Exclusive Interview Archives

Ivette Torres Carías: Creating Exceptional Brand Loyalty

Meet Ivette Torres Carías, the Regional Business Development Manager at Webhelp Onelink, a premier partner in outsourced omnichannel customer experience services. Webhelp’s primary purpose is to revolutionize the BPO industry through innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, and happiness culture, generating value for its associates, clients, and the community.

Founded in Paris, Webhelp is now located throughout Latin America, supporting some of the biggest brands spread across the U.S, Latin America, and Europe. Webhelp’s values of happiness, leadership, engagement, innovation, excellence, and solidarity are the basis of which its employees approach their work and life.

Alongside its Game-Changing Culture, Webhelp brings a complete portfolio of services, focusing on BPO, automation, thriving for conversations, and development of self-service to reduce digital effort and drive customer autonomy, positioning self-service, chatbots, and voice bots. It also connects channels and systems for seamless, digital customer journeys anywhere, anytime. The firm utilizes omnichannel, messaging, video chat, and platform integration. Webhelp focuses on bot interactions and customer experience efficiency to help with quicker and more personalized experiences, introducing machine translation, voice transformation, RPAs, and email automation. Most importantly, Webhelp’s team learns from its customers’ voices to improve quality and provide actionable insights using best-in-class monitoring, voice recording, transcription, speech, and analytics.

A Dedicated Leader

As a Business Engineer with a master’s degree in Business Management, Ivette loves to learn, which has been a crucial part of her personal and professional life. Presently she is pursuing a degree in Theology and learning Portuguese as her third language. During the third year of her associate’s degree, she liked the dynamic daily life of a project manager and decided to dedicate her life to project management.

“I have built my career in the business development field designing solutions and supporting the commercial process inside Webhelp, this year is my fifth anniversary, and I am happy with the path that I had the privilege to walk; I started as a project manager in 2017 and based on the different opportunities and the support of my leaders and mentors I am now part of the leadership in our PMO.”– Says Ivette.

Aside from her professional career, Ivette loves serving in several volunteering programs. Initially, she started volunteering in High School as a math teacher. Later she got an opportunity to work for a program in her local community where she could work with specially-abled people. Before that, Ivette hadn’t had the necessary opportunity to interact with the community, which opened a new world for her. She discovered several different techniques to teach and learn.

“In life, there are good days and challenges; I invite you to create opportunities for the people around you and find something that fills your purpose in life. I always say that you can find a purpose by identifying one problem that annoys you the most and work each day until it is less of a problem and more of a solution.”

Ivette now teaches them not only how to read and write but also math and other subjects, which can help them get a high-school diploma. Currently, she is also a part of a church program to reduce illiteracy among people with special abilities.

A Team Effort

As a passionate team player, Ivette knows that her greatest accomplishment is a team effort. She says, “I have a team of 8 members that I am beyond proud of; seeing them grow, learn, and lead has been the most rewarding experience in my career so far.”

Webhelp recruits talents at an entry-level level, and Ivette knows how they face their fears and build their voices. Her role is to support them and remind them what they can do. She doesn’t take it as her accomplishment as when she was provided with the challenge of leading a team at a very young age; she also had doubts, fears, and second thoughts about it, but now she has realized that a bit of encouragement has the most significant impact of all and it also helps put people on charge.

When the Pandemic Bought New opportunities

Ivette believes the pandemic bought a lot of opportunities for the BPO industry. The pandemic halted face-to-face interaction to a large extent, which escalated the need for remote assistance worldwide.

“A lot of companies needed a solution to Customer Service, and others had to learn how to sell remotely, and on fortune, we had that portfolio of solutions.”– Ivette states.

During the pandemic, Webhelp changed one of its major clients’ path in digital transformation and moved their interaction to 50% digital. This eventually helped the company achieve brilliant results and reduce overall billing by 15%.

Webhelp is well known for its tailor-made services. Irrespective of the industry, product, or location, Webhelp has a solution to improve its customer’s journey. Now with years of experience, the organization is ready to accommodate its services to a different reality.

The Primary Differentiator

Ivette believes that Webhelp’s primary differentiator is its people. She says, “The culture, mindset, and vision we have as a company impact the services we provide.”

Ivette still remembers her first day when she met someone at C-level who said, “we take care of you to be at 200% of your personal life so you can be 100% inside our company.” At that point, she understood that the company’s culture is entirely focused on its employees as a person, and the contributions they make to the company are secondary.

Eyeing the Future

Webhelp is focusing on transitioning from traditional channels to digital and self-service platforms, including the human touch, as it wants to have a holistic approach. With offices in 8 countries, providing services to different regions, Webhelp will continue to develop other solutions and expand its service portfolios, such as Content Moderation, Data Annotation, and B2B Sales, among others, to provide an end-to-end solution to its clients with a customer-centric focus.

Luis Guardado: Creating Unforgettable Human Experiences

Luis Guardado is a highly engaged professional with over a decade of proven experience leading several Project Management Offices across the Americas, serving in different multinationals like HSBC, United Nations, and OneLink.

