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According to the Emirates News Agency, the Sharjah International Airport Authority highlighted the active role of Emirati women leaders in advancing performance across various departments at Sharjah International Airport. Emirati women fill 77.78 percent of national leadership positions there, serving in finance, strategic planning and performance, human resources, marketing and communications, project management and air navigation systems maintenance. Their responsibilities blend administrative and strategic duties with technical and engineering expertise. The authority noted that this presence supports operational efficiency while addressing the airport’s expansion requirements.
Sarah Mohammed Al Midfa directs the finance department, where she oversees financial resources and operations while tracking performance indicators to align with growth demands. She contributed to the rollout of a new financial system that improved resource management, earning her an award for outstanding financial performance. Al Midfa said, “Financial management is one of the fundamental pillars supporting operational efficiency and sustainable performance. We remain committed to developing systems and resource-management mechanisms in line with Sharjah Airport’s growth and future ambitions. The presence of Emirati women in this field further demonstrates their ability to assume responsibilities and contribute effectively to achieving the Authority’s objectives.”
The authority has introduced the Sharjah Airport Award for Institutional Excellence, named Matari, which seeks to instill a culture of excellence and motivate employees to raise institutional performance levels. This programme forms one element of the strategic initiatives driven by women in planning and development roles. Such efforts help coordinate daily operations with longer-term projects tied to rising passenger volumes and infrastructure upgrades at the airport.
A WAM report issued in August 2026 indicated that Emirati women hold around 63 percent of leadership positions across the government sector overall, providing context for the higher share recorded at Sharjah International Airport. World Bank data from April 2026 placed female labor force participation in the UAE at 53 percent for those aged 15 and above, with women making up 94.8 percent of wage and salaried workers among those employed. These benchmarks illustrate the broader advance of women into professional and decision-making positions throughout the country.
Women at the airport also maintain key posts in technical domains such as air navigation systems maintenance, extending their influence into areas critical for safety and reliability standards. This distribution of roles supports the authority’s ability to integrate diverse skill sets into its operational framework. The focus on female leadership aligns with national patterns in which women represent 50 percent of employees in the UAE National Space Programme and nearly 80 percent of the scientific team for the Hope Probe, according to WAM figures.
A 2025 study in the journal Gender in Management constructed a women leadership index based on gender, education and experience, concluding that higher index values correlated with improved return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q across 1,781 firms in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East and Africa. The analysis drew on more than 13,000 firm-year observations between 2016 and 2023 to reach its findings. Such results add external perspective to the authority’s account of performance gains linked to its women leaders.
