Middle East Business

Bahrain's pearl and gemstone institute appoints a new chief executive from the national export agency

By Staff Writer  |  27 August 2026

Safa Sharif Abdul Khaliq takes over at Danat on 31 August, moving from Export Bahrain, where she was chief executive from the agency's establishment.

The Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones, known as Danat, has appointed Safa Sharif Abdul Khaliq as chief executive officer with effect from 31 August 2026. She succeeds Noora Abdulrahman Jamsheer, who has led the institute since 2019.

The appointment moves her across from Export Bahrain, the national export development agency, where she was chief executive and led the organisation from its establishment through to full operation. Before that she spent more than a decade at Tamkeen, most recently as director of the investment department and earlier as manager of corporate planning. Her career began in banking.

Her appointment marks an important step in DANAT's continued evolution as we seek to expand our international partnerships, strengthen our commercial offerings, and further elevate Bahrain's position as the global home of natural pearls.

Mohamed Ahmed AlSada, Chairman of Danat

What the institute does

Danat is Bahrain's testing and certification body for pearls and gemstones. Its work is laboratory identification and grading, and the certificates it issues are the documents on which sales, insurance valuations and export declarations rest. That places it in the same category of institution as an accredited testing house in any other trade: its output is evidence, and its value is the confidence a market places in that evidence.

The institute also carries a policy role. Bahrain's pearl trade is regulated, and the description of the country as the home of natural pearls is a commercial position built on the enforcement of testing standards rather than on marketing alone.

Where a certificate from a national testing body is the basis of a transaction, the contractual question is usually what the parties agreed the certificate would prove. A certificate of identification is not a warranty of value, and confusing the two is a common source of dispute in any certified trade.

The background the appointment brings

The incoming chief executive serves on the Bahrain National SME Development Board and has represented the country on several national and regional committees, including the National Committee for the World Trade Organization and the Saudi Bahraini Coordination Committee for Integrated Industries. She holds an MBA in project management and a bachelor's degree in business management with a double major in finance and marketing, and she is a certified key performance indicator and balanced scorecard practitioner.

The chairman's stated priorities for the next phase are international partnerships and commercial offerings, which reads as a mandate to grow revenue from testing and related services rather than to change the technical work itself. An export development background fits that description more closely than a laboratory one.

The transition

The chairman also recorded the board's appreciation to the outgoing chief executive for her leadership since 2019, saying that under her stewardship the institute strengthened its international standing and further cemented Bahrain's reputation as a centre for pearl and gemstone expertise.

No change of strategy has been announced with the appointment, and no restructuring has been described. What has been published is a date, a successor and a stated direction of travel, which for an institution whose authority rests on continuity is probably the point.