Presently Luis is serving as the Vice President of PMO and Solutioning for the Americas region at Webhelp™, supporting its Corporate Strategy Design and assuring a flawless execution of the Regional Strategic Portfolio, and leading the Pre-sales, Business Development, Solutioning, and Digital Transformation endeavors.

In 2021, he was recognized and awarded the ‘Best PMO of the Americas’ by PMOGA™, ‘Best Project Manager of the Americas’ by CCW™, and “Best PMO in LATAM” by BRPO™. Later in 2022, PMOGA™ recognized him as one of the ‘Top PMO Leaders of the Year”.

A Master in Business Administration, Innovation, and Finance, Luis is also an international speaker and university teacher providing Strategy, Portfolio and Project Management, Business Development, Design Thinking, Leadership, and Neurosemantic lectures.

As a veteran business leader, Luis represents several boards in educational institutions and NGOs dedicated to promoting knowledge-sharing entrepreneurial efforts and social assistance to communities in need.

Creating a Seamless Customer Journey

Alongside its game-changing culture, Webhelp brings a full portfolio of services, focusing on BPO, and automation, thriving for conversations & development of self-service to digitally reduce effort and drive customer autonomy, positioning self-service, chatbots, and voice bots. The organization also connects channels and systems for seamless, digital customer journeys anytime, anywhere, with the help of omnichannel, messaging, video chat, and platform integration. Webhelp is focused on bot interactions and customer experience efficiency to provide quicker and personalized experiences, introducing machine translation, voice transformation, RPAs, and email automation.

Tackling the Pandemic

Since its inception in 2000, Webhelp has been a pioneer in innovation. It envisions a process as an infinite loop, which goes from the design of the solution to the evolution. This holistic approach ensures a never-ending process that causes massive disruption and proposes evolutionary and innovative solutions for its clients. The pandemic accelerated these processes throughout the company. For one of its major clients, Webhelp rewrote its path in digital transformation, which moved its interactions to up to 50% digital. This eventually helped to achieve overwhelming results, like a 34% improvement in First Call Resolution and reducing their cost per interaction by more than 67% and approximately 15% of the overall billing.

A Different Organization

With a talented management team, Webhelp is a people-first company. It has several talented professionals leading change, managing the end-to-end process, and approaching this experience coherently with the overall user experience.

While having new programs and onboarding new clients, Luis and his team map the potential opportunities presented, and they sit with their clients and set the expectation moving forward in their partnership. Webhelp goes beyond the vendor-client relationship and transforms it into a win-win experience. The organization creates solutions and integrates the technology as part of the overall strategy; it analyzes, designs, and sets guidelines for continuous improvements. Webhelp doesn’t sell technology; instead, it sells end-to-end solutions and remains responsible for the outcome. The organization’s added value is the flexibility of its in-house innovation team to meet the requirements and transform the customer experience through embedded consultancy.

Future Roadmap

Webhelp is pushing digital and self-service solutions while expanding its digital offerings and focusing on database management to improve business and customer intelligence as it moves beyond the traditional BPO and includes consulting, insights, and technology. A well-defined three-step strategy supports this. At first, Webhelp focuses on expanding its reach, which can expand its operations, offer a global footprint for its client base, and provide them with the best-shore solutions and alternative ways of working. Second, Webhelp transforms the core, increasing value creation with a transformation approach through technological, customer journey design, and data capabilities. And finally, it plans to extend its services and selectively develop other BPO services such as Content Moderation, Data Annotation, and B2B Sales, among others, to provide an end-to-end solution to its clients with a customer-centric focus.

Balaji Vaidyanathan: Spearheading Strategic Marketing Initiatives

Balaji Vaidyanathan is an integrated marketing specialist with 2 decades of experience in B2B and Consumer Marketing. As Director and Head of Marketing for Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEEMEA) at Franklin Templeto n based out of Dubai, Balaji is responsible for building the marketing value proposition, brand, and digital presence, developing the strategic footprint across CEEMEA, performance managing regional teams, focusing on both institutional and retail businesses and driving marketing efforts for global and EMEA strategic projects, amongst other initiatives. Prior to this role, Balaji was with Franklin Templeton in their India office, leading all brand, advertising, investor education, and several other initiatives.

“When I joined Franklin Templeton in India in 2010, I was drawn to it because of its well-respected and established global brand, remarkable heritage, work culture, and other aspirational facets,”- Balaji recalled. “Coming from an Indian company, I saw the opportunity to grow through global exposure and the chance to work with teams across regions and functions. Having studied various aspects of the firm, I believed I had many ideas I could bring to the table, and I sensed that these would be well received.”

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Franklin Templeton is a global leader in asset management with more than seventy years of experience worldwide. With 1300+ investment professionals spread across 23 countries, Franklin Templeton manages an AUM of $1.3tn, diversified across asset classes, geography, and client type.

Before joining the mutual fund industry, Balaji started his career as a group management trainee with the Aditya Birla Group, where he moved into a marketing role after an initial stint in sales. He was responsible for advertising & brand building, new product launches, managing the creative and media planning agencies, including ATL, communication, sales promotion, etc. After close to 5 years with Aditya Birla Group, Balaji worked with Lotus India Asset Management (now Invesco Mutual Fund) and then Edelweiss Financial Services in various capacities in the domain of marketing.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, London, Balaji holds an MBA in International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. Additionally, he also has a diploma in Digital Marketing from NIIT and the Digital Marketing Institute.

