Nadia Bakhurji
About Nadia
Founded NBA: 10yrs ago
Nadia is a serial entrepreneur and UCL Fellow who has built and scaled two Design consultancies. Her current venture NBA specialises in Architecture and Interior design. She has become a major pioneer for the advancement of women in education, engineering and the business sphere. Nadia also has a vibrant public profile through social philanthropic work such as the UN-Habitat Advisory committee on gender issues.
Public profile
She participated in the creation of the curriculum for Dar Al Hekma Girls College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She was also assigned the sole responsibility of coordinating with the USA based consultants to ensure that the interior design curriculum was practical and comprehensive.
In 2000 Nadia became a founding board member for the Arab International Women's Forum an organization focusing on building bridges and building business between women all over the world. The organization hosts forums, conferences, special events in Europe and the Arab World. The AIWF has forged positive partnerships with many international Organizations and entities worldwide.
In 2002 she was invited to the first ‘Women for Peace’ conference headed by Suzan Mubarak. and participated and contributed to the declaration for the organisation.
She was also invited to the Madrid Instituto D’empressa in Madrid, she presented a speech about women’s opportunities in business and in employment in KSA.
Professional profile
Nadia established Riwaq of the Kingdom Est.(ROK) in 1989. She worked with a British property development company, Regency Estates, in the UK. She was responsible to develop exterior and interior designs for
historical residential buildings under preservation order and responsible to present designs to the Coventry municipality council.
In 1992 ROK employed approximately 12 people. Their projects ranged from Villa designs to turnkey projects, managing projects from concept to reality, and were known for creative and unique well designed projects. By 1995 ROK employed 30 people and by 1997 their staff reached over 45 people.
ROK expanded their services to work on some key projects such as Kingdom City Compound, Kingdom Hospital, HRH Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal's private palace, various Commercial centres, and Banks. Within a short space of time ROK became known nationally and internationally for high quality and highly creative work both in the architectural and interior design fields. Nadia won several design competitions for corporate design, designing banks and major corporate headquarters. She was also awarded major hotel projects, Palaces and luxury housing development projects.
In 2000 ROK were awarded their first Government Project to design the interior renovation of the Governor of Asir, HRH Prince Khalid AlFaisal's Palace in Abha and in 2005 she was awarded the design of his highness King Abdullah’s Jizan Ceremonial Inauguration Exhibition and reception.
In 2007 she obtained her Consultancy License which was one of the first licenses to be
obtained by a female Architect and she then established NBA, Nadia Bakhurji Architectural and Interior Design Consultants Office which is now the official firm through which she provides complete architectural and interior design consultancy services.