Culture Unveiled

Biography – Donna Marsh

Donna Marsh has worked on five continents throughout her long corporate career in the fields of banking and information technology.  She has worked throughout the Middle East for much of her career, where she held various sales and new business development roles covering territories from North Africa to the Afghan border, including Saudi Arabia as a businesswoman in her own right.  She managed a variety of business partnerships the included American, European and Indian multinationals, big-name Gulf and Levantine family businesses, and conglomerates from the Far East.   Countries:  Middle East:  Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE (including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Al Ain), Yemen.  North Africa:  Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia

Ms Marsh also has extensive experience working in the Indian subcontinent.  Her Indian experience began shortly after the country’s liberalisation in the early 1990s, where she was a pioneer in forging partnerships between Indian and multinational technology organisations to modernise banking practices in the Reserve Bank of India and other major banks throughout the country.  Her experience includes setting up an early outsourcing model leading to the establishment of virtual and remote teams in the UK, US and India. 

Ms Marsh also has experience working in Pakistan, Turkey, Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, South Africa, most European countries, Canada and the USA.

Ms Marsh has been providing cross cultural business consultancy services since 2006, focusing on best practices for businesses and their employees expanding into territories new to their organisation.  She also provides executive coaching to CxO level.  She has worked with a variety of prestigious organisations in the fields of banking and finance, insurance, legal, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, health care, education, media, FMCG, luxury brand retailers, technology, manufacturing, transport, aviation, defence and for the British Government.  She has delivered her consultancy services in the UK, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Ireland, Turkey, continental Europe and the US.  She continues to travel to the Middle East several times per year.  

Ms Marsh has also designed and facilitated a variety of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion programmes, both as a broad topic as well as to address specific challenges in the UK, USA and in the Middle East. These EDI programmes address both internal (leaders, managers and employees) and external (business partners, clients, competitors and markets) factors. 

Ms. Marsh lives near London.  She is the author of The Middle East Unveiled, and its successor, Doing Business in the Middle East, both aimed at Western travellers to the Middle East as well as addressing issues of particular interest to Western business women, and Doing Business in the New Iraq. She is also a contributing author to Lonely Planet’s 2010 edition of Oman, UAE and Arabian Peninsula guide with the article A Businesswoman in Saudi.

Donna Marsh

Founder and Managing Director,

Culture Unveiled