Over the years, Balaji has become an angel investor and a mentor to various- start-ups in the space of deep tech, EdTech, health tech, and sustainability. He is also a part of the Advisory Board (Middle East) for the global CMO Council, which presently has more than 15000 members from senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries.

Changing Investors’ Mindset

Along with his team, Balaji is constantly striving to create awareness about the benefits of long-term investing. Their initiatives seek to equip investors with an understanding of the importance of planning for their long-term goals, particularly retirement, and make them appreciate the benefits of starting early, investing regularly, and staying invested for the long term to benefit from the power of compounding.

“In this era of easy credit and instant gratification, where everyone seems to be in the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) mode, we need to try to inculcate better savings and investing habits,” Balaji explained. “This entails first setting income aside for investments and then spending what is left rather than investing what is left over after spending. Wealth creation is making one’s money work hard for you, which can only be done through discipline, long-term commitment, and astute planning.”

Key Trends

Balaji feels this is a fascinating and dynamic time due to rapid and exponential technological developments and the constant evolution of customer preferences and expectations. Thanks to AI, data, and analytics, predicting patterns in customer behavior has become much more straightforward, and data-driven marketing strategies have become less of a gamble than before. However, one can’t undermine the contribution of creativity, agility, and innovation to the mix.

A few of the marketing trends Balaji envisage revolves around using web 3.0 and tapping into the potential of the metaverse. “As customer journeys evolve, we will see more brands focusing on an omnichannel approach to influence customers’ decision-making processes, and products and services will offer more hybrid and cohesive customer experiences. We will have to face the challenge that brand loyalty will become a fading concept, and a customer is only as loyal as her last experience with the brand.”- he explained.

Additionally, he feels, Regionalization is another major emerging trend as targeting tier-1 audiences gets saturated. This, alongside deep customization, will be a great brand differentiator, and personalization will become the key to hearts.

Also, User-generated content has ushered in a new era that closes the gap between creators of content and their audiences. As a result, audiences now seek to interact with content and content creators and with each other. This tests a brand’s authenticity like never before but also opens the opportunity to collect valuable insights into target audiences and their preferences.

“From a marketer’s perspective, these are exciting times ahead, and one will need to consistently up his or her game to stay ahead of the curve and ensure their brand is able to become the preferred go-to brand for their customers.”– said Balaji.

Awards and Accolades

Over the years, several prestigious institutions and peers have acknowledged Balaji with various awards and recognition for his work. As a marketing leader, Balaji puts his heart and soul into every campaign he has spearheaded or partnered with, and he always feels a great sense of accomplishment when they meet their mark or help him learn new things.

“At the end of the day, it’s always about the trust you built for your brand amongst customers, the knowledge that your work has helped improve people’s financial futures and helped investors understand the importance of financial planning/ planning for one’s goals,”- he explained. “That is the ultimate satisfaction – when you see the customer had been able to reach her goals in the long term because she believed in your brand and narrative.”

John Hanafin: Providing Bespoke Strategic Management Support Globally

A focused professional with an entrepreneurial drive and a commercial mindset, John Hanafin has nearly three decades of experience in the HNW Trust and Corporate Service Industry, with over 15 years spent in the Middle East, between the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain. John is passionate about serving the needs of his clients across the planet and ensuring that they receive all the relevant, quality advice accompanied by a high level of service.

John is a financier, investor, deal maker, and founder of Huriya Private, an award-winning advisory service company working with a select number of families and individuals.

A veteran of the financial services industry, sports management, commercial and promotional media, residency, and citizenship planning, John has served as Executive and Non-Executive Director on several boards. He has also worked with multiple governments providing advice on structuring and implementing programs to boost corporate re-domiciliation and foreign direct investment. John is a Chartered member of the Securities Institute, a member of the International Tax Planning Association, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, the International Business Structuring Association, and an FA Registered Intermediary.

An Award Winning Advisory Service Company

Established in 2018, Huriya Private is an independent, award-winning, international private equity, immigration, multi-family office, and corporate structuring firm based in Dubai, UAE.

The word ‘Huriya’ means ‘Freedom’ in Arabic. Freedom of movement is a fundamental right preserved in the laws and constitutions of most countries. However, enough evidence shows this right is limited to the borders and visa restrictions of one’s country of citizenship or lawful residence. Huriya Private can help break down these restrictions by providing its clients the freedom to travel visa-free and expatriate their wealth in the most commercial, tax-efficient, and cost-effective way.

Huriya’s team includes accountants, lawyers, tax advisors, on and offshore structuring and formation specialists. Collectively, the firm’s team has several decades of international experience in its field, which helps them to have a deep understanding of the demands and requirements of Huriya’s clients.

With several offices spread across Qatar, Switzerland, Albania, and Cyprus, Huriya Private is massively experienced in advising the GCC’s wealthiest individuals, helping them to protect, manage and enhance their private wealth.

