Building your professional brand

What do people know you for, and does it reflect what you have to offer? Join AUC alumnae Samar Alshorafa and Nesrine Halima for a candid conversation about making your strengths visible, telling your story and building a reputation that opens doors. Bring your questions; we will bring our experiences, lessons and a few things we wish we had known sooner.

Nesrine Halima is Founder and Principal Advisor of Advisors of Inflection (A of I), a UAE-based strategic advisory platform focused on government transformation, policy foresight and institutional readiness. She brings more than 20 years of experience across the UAE, GCC and international public-sector platforms, including senior roles at PwC Middle East, the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, Expo 2020 Dubai and the Dubai School of Government. A founding team member of the World Governments Summit and co-author of the Global Ministers Survey, she has designed and led capacity-building initiatives and advised ministers, regulators and senior government leaders across the region. Her current work focuses on responsible AI adoption, decision intelligence and translating emerging technology into public value while preserving human judgment, accountability and trust.

Samar Alshorafa is the Founding CEO of She is Arab, a social business consultancy and advocacy initiative with a vision to help increase Arab women’s economic autonomy and participation in the workforce and in leadership. Before that, Samar spent over 15 years working in the field of international development and consulting in MENA with organizations such as IFC – World Bank Group, European Commission’s Industrial Modernization Program for Egypt, the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and Education for Employment. Samar is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Business Administration at Grenoble École de Management, and holds a Master of Science in Social Business & Entrepreneurship from the London School of Economics (LSE). She is Adjunct Lecturer on Public Speaking and Persuasion at Zayed University. She is also an Atlantic Council WIN Fellow, 2025 and a Vital Voices Grow Fellow, 2021.