Manama: Mentorship Forum Middle East has launched its first annual event dedicated to building awareness and promoting the adoption of mentorship across the GCC’s top corporates in order to further accelerate human capital development.
Over 300 delegates and 28 regional and international speakers gathered at the Diplomat Radisson Blu Hotel in Manama to help raise awareness of the benefits and means of “Harnessing the Power of Mentorship”, the theme for this year’s event, which is also the first of its kind in the region.
Attendees included a diverse range of speakers and participants from leading regional CEOs to up and coming professionals across industries spanning the Public Sector, Financial Services and Investments, Manufacturing and Industrial, Oil & Gas, Telecommunications, Aviation and Logistics and Transportation.
Founded and organised by FinMark Communications and held in Strategic Partnership with Tamkeen and National Bank of Bahrain, the dynamic and interactive day long-event featured keynote addresses by top business leaders, high-level panel discussions and a number of hands-on workshops providing practical advice for putting mentorship into practice.
“In the war for talent, structured mentorship programmes are not sufficient to attract and retain the best talent. Organizations which are truly flat, which create collaborative teams in which unstructured mentorship takes place – those are the institutions that will be able to attract the best and brightest,” Khalid Al Rumaihi, CEO of Mumtalakat, said.
He was followed by mentorship expert Rana Salhab, Regional Talent and Communications Partner, Deloitte Middle East, who addressed mentorship and accelerating human capital development drawing on her long-standing position as a mentor, founder and participant in successful and ongoing mentorship initiatives in the region.
The programme then moved to its panel discussion phase, kicked with the CEO’s panel looking at strategies being employed by top leaders to leverage their senior talent and harness the power of mentorship across their organisations.
Taking part in the panelists included Dr. Dawood Nassif, Chairman of the Board, The Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco), and Board Director, National Oil and Gas Authority (Noga); Jean Christophe Durand, CEO, National Bank of Bahrain; Abdulaziz A. Al-Helaissi, Group CEO and Board Member, Gulf International Bank; Najla Al Shirawi, CEO, SICO; Ali Al Baqali, Acting CEO, Aluminium Bahrain (Alba); Ali Moosa, Managing Director, Executive Officer, J.P Morgan Corporate and Investment Bank and moderator was Ronnie Hammad, Resident Advisor, World Bank.
Other high-level panels followed featuring other senior executives, mentors and HR experts addressing: Mentoring in Practice highlighting successful case studies and programmes, Business to Business Partnerships – Levering Networks & Talent Pools through Cross Mentorship, Technology, Transformation, Change – Reverse Mentoring and the concept of Sponsorship vs Mentorship as a next step to career progression.
The Forum concluded with two workshops. The first, entitled “Developing Successful New Internal Mentorship Programmes”, was delivered by senior Saudi Aramco human capital development specialists Alberto Ramirez, HR Development Center, FSD Business Academy Finance, Strategy and Development and Ms. Karina Chapa, Mentorship Program Manager, and helped equip HR professionals from regional companies with new strategies and tactics for building effective mentorship schemes for their organisation.
The second was hosted by Reach, the Forum’s Mentoring Partner, which is the first non-profit organisation dedicated to mentoring and leadership of women professionals in the Middle East. The workshop marked the launch of its second cohort in Bahrain. The first cohort was established in Bahrain in 2018, in cooperation with FinMark Communications, and saw 14 women professionals across a number of sectors successfully complete the programme. The second cohort welcomed a further 20 women into the Reach programme, with a seasoned group of mentors committed to guiding their career progression.
“We couldn’t be more pleased with the high level of participation, enthusiasm and support that the Forum has received from senior leaders, speakers and participants from across the GCC. The level of attendance and interest in mentorship underscores the vast importance and prioritization of human capital development. Around the world, mentorship has proven to be one of the most effective means for accelerating human capital development across organisations and we look forward to seeing its greater adoption in the region. I’d like to thank all of our supporters and partners for making this first Mentorship Forum Middle East such a success – especially Tamkeen and National Bank of Bahrain -and look forward to building on the momentum and interest for mentorship in the GCC that the Forum has now firmly established,” Zahraa Taher, Managing Director of FinMark Communications, the event’s founder and organizer, said.