Providing a Holistic Set of Services

Throughout his 25 years of working with several high-net-worth individuals within trust management and Corporate services, John knows what makes a person successful. His personal experience in succeeding in several locations across the planet has helped him to understand what it needs to make an impactful global imprint, and residency and citizenship by investment is only the first step, among many.

So, John has structured his company to boast a holistic set of services that provide its investors with a full range of services and solutions that can allow them to become global citizens by replicating their success worldwide; increasing their wealth, protecting their assets, breaking down boundaries, hedging against political and economic turbulence, and obtaining true financial and political sovereignty.

John says, “At Huriya Private, we take the business of family offices to the next level, harmonizing it with RCBI to produce optimal solutions for our clients that address every need. Our experienced team of professionals comes with diverse backgrounds, specialties, and experiences, enabling us to provide a holistic approach to business, and our vast array of services reflects that structure.”

Currently, the organization provides several path-breaking services, including;

Corporate Structuring: The organization provides this knowledge to its investors by carefully planning their global corporate structure, using an innovative analytical approach to ensure the well-being of its clients’ interests. Huriya offers corporate structuring solutions that cover all the necessary criteria, including tax structuring, financial distributions, succession planning, risk mitigation, and more.

Corporate Banking Services: Huriya’s long-term relationships with various first-rate banks like Emirates NBD, Barclays, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Credit Suisse, Citi, and HSBC help the firm provide unmatched banking services to its clients, who can take advantage of the firm’s network to conduct businesses and seamlessly move their finances throughout the planet.

Trust Incorporation and Management: Huriya offers a wide range of digital finance management solutions for corporations and individuals, enabling them to enhance their crypto portfolio, mainly by supplementing it with RCBI solutions matching their profiles and objectives.

Tax and Accounting Services: The firm also provides tax and accounting services by handling international tax compliance, auditing, and accounting operations to enable its clients to focus on their primary business activities and more significant matters.

Becoming Truly Global: RCBI is the core functionality of Huriya Private, as it is a getaway for a better life on a global scale. However, by supplementing RCBI with intricate corporate and wealth management services, Huriya allows its clients to fulfill their potential and make their mark in the international arena.

Giving it Back to the Global Community

“In recent years, I have focused more on giving back to the global community we are part of. This is part of the reason that Huriya Private Foundation was founded. The Foundation aims to positively impact the lives of the underprivileged children, women, and families we work with.”– States John.

Although recently launched, the Huriya Private Foundation has already succeeded in leading several philanthropic initiatives by partnering with several other humanitarian organizations. It has joined the growing ranks of the global wealth management industry, acknowledging the importance of promoting the highest standards of ethical and sustainable behaviors. Huriya Private Foundation was also awarded the “Best Philanthropy InitiativeMENA’ at the Inaugural WealthBriefing Wealth for Good Awards, 2022.

Picture of the Future

Huriya strives to offer its clients an extremely high level of service by ensuring and recruiting the top specialists in its field. With its team of highly reputable advisors qualified in tax, law, and accountancy, the firm aims to provide security and support to our clients while providing transparency and a high level of service.

Marwa Kaabour: Redefining Leadership

Meet Marwa Kaabour, the Group Head of Marketing and Corporate Communication of Al Masaood LLC, one of the most prominent family-owned business conglomerates in Abu Dhabi, which formed concurrently with the UAE’s union back in 1971. The group provides comprehensive solutions to its customers across 18 different industry sectors through its diverse activities and divisions. As an organization, Al Masaood has always aimed to serve and support the growth and development of the UAE, specifically in Abu Dhabi.

Being Abu Dhabi’s largest family business, the Al Masaood Group has pioneered the fields of automotive, transport, power, and industrial, constantly growing and developing the country for more than five decades. The group’s flagship company Al Masaood Automobiles is a leader in Abu Dhabi’s automotive market. Its Power Division has long been supporting the power, marine and renewables industry in Abu Dhabi. From the very early days of importing the first gas turbine and constructing the first water desalination plant, the group has always supported Abu Dhabi’s economic development.

The Steadfast Leader

Marwa has been a part of the marketing and communication industry for nearly three decades in the Middle East. She started her career with organizations like Leo Burnett and Impact BBDO. However, she soon decided to switch to the client side and started helping organizations build their marketing and corporate communication functions. During her long and illustrious career, Marwa has helped create and manage strategic marketing communications for several international and regional firms, including government entities of the region. Marwa’s experience includes her work in energy, manufacturing, aviation, automotive, FMCG, food & beverage, construction, and retail industries.

A graduate of the American University of Sharjah’s undergraduate and post-graduate programs, Marwa holds a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Management and an Executive MBA. She also holds certifications from the Center for Sustainability Excellence CSE in Brussuels as a Certified Sustainability Marketer and the Institute of Digital Marketing in Ireland as a Certified Digital Marketer.

Greatest Achievement

In her current role, Marwa started with communication development from scratch. Later she moved into the overhaul and upscaling of the marketing delivery. Marwa feels her most significant achievement was forming a team of marketing and communications titans who eventually worked to improve brand equity and have tremendously grown the company’s marketing and PR value. Even during the pandemic, Al Masaood LLC’s brands experienced the greatest growth, with its PR value rising by over 700 percent and its sales increasing by six folds.

