HE Aarefa is a well networked and highly successful UAE leader, boasting a strong background of supporting staff and senior management.

She is currently Vice President – Senior Branch Manager at Mashreq Bank​, where she is responsible of handling the Ajman branch, employee management, achieving financial targets, ensure operational efficiency and customers’ satisfaction.

HE Aarefa is a board member of RAK Chamber of Commerce (and chair of its exhibition committee), RAK Insurance, RAK SME Association, Emirates Sports and Cultural Club, RAK Scout, Al Mataf Heritage Society and Vilal Housing.

She is also a programme advisory committee (PAC) member of two committees for RAK Higher Colleges of Technology: the Business Industrial Academic Council Committee and the Computer Information Science Industrial Advisory Committee.

In a career spanning over two decades, Her Excellency has worked for first HSBC and then First Gulf Bank (where she won employee of the year in 2009), working her way up from department head to vice president before moving to Mashreq Bank in 2015.

She won an award for outstanding achievement to the Abu Dhabi industry in 2013, and was awarded a UAE social responsibility medal in 2019 by HH Sheikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior.

She has always studied in Ras Al Khaimah, taking her bachelor’s in business and management at RAK’s Higher Colleges of Technology and later choosing to take her MBA there too. As well as speaking Arabic and English, she is fluent in Urdu.