Editor's Note: This is the fourth story in a six-week series focused on women and work in patriarchal nations in the Middle East.

One way to find success as a Middle Eastern woman? Head west.

Over the past two decades, entrepreneurial women from the Middle East have thrived outside that often patriarchal region, including Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, the first woman recipient of the prestigious Pritzker prize in architecture, and Lebanese-American celebrity fashion designer Reem Acra.

Running their businesses outside the Mideast has given these women greater economic opportunities, but they still face different challenges than their Western counterparts. Some trials are the same, such as the glass ceiling that halts many women from progressing up the management ladder. But expatriate women also face the challenge of coming from an immigrant community and, sometimes, the tug of home.

“A larger marketplace offers more opportunity, depending on what she wants to do. But as an immigrant, she’ll jump through different hoops,” said Renée Ahee, chief executive officer at the Arab American Women’s Business Council, an organisation that coaches Arab American women in business networking and negotiating skills.

Those trials start at home, well before a woman moves abroad.

“Women aren’t always encouraged by their families to go into business, but sons are given all kinds of support,” Ahee said. For Middle Eastern women who are first-generation or second-generation immigrants, this is particularly acute.

The women who migrated and built their fortune abroad hope they’re paving the way for other young Middle Eastern women, both abroad and back home. Though no longer living in their home nations, having prominent professional women from the Middle East “uplifts the community,” said Ahee.

Here are some of their stories.

Fashion sense

In the midst of her country’s civil war, Reem Acra moved to New York in 1983 at age 20 after graduating from university in Beirut. With the support of her family, she jumped into one of the toughest businesses in one of the toughest cities — fashion in New York — and has been there ever since.