An Ever-Evolving Industry

As a veteran of the industry, Marwa would like much more cohesion and harmony among marketing and communication practitioners. Thanks to the abundance of data, the lines between marketing and communication practices have been blurred completely, and now the primary challenge is to know how to best leverage the data to help a brand thrive. Marwa believes introducing efficiencies across both disciplines is of utmost importance. Presently marketers are being challenged, and their roles are becoming extremely complex as they shoulder the additional responsibilities of business transformations. So, present-day marketing and communication practitioners need to start a brand’s transformation from the inside by developing performance-driven cultures and then transitioning it to reflect on the outside.

A Different Organization

Growth is an ongoing objective for everyone at Al Masaood. It needs continuous work and transformation to keep up with the changing market trends and customer preferences. As a part of the group’s customer-centric ethos, Al Masaood always looks to provide value-driven experiences and services to its clients and customers. As a company, Al Masaood places a strong emphasis on building long-standing and fruitful relationships with all of its stakeholders. Its vision of growing together, delivering value, and embracing heritage set the group apart from its competitors.

Picture of the Future

Since its inception Al Masaood has faithfully served the UAE across the fields it operates in. For over the last five decades, the group has moved in synergy with the UAE, and now as it embarks on the next 50 years journey, it is aligned with the country’s vision by continuously diversifying and investing in the economy’s key strategic sectors.

Marwa says, “Al Masaood’s future plans also consider the pressing environmental factors around us. As such, we have developed a strategy that places sustainability and innovation at the core. From electrification to renewables, clean energy, diversification, and customer centricity, we’ve got a busy agenda at hand.”

Kiran Haslam: Redefining Leadership

Meet Kiran Jay Haslam, the Chief Marketing Officer for the Diriyah Gate Development Authority, establishing Diriyah within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and re-establishing its position internationally, not just as the birthplace of the Kingdom but also as a center for heritage and culture in Arabia.

Kiran started his journey as a young man intrigued by nature and the underwater world of oceans and the Amazon. So, he joined the university to study Marine Biology due to his fascination for Ichthyology, but it quickly morphed into engineering and technology, where he completed his graduation. In his early days, Kiran toured the entire world as a jazz musician and composer, performing at concerts and festivals and writing and performing compositions for film and television programs. Kiran describes himself as a true nomad, fully dedicated to chasing discomfort and forever on a mission to experience new things and shift into new roles. He has worked in public relations, advertising, and media. Kiran has also worked as an editor and writer focusing on art, travel, and automotive. Recently he has also authored a couple of story books for children to raise funds for conservation.

“From a young age, I was exposed to the world uniquely and powerfully due to my expatriate family life. In my youth, we lived in Penang, Singapore, and California for several years, exposing me to different sounds, sights, smells, and tastes. At a young age, I took an anthropological leap into the work of Joseph Campbell, and that is probably where the first burst of marketing kicked into play to complement the understanding of human behavior I garnered from being a professional musician and entertainer. Campbell also joined the dots for me on Carl Jung’s “archetypes of the collective unconscious,” which is where my marketing approach tapped into the essence of branding.”- Says Kiran.

Greatest Accomplishment

Kiran feels his most significant achievement at DGDA is bringing together one of the most talented marketing teams. This team has a unique Saudi voice with a global understanding and is motivated to take everything to the next level – even when levels don’t exist!

On the personal front, he feels his greatest achievement would be bringing a unique creative voice and touch to a corporate table and bringing significant change, which is hard to do in most corporations due to the ‘play it far too safe’ stance and lack of understanding on how creative arts can drive innovation in an organization.

A different Organization

Kiran knows everyone at DGDA truly believes in Diriyah, making it far less daunting to realize that nothing like this has ever been created or delivered. Especially nothing in terms of the scale or complexity, with the added layers of traditional architecture and mud-brick construction techniques, a truly smart city, and pedestrianized urban living, all of which are community-centric.

Kiran and his team are also enthusiastic about the fact that they have a significant role to play in Vision 2030, and thanks to the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and of course the amazing Jerry Inzerillo help them make enormous strides towards building a vibrant society with a thriving economy are taking place across the Kingdom. “Diriyah is unique in the rate at which it is coming to life and its significance being a human-scale development in the capital city of Riyadh.”– He says.

What Success Looks Like

Success for Kiran would be changing people’s misconceptions about the Kingdom. “Stereotypes in films and popular culture have fed into a very shallow understanding of Saudi Arabia for many people worldwide over several decades. They don’t know Saudi yet, but more and more people are visiting Saudi for themselves, engaging with real people – Saudis from all walks of life – and traveling across the Kingdom to see breathtaking environments.”- He states.

Being the 15th largest country on the planet, with so much to offer visitors, Diriyah will soon be a focal point for this visitation, and Kiran feels the project has a unique ability to remove all prejudices, misconceptions, and narrow-minded views, leaving all those who interact with us with a real understanding of the culture, customs, traditions, and warmth that are entirely unique to the Kingdom.

