HR in the Driver’s Seat: Leading the Future of Work

Increasingly, it is becoming clear that the organisations that succeed at workforce transformations have HR firmly fastened in their driver’s seat. Successful organisations give HR a hand on the wheel when it comes to navigating workforce transformations. The covid-19 pandemic highlighted how HR rose to the multitude of challenges providing support, communication, and structural changes to help employ & navigate through the new normal. The value of HR as the driving force in keeping people motivated, engaged and productive, is undisputed. However, there are always questions surrounding how best to lead modern business in the new world of work? The panel discussion with leading HR practitioners of the region will discuss some of these pressing issues, providing an overview of what do businesses want from HR today and why? the mega trends shaping the new world of work, how to help businesses win in the market where future HR priorities lie - across Brand, Performance Architecture, Communications and Data.

Presenters:

Ms. Marketa Simkova

Partner & Head of people and change - KPMG

Marketa is a Partner at KPMG Lower Gulf and leads the People and Change Advisory Practice. She has a wealth of experience in the areas of talent management, HR transformation and organization design. Marketa has delivered numerous projects in the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. Her sector expertise covers retail, hospitality, energy & utilities, and the public sector.

Marketa advises senior executives on how to rethink business design to achieve and sustain increased performance, ensuring that structures, processes, systems, and capabilities all support key objectives. She works with her clients to understand and develop the unique critical skills and capabilities needed across the workforce to achieve an organization’s long-term goals.

Marketa has led several human capital function transformations, resulting in HC becoming recognized as a strategic enabler, delivering sustainable organizational change and enhancing business performance.

Prior to joining KPMG, Marketa worked in consulting roles with RP International in the UAE and PSD Group in London, the UK.

She holds a Master’s degree in International Economic Relations from the Prague University of Economics and Business, Czech Republic. She is also certified in psychometric assessments and business culture transformation.

Mr. Dominic Keogh Peters FCIPD

Dominic has 20+ years experience leading the people agenda during periods of significant organizational change including; HR transformation business transformation, new market openings, M&A, business start up, large scale headcount growth, nationalisation and E Commerce development. His experience has spanned 10 countries working in high growth businesses alongside some of the world’s leading brands. He has worked in Platform Distribution, Telecoms, E commerce, Supply Chain, Retail and Hospitality.

Dominic is currently the Managing Partner of Change Tribe a consultancy specialising in HR Transformation and HR Team Development. Before launching his consultancy he spent 8 years as the Group People Operations Director for Axiom Telecom a US$ 2.3 billion Group leading the people streams for the business transformation of Axiom and the build out of HYKE a digital distribution platform. Prior to Axiom - Dominic spent 6 years with the Alshaya Group in a number of Corporate and Divisional HR roles during the companies large scale international expansion with involvement in extensive project work across the Middle East, the UK and Eastern Europe and the design and delivery of the Grow With Us management development programmes across the MENA markets.

Dominic is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and a graduate from the Wharton CHRO programme. In addition he is a tutor on the CIPD & CMI programmes for the PWC academy and a HR Director mentor for the UK CIPD. A previous National Training Award winner in the UK, his Axiom team won the CIPD award for the best HR team in the MENA. Dominic has lectured on HR strategy at leading universities in the UAE and KSA and is a keynote conference speaker focusing on organisational transformation and the future of work. He is a member of the MENA regional working party on the CIPD profession map and his work on business transformation has been showcased by the CIPD at the London Festival of Work and published in their digital learning series.

Mr. Abdulhussain Tejani

Abdulhussain Tejani is a career HR practitioner with over 24 years in the corporate world. He now runs his own Leadership and HR Consultancy called People Matter out of Dubai. He has held various positions during his career wherein he operated initially in Africa and eventually moved on to Dubai wherein he oversaw the MENA region and eventually covered the EEMEA space. His companies include Standard Chartered Bank as Head of HR for Tanzania, BP as Head of Learning in Tanzania, HR Director MENA for TNS in Dubai, HR Director MENA for Merck Sharp and Dohme, Learning and Development Director for EEMEA for Merck Sharp and Dohme and Vice President HR for GEMS Education.

