PEOPLE · KUWAIT
Asrar A
Born and raised in Kuwait, with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in finance. Asrar began her career designing petrochemical plants and refineries and now works as a senior corporate communications executive and sustainability expert. When she is not working, she is travelling, and documenting it.
ON STARTING OUT
From process engineer to sustainability expert.
How did you start your career?
Professionally, I started years ago at a global company as a process engineer designing petrochemical plants and refineries. From there I developed an interest in the environmental field, and today I am a senior corporate communications executive and sustainability expert.
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
Interacting with various people, and creating value from the work.
What is your biggest complaint?
Not enough vacation days.
ON CHARACTER
Fun, alive, and vibrant.
How would others describe you?
Fun, alive, and vibrant.
What motivates you to work hard?
Planning my next vacation.
What is your biggest fear?
Waking up one day and feeling that I have no purpose.
What is your proudest accomplishment?
Being a female homeowner in my mid-thirties.
ON SUCCESS
Forty years, and just getting started.
How long did it take you to get to where you are today?
Forty years. My age.
Are you satisfied with your accomplishments?
So far, yes. And I am just getting started.
If you could start over, what would you change?
I would not.
Would you consider yourself successful?
Yes.
DAILY LIFE
Coffee, and a passport.
What can you not go a day without?
Coffee.
Three things you must do every day?
Not many. Coffee is the constant.
Tidy or messy?
Messy.
Favourite family recipe?
We are a family that does not cook.
Most daring thing you have done?
Jump out of a plane.
What was the last book you read?
The Forty Rules of Love.
FAVOURITES
Inception, and a magnet from every country.
Favourite movie?
Inception.
Do you collect anything?
Magnets, from every country I have travelled to.
Favourite childhood memory?
Doing pranks on family and friends.
Favourite subject in school?
Math.
Languages?
Three. Arabic, English, and some French.
Horoscope sign?
Taurus.
LOVE & LIFE
Live, love, laugh.
Glass half full or half empty?
Depends on the day. But mostly full.
Introvert or extrovert?
Extrovert.
Motto in life?
Live. Love. Laugh.
Warning label?
I am loud, and I will be seen.
Define love.
The feeling of trust, respect, and serenity.
Who knows you the best?
My best friend, Nouriah Alshatti.
FOR BOUJEEZ
A Kuwaiti engineer who built a second career on the side of the same coin.
What makes Asrar A interesting to Boujeez is the unusual route. Petrochemical engineering to sustainability and corporate communications is not a common arc in the region, particularly for women, and Asrar carries it without ceremony. She is loud, she is direct, she collects magnets and pranks her family and laughs at her own answers. The Gulf has more of these voices than its institutions yet recognise. We see her.