For DGDA, success can be measured over time by its contribution of over $7.2 billion to the Kingdom’s GDP, creation of over 55,000 jobs, and the attraction of visitors across the world to increase the tourist footfall in the Kingdom to over 27 million each year by 2030.

Future Roadmap

Kingdom’s At-Turaif UNESCO World Heritage Site stands at the project’s centerpiece and serves as the inspiration for what Kiran and his team do. DGDA’s aim for Diriyah to return to being one of the great gathering places in the world, with the same status that the Acropolis has to the Greeks or the Colosseum has to the Romans.

Foster Melliar UK: Upskilling Clients with Consultant-Led Courses and eLearning Products

During the early 1990s, Foster Melliar Learning Solutions was one of the first South African companies that adopted the globally recognized best practice approach to IT Service Management known as ITIL. Thanks to this solid foundation, the organization brought together some of the most skilled and experienced specialists in the country to supplement its ITIL portfolio with a range of best practices, including;

COBIT, best practices for IT and governance.
DevOps, best practices combining Software Development and IT operations, shortening development life cycles, and providing continuous delivery with high-quality software.
Agile, best practices relevant to Software Development Project Management

With the vision to be the knowledge partner of choice for consulting, learning, and implementing value-added business systems and processes, the organization introduced its first branch in the U.K in 2022 (Foster-Melliar UK.).

With this new branch in the U.K, Foster-Melliar is continuously expanding its portfolio of products and services to meet the ever-changing needs of organizations and individuals throughout the globe, which ensures its readiness for the deployment of new technology in the Beta and early adopter phases of leading cloud and related technologies, offering clients the competitive advantage of ‘first to market adoption.

As a member of the Foster-Melliar Group, the organization is a fully accredited consulting, training, and skills development provider. Evolving over 3 decades, the organization’s clients include corporates and skills, development providers. Evolving over 3 decades, the organization’s clients include corporates, individuals, school leavers, graduates, and various government agencies. It is a leading provider of IT solutions, business consulting services, and broad-based skills training courses that enable its clients to value and optimize various business and technology processes for individuals to stay ahead of technological advancements.

The organization’s innovative consultant-led training and coaching capabilities also help its clients maximize their human capital investments and quickly react to the changing markets by developing a framework to evaluate, deploy, manage, and extend the skills of their human intellectual capital skills. Foster-Melliar’s consultants are geared to deliver the programs and apply them to specific work environments.

Path Breaking Services

Led by its CEO, Peter Clark, Foster –Melliar offers virtual instructor-led training, consulting, and eLearning in a wide range of digital and IT skills. Through the organization’s affordable e-learning platform, clients can also upskill themselves or their entire workforce at a significantly less cost in a shorter time period with courses like the ITIL Foundation course, People Development courses, Microsoft Azure courses, or Microsoft Apps courses.

“Foster-Melliar will Educate – Mentor – Empower you and make your IT future possible through teaching, learning, and growing.”

Foster-Melliar’s Microsoft 365 training is the perfect place to start for clients focused on service and business management skills. Once the Microsoft 365 course is completed, clients can opt for other complex certifications like Microsoft Administrator Expert or Microsoft Security Administrator. Foster-Melliar’s consultants can also help clients upskill in various business applications like Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Supply Chain Management, etc. The consultant-led trainers are also proficient in Service Management and Business Management training, helping clients choose the best platform and services that work best for the business.

Helping Clients to Improve their Skills

“It is essential to keep your employees certified and up to speed, from the CIO right down to the bottom layers of your organization, not just in terms of technology, but in terms of how each specific job role maps out within the greater context of what the business does.”– says Peter.

He believes that in order to improve their daily tasks and roles within the company, everyone and every company needs to learn quickly. As technology changes, the process for the tasks at hand becomes outdated. With courses being updated as technology updates, there will be a continuous need for people, employees, and companies to upskill. Providing the opportunity to learn and upskill often increases employees’ motivation for everything.

Tackling the Pandemic

Due to the pandemic-induced lockdowns and social distancing norms, corporate classroom training was massively affected. During this time, Foster-Melliar witnessed a sharp decrease in classroom training and an exponential increase in eLearning self-study training on its online learning portal and virtual courses through Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

With the resumption of the traditional educational system, Foster-Melliar now expects to meet the learning style of students, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of students and courses, improve user accessibility, a sense of belonging to a class or community, and discussions between students just like in the classroom, sharing knowledge, and the same quality of qualifications.

Picture of the Future

Foster-Melliar U.K aspires to be the knowledge partner of choice for consulting, learning, and implementing value-added business systems and processes. It intends to upskill and develop people as managers and leaders, which keeps employees productive and accelerates their career development for the better.

“Expanding our eLearning solutions to the world is our next step. The next branch that we are opening is in Australia.”– asserts Peter.

Capitol Technology University: Empowering Students to Build Great Careers

In 1927, Navy veteran Eugene H. Rietzke founded Capitol Technology Universit y in Washington, D.C., as the Capitol Radio Engineering Institute. Initially, the institute served to educate radio and electronics technicians, and later with growing popularity, it started offering other areas of study related to engineering and technology. As the school evolved, it underwent several name and location changes before moving to Laurel, MD. Campus in 1980 and settling on the current name Capitol Technology University in 2014. Thanks to its strong leadership, Capitol Tech has grown into an MHEC-accredited, bustling academic community offering graduate and undergraduate degrees.

