From Cleaner to Co-Owner: Moroccan Immigrant’s Rise in the Netherlands
Arriving from Morocco without speaking Dutch, Souad El Markhous started out as a cleaner at a construction company in Amsterdam. Twenty-three years later, she became a co-owner. Along the way, she studied in secret, narrowly helped avert a bankruptcy and made an extraordinary rise.
In 1991, Souad El Markhous walked through the door of De Combi to do a few hours of cleaning. The young Moroccan, originally from Larache, had just moved to the Netherlands to live with an aunt, to whom she had to pay rent. She barely spoke the language and had no Dutch qualifications. Yet she dreamed of something quite different: continuing her studies and building a career.
On Bladi.net : Moroccan Entrepreneur Luxury Beauty Institute Brussels Success Story
In Morocco, her father had opposed her plan to study economics in Tétouan, two and a half hours’ drive from the family home. She eventually left the country with the help of a cousin, telling only her mother. But once in the Netherlands, those around her continued to resist her pursuing her studies. Souad then found an unexpected ally: her boss.
Convinced of her abilities, De Combi’s director encouraged her to take an accounting course. For three years, she studied in secret while learning Dutch. Her employer even made up extra work hours to explain her absences. “At home, I had to pretend I didn’t speak Dutch,” she told Intermediair magazine.
The ruse was eventually discovered. Her family asked her to get married, which she agreed to on one condition: that she be allowed to continue studying and working. At the company, promotions followed one after another. Starting as a receptionist, she moved into administration before taking charge of accounting.
24 hours to save the company where she had worked as a cleaner
The real turning point came in 2014. De Combi went bankrupt, and Souad risked losing the job she had spent more than twenty years building. Along with Willie van Dijk, then the company’s managing director, she decided to take over the business. First, though, they had to persuade an investor—and fast. “We had to find a solution within 24 hours,” she recalled in an interview published in July 2026 by CFO.nl. They eventually secured the financing.
She was now a co-owner and director of the company where she had started out as a cleaner. That did not immediately impress the people she dealt with. At meetings, clients, almost all men, mostly addressed her business partner. At trade fairs, some mistook her for his secretary. For six months, she even received emails addressed to “Mr. El Markhous.”
Her career eventually drew attention. In 2018, she was named Businesswoman of the Year in the diversity entrepreneurship category. Local television station AT5 featured her in a report, and her colleagues praised her as an approachable boss who had made her mark in a largely male-dominated sector.
Today, Souad El Markhous is also looking to her native country. Through Markhous Développement, she is involved in property and investment between the Netherlands and Morocco. She has announced a partnership with Tangier-based INVEX Capital to develop projects in construction and sustainable technologies. A new chapter for someone who, thirty-five years earlier, earned her living cleaning the offices of an Amsterdam company.