He has an MBA and a first degree in Business and IT from the UK. He is a voracious reader and involves himself in a lot of pro bono work helping young adults bridge the gap from academics to the real-world including guiding those who need a helping hand with their social ills. He is as passionate about HR today as he was when he began this journey. He believes that HR is losing its way and has become desensitized about people which he believes should be its key focus. He has a genuine passion to help people grow and develop.

Abdulhussain, according to his peers and colleagues, admire his ability to operate at a senior level and yet not lose touch with the front line. A compassionate, empathetic and professional executive with a common touch is how they describe him. It was this that led him to be recognized and receive the Outstanding Leadership Award for Global HR Excellence from the World Human Resource Development Congress in 2007. He also represents the Human Capital Institute (HCI) as their resource trainer for the Middle East, Africa and Asia regions to disseminate their world class HR courses. He speaks and facilitates quite extensively in conferences across ME, Asia and Europe and is invited regularly to address different gatherings to impart his vast experience

Dr. Shilpi Banerjee

Dr. Shilpi Banerjee is CSR and Sustainability Head and Senior Lecturer and Program Leader, Business Management at De Montfort University, Dubai, UAE. Shilpi teaches courses in CSR, Sustainability, Entrepreneurship and Leadership. She has over 15 years of academic teaching and research experience (Homepage), working across universities in Asia such as University of Delhi, India; National University of Singapore; University of Hongkong; University of London, UK and American University in Dubai, UAE. Shilpi is a social issue in management researcher and her research explores new ways of thinking about the social, ethical, and environmental dimensions of business. She is particularly interested in studying the ways by which business, through their supply chains (both global and domestic), can contribute to social, environmental, and economic sustainability and create value for stakeholders. Since the last two years an important research engagement -PROGRESS research project, has been a key career progress milestone for Shilpi. The project titled, “Promoting Responsible Value Chains in India for an Effective Contribution of the Private Sector to the SDGs’, funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC Canada), initiated by Aston Business School, UK, for developing research on CSR and Sustainability in the Global South context. The network is comprised of more than 100 global scholars and researchers working towards developing research on how private sector companies - as part of global value chains (GVCs), production networks and foreign direct investments (FDIs) in India – do/can contribute towards achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Under this broad theme of the project, Shilpi is conducting research on issues of anti-trafficking (modern slavery) labour exploitation and multi stakeholder initiatives in developing countries context. Her forthcoming co-edited book (2022), Modern Slavery and the Governance of Global Value Chains, is proposed for the Cambridge University Press Book Series: Development Trajectories in Global Value Chains. Series eds. Stephanie Barrientos, Gary Gereffi, Dev Nathan, and John Pickles(book series). Her work also addresses issues of CSR communication in institutionalized and mandated CSR environments ( book chapter). Shilpi is a passionate case study writer and engages in writing and publishing business cases in the Harvard Business review( walmart case study), reviews for numerous high impact journal across disciplines and have written, published and presented her research in numerous international conferences and seminars (most recently at the CRRC 2021 conference- Global supply chain responsibility a sensemaking perspective link). She is also the founder member of the practice and process reading group ( https://practiceprocess.space/about), that aims to engage PhD scholars in scholarly works of practice and process theory. There are 400 members who actively engage every month end for the podcast, building a community of researchers interested in the theory and a networking ground for members to collaborate on projects. Shilpi’s move to DMU Dubai is aligned to her interests and ongoing research in Sustainability in the UAE. In her new role she is working closely with the leadership team to embed responsible education to classroom teaching, partnerships, and collaborations. DMU Dubai has joined the MENA Regional Chapter of PRME and have established the 9th MENA PRME Regional Forum and conference ‘Partnership for Change’ that will be hosted at the DMU Dubai Campus online and at the UK Pavilion, Expo 2020. Shilpi is working closely to deliver this event ahead of COP28-another important milestone for DMU Dubai and she is playing a key role for aligning the University’s sustainability agenda to PRME and UAE’s COP 28 vision.

Host or Publisher De Montfort University Dubai