Ingie Chalhoub

Ingie Chalhoub is the founder and president of Etoile Group, a venture that started as Chanel’s first Middle Eastern franchisee and grew to become a regional luxury powerhouse across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Lebanon. By 2024, Chalhoub was overseeing 500 employees and 80 boutiques across the region, for luxury brands such as Chanel, Valentino, Ralph Lauren and Tod’s as well as the group’s own multi-brand store, Etoile La Boutique. The boutique introduces regional shoppers to newer and more niche designer brands like Aje, Self Portrait and Rejina Pyo. In the first six months of 2024 alone, the group had opened 11 stores, unlocking new locations in rapidly growing retail markets like Manama, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Chalhoub was born in Cairo to a Lebanese family, which left the country for Lebanon during Egypt’s six-day war in 1967; they packed up yet again, for Kuwait, when Lebanon was hit by civil war. In 1983, she launched Etoile Group with her mother, and the duo opened Chanel’s first Middle Eastern boutique in Kuwait. When the country was invaded by Iraq in 1990, she rebuilt her business in Dubai, where she and her husband Patrick, president of Chalhoub Group, saw an opportunity in the Jebel Ali Free Zone. Chalhoub is a founding member of UNICEF’s Leadership Circle in the Gulf Region. In 2017, she was presented with France’s Legion of Honor for promoting French luxury and culture in the Middle East.