Led by its President, Dr. Bradford L. Sims, Capitol Technology University is a private, independent university offering 26 Bachelor’s, 21 Master’s, and 32 Doctoral degree options in a variety of STEM-based subject areas. Every program at the university focuses on helping students develop practical and modern skills that will make them valuable assets for their employers. Its most popular study program is its acclaimed Cyber and Information Security major, which has received several honors, including the 2020 S.C. Media Award for Best Cybersecurity Higher Education Program. It also has expertly designed Construction Management & Critical Infrastructure Programs, which help students prepare for lucrative careers in the industry. The career-focused university provides two unique promises for eligible students–the Chargers Assistance Program (CAP), which promises to assist students with paying off loans if their post-graduation income is under $50,000, and the Capitol Commitment, which offers to fund up to 36 additional academic credits for students who do not find employment within 90 days of graduation.

A Technology-Obsessed Leader

Dr. Bradford L. Sims joined Capitol Technology University in 2017 as its eighth president. An educator, administrator, and construction project manager, Dr. Sims has a massive experience in academia and in numerous career industries.

Dr. Sims was introduced to computer programming at a very young age when he received a Commodore 64 as a birthday gift. Soon after completing his Bachelor’s degree in Building Construction Management from Purdue University, he spent significant time in project management for industrial construction companies. His technical knowledge provided him with the opportunity to not only oversee projects but to have involvement in managing the computer systems at each company he served. Later, he returned to the University of Florida to pursue his Master of Science in Building Construction and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Purdue. These studies eventually led Dr. Sims to his first position in the higher education industry as an assistant professor at the University of Florida. Later, he worked in various positions in the higher education industry before joining Capitol.

Setting High Standards

Capitol Technology University sets itself apart by helping students find their careers immediately after graduation. The university has partnerships with major government agencies like the NSA, allowing its students to build career connections quickly. It hires faculty members who not only have brilliant minds and a passion for teaching, but have worked in the industry and can show students what their future employers could look for. Additionally, Capitol’s programs are developed on the base of the current STEM career industry, and each subject area was designed to meet the specific demands of the job market.

Tackling the Pandemic

Although Covid-19 made it very difficult for many colleges and universities to operate in person, leading to a decline in enrollment, Capitol was already well-positioned to tackle the pandemic due to its existing robust online learning infrastructure.

“While we missed the lively on-campus presence of our undergraduate students during 2020, we successfully continued operations virtually and maintained the same level of quality and excellence that our community expects.”- Dr. Sims said.

Helping Students Build Great Careers

Since its foundation in 1927, Capitol’s primary mission has been to provide its students with great careers. What has changed is the university’s commitment to offering its education at advanced degree levels and the delivery methods of several of its degrees. During the late 1990s, Capitol Tech was one of the leaders in converting its Master’s degrees to online delivery, which helped it to reach a much wider audience of full-time working students. Later it added an online doctoral degree to serve working students who wanted to continue their education. Initially, the online experience was a synchronous 16-week semester. However, to meet the current student needs, synchronous delivery has migrated to asynchronous delivery with the addition of 8-week courses.

Preparing for the Future

As a career-focused university, Capitol will continue to look at the future needs of the industries it serves and add new degree programs and certifications to fill that market demand. Capitol Tech works closely and has many partnerships with associations, companies, government agencies, and government subcontractors and uses many full-time industry employees to instruct in classes both on campus and online, ensuring that the university stays active in current and future industry needs across the United States and internationally.

Judy Deuchar: Changing the Shopping Experience

Led by Judy Deuchar, TVSN is an experiential retailer with over 27 years in Australia and New Zealand as a broadcast, cable television, and satellite television network specializing in home shopping. The TVSN shopping network showcases a huge variety of products and prestigious brands, international trends in fashion, health, beauty, kitchen, electronics, homeware, and jewelry across several platforms including television, internet, printed catalog, mobile, and online applications. TVSN’s products are accessible to consumers from the comfort of their homes, 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

The show takes viewers through an exhilarating ride of showcasing products and their features, benefits, brand stories, and journey to TVSN, with international guest presenters, customer testimonials, how-to’s, demonstrations, the odd bloopers, and a lot of fun, laughter, and sometimes tears.

Since its inception in 1996, TVSN has grown from strength to strength and has enviable expertise in video commerce within the fast-changing digital world. Customers can also access the platform using TV, tablets, and handheld devices, securing TVSN’s future in the digital age.

TVSN’s buyers often travel the world searching for new, unique, and exclusive quality products, emerging trends, and brands that TVSN knows its customers will love. All TVSN products undergo strict testing with the company’s Quality Assurance Team for compliance, safety, strength, and reliability before they go on sale.

The Experienced Leader

TVSN’s General Manager, Judy Deuchar is an experienced leader with strategic expertise in transformational business management, from merchandising, marketing, digital programming, logistics, and global retail. She is experienced in supply chain management, implementing multi-channel digital commerce optimization for brands and retailers. Judy’s proven strength lies in strategically driving merchandise and consumer technology to build brands and businesses for long-term growth.

