Nayla Al Khaja
Most organisations talk about inclusion in male-dominated industries without anyone in the room who has actually built a career inside one. The result is generic policy language and very little usable insight on what changes a culture in practice. Audiences need someone who has done the work, in a setting where the obstacles were not abstract.
Nayla Al Khaja is the first female film director in the United Arab Emirates and a keynote speaker on women in male-dominated industries, creative entrepreneurship, and cultural representation in the Gulf.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Nayla Al Khaja
- She is the first woman to direct a feature film in the UAE, which means her observations on inclusion in restrictive professional cultures come from lived practice, not commentary.
- She built and runs her own production company, Nayla Al Khaja Films, and founded The Scene Club, the UAE’s first independent film club, giving her a track record of standing up creative institutions where none existed.
- Her debut feature Three premiered at the Red Sea International Film Festival and released theatrically across the GCC and MENA, evidence of commercial credibility alongside cultural pioneering.
- Variety named her one of the 50 Most Powerful Personalities in Arab Cinema, a useful external marker for buyers who want a credentialled voice on the Gulf creative economy.
- She works in Arabic and English at native level, which makes her usable for regional events in the UAE and Saudi Arabia as well as international audiences.
Biography highlights
- First female film director in the United Arab Emirates and CEO of Nayla Al Khaja Films since 2005.
- BA in film studies, Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University), Canada, on a UAE government scholarship.
- Founder of The Scene Club, the UAE’s first independent film club, established 2007.
- Director of Three (2024), her debut feature, which premiered at the Red Sea International Film Festival and released theatrically across the GCC and MENA.
- Director of BAAB, scored by two-time Academy Award winner A.R. Rahman, with cinematography by Rogier Stoffers ASC.
- Named to Variety’s 50 Most Powerful Personalities in Arab Cinema (2020); Visionary of the Year, Arabian Business Awards (2011); TEDx speaker on women in Arab cinema.
Biography
The UAE had no female film director before Nayla Al Khaja. She became the first, then built the production company, the film club and the audience that the country needed for a domestic film industry to be possible at all. That is the work she draws on when she speaks.
Al Khaja studied mass communication at Dubai Women’s College, then took a UAE government scholarship to Ryerson University in Toronto for a degree in film studies. She returned and founded what is now Nayla Al Khaja Films in 2005, and in 2007 opened The Scene Club, the country’s first independent film society. Both still operate.
Her debut feature Three premiered at the Red Sea International Film Festival in December 2023 and released across the GCC and wider MENA region in early 2024. Her second feature, BAAB, was scored by A.R. Rahman and shot by Rogier Stoffers ASC, two collaborators with serious international standing. Variety placed her in its 50 Most Powerful Personalities in Arab Cinema.
For corporate audiences, her usefulness is direct. She is asked how a woman builds a career inside an industry that has no women in it, how a creative business gets capitalised in a market that does not yet exist, and how cultural representation actually shifts when someone takes the job rather than waits for the policy. Her answers come from doing it.
Key speaking topics
- Women in male-dominated industries
- Creative entrepreneurship in the Gulf
- Cultural representation in film and media
- Building a career under restrictive cultural conditions
- The UAE and Saudi creative economy
- Storytelling and brand communication
- Resilience and the long arc of a creative career
Ideal for
- Conferences on women in leadership and inclusion, particularly in the GCC and Levant
- Corporate diversity, talent and ERG events for organisations operating across the Middle East
- Creative industry summits, brand and marketing leadership audiences
- Regional government, tourism and cultural authority programmes on the Gulf creative economy
Audience outcomes
- A first-hand account of how women break through in industries where there is no precedent for them.
- A clearer view of how the Gulf creative economy actually functions, from someone who built inside it.
- Specific stories about getting a feature film made in a market that did not previously support one.
- Practical observations on cultural representation that are usable for brand, marketing and communications teams.
- A keynote presence that audiences in the region recognise and respond to.