what recommendations, commitments and subsequent work survive after the room empties.
For Kuwait, that gives the 17 and 18 October gathering a more ambitious brief. Women & the Economy is being positioned not simply as a celebration of female leadership, but as a meeting about economic participation itself: who enters the economy, who advances within it, how technology changes the opportunity set and what policymakers, investors and employers can do next.
