Meet Salwa Akhannouch, Morocco’s Leading Fashion Mogul
Salwa Idrissi Akhannouch is a Moroccan businesswoman born in Casablanca, she is the founder and CEO of the Aksal-Morocco Mall Group.
She ventured into business in 1993 when she established a distribution company for floor laying materials. Her determination and hard work saw her become one of Morocco’s prominent entrepreneurs.
Salwa inherited a fortune from her grandfather, Haj Ahmed Benlafkih, a business man who dominated Moroccan trade through tea trade in the 1960s.
The Aksal group owns 50% of the Morocco Mall, the second largest shopping center in Africa, built at a cost of more than 240 million dollars in 2007.
Today, Salwa is the head of Akwa Group, a distributor of petroleum products, and the founder of Aksal Group, a Moroccan giant in luxury goods, retail, department stores, and shopping malls.
Her company has a 50% stake in Morocco Mall, one of the largest shopping malls on the continent.
Salwa also holds the exclusive license to sell high end leading fashion brands such as Zara, Banana Republic, Pull & Bear, Gap, and Massimo Duti in Morocco.
The Aksal group ehich attracts 15 million visitors every year and generates an estimated turnover of 5 billion Moroccan dirhams ($514 million), owns a 50% stake in the Morocco Mall.
Salwa has also built a real estate portfolio. Her business prowess received an accolade in August 2018, when she was ranked second on a list of the 50 Most Influential Business Women in Africa. In 2015, she also ranked 8th on a list of the 100 Most Influential Arab Women, compiled by UAE website Arabian Business.
Akhannouch retains a spot as one of Moroccco’s most powerful businesswomen and North Africa’s wealthiest female entrepreneurs.
