KUALA LUMPUR — Fozia Amanulla has grown accustomed to the pressures of negotiating multimillion-dollar deals during her career in Islamic finance. Some things, though, she has never gotten used to. For instance, how certain men have declined to shake her hand, ignored her when she has spoken or refused to look at her across a conference table.

At a meeting with a client in Saudi Arabia, where men and women are commonly segregated in public life, she was the only woman in the building — a fact reinforced by the absence of any toilets for women.

“There’s no such thing as the ‘tea lady’ there. It’s the ‘tea man,”’ she said in an interview in her bank’s Kuala Lumpur boardroom.

Ms. Fozia, one of the first women to lead an Islamic bank in Malaysia, has had no shortage of reminders that her industry — in which investments are made according to Islamic principles — is a male-dominated one.