This Finance Minster Runs a 500 Billion Dollar Fund – and Is the First Woman to Do So.

In the Gulf region the world for women is getting better slowly but steadily: Mariam Al-Aqeel is the new finance minister of Kuwait – the first time a woman is appointed such a key cabinet post in this conservative area.

Al-Aqeel is one of three women among eight new ministers in Kuwait’s first cabinet chaired by Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Sabah, according to the state-run KUNA news agency.

As finance minister, Al-Aqeel automatically heads the country’s sovereign wealth fund, Kuwait Investment Authority – the fifth-largest sovereign wealth fund in the world worth more than 500 billion US dollars.