Judy holds a Bachelor of Social Science in Clinical Psychology and a Post Graduate degree in Conflict Management and Marketing from the University of Cape Town and the University of Cape Town Business School, respectively. She is also a Global Winner of the CEW (Cosmetic Executive Women) Building Leaders Achiever Award 2009.

“Throwing myself into blue sky ideas is what motivates me to get up in the morning and continue to lead this amazing team.”

Her career started with the Foschini Group as a Diamond Buyer during her Graduate Program. She soon moved on to QVC, holding several buying roles, before being promoted to Senior Vice President of Merchandise, Planning, and Operations.

Judy also owned a Brand Consultancy Business, where she led a team of 10 and looked after Elle as their global Managing Director for jewelry and accessories. She was instrumental in establishing several Elle stores across the Asia-Pacific, working with several high-profile clients like Lulu Guinness.

Measuring the Success

Judy measures her success by her ability and resilience to rise when times are tough. She always prefers to lead by example in order to promote team effectiveness and collaboration. She feels setting the right goals ensures success for a business and motivates individual contributors to drive performance and ensure growth and business sustainability.

Judy feels taking smart risks in her day-to-day activities to drive TVSN’s business forward is one of the biggest challenges. Also, things like enhancing effectiveness, inspiring others, developing employees, leading a team, guiding change, and managing internal and external stakeholders come with their own set of challenges.

Implementing New Ideas

As an experiential retailer, TVSN is fully committed to providing a seamless customer experience consistently and ethically. An experience that excites and surprises customers with retail experiences available to them anytime, anywhere.

As TVSN’s General Manager, Judy plans to start multi-channel streaming, which will maximize the organization’s video commerce asset, helping it to take on new products streamed across multiple channels to suit the individual customer, including new exciting website channels that include video playlist apps as well as syndicated social media channels.

“We aspire to ensure that new customers are excited about what they have discovered and shop with TVSN. Existing customers continue to return because they love the experience and want more and more. We promise to deliver a unique, entertaining, and engaging shopping experience. We will excite, entertain and inform our customers by showcasing the best products, trends, and brands from around the world. We will never stop looking for ways to support, service, and delight our customers.”– says Judy.

Elizabeth Cowper: Transforming Workplaces for Working Women

Meet Elizabeth Cowper, the Founder, and CEO of Ludo, which is on a mission to engage female talent in the workforce. Ludo is about tech for inclusion, working to close the gender pay gap, educating, informing, and supporting HR. It is a B2B SaaS product that provides content and resource to all employees from its expert partners. Alongside this, the company also provides needed tools for HR to help drive a culture of inclusion and education for line managers to engage talent.

Under Elizabeth’s leadership, Ludo launched its first module to transform the maternity journey in 2021, with its next module, Ludo Menopause, scheduled to launch in October 2022. It also has Ludo Health, Ludo Fertility, and Ludo Parents in its product pipeline for 2023.

Ludo helps working new parents connect via the company, geography, or industry sector. Based on the expecting parents’ preference, Ludo sends alerts to the line manager and HR to keep in touch when the employee is out on maternity leave. The organization also has learning hub videos to support HR in guiding line managers to help parents as they grow their families.

The Farsighted Leader

As a working parent, Elizabeth understands the challenges parents face juggling the demands of a busy job and children. Also, she realized that if we continue at the same rate, closing the gender pay gap will take over 136 years. McKinsey once said, “Intervention is necessary to bridge the gender gap.” and Ludo is the intervention.

Elizabeth says, “Women are still underrepresented in the workplace, and we must hurry history to shift the dial. We help companies do exactly that.”

Global productivity losses related to menopause topped $150bn last year. And women typically drop out of the workforce when they are most likely to step into senior roles due to the age range where women are impacted by perimenopause and menopause.

After leaving University, Ludo’s founder Elizabeth initiated her career in recruitment, then onto HR. She completed her CIPD training in the UK and trained as a Master Coach, Strengths Finder Coach, and NLP Master Practitioner, which has supported her in developing individuals, and great teams to maximize collective success.

Elizabeth has had an illustrious career of nearly three decades in HR, working for companies like LVMH, Planet Organic, Network Rail, Harvey Nichols and Tapestry. She was awarded HR Most Influential 5 years in a row and has been described as a Culture Adjuster. Being a mother of three, Elizabeth completely understands the challenges of a working mother. Also, due to her role as an HR leader, she has witnessed some incredible women drop out of the workforce during critical life stages, including maternity leaves and menopause. So, she always wanted to change how people support women in the workplace, drive towards gender parity and close the gender pay gap.

Tackling the Gender Pay Gap

According to the latest number, globally, women earn 82 cents to every $1 for men, which is not good enough. This also has a knock-on effect on women’s wealth all the way to the value of their pensions.

Menopause is when most women struggle to stay in the workforce, leaving at a significant time in their careers. So, Ludo needs to work to support and retain female talent to maintain board diversity.

Ludo helps employees going through maternity and menopause by providing the needed help, support, and guidance. The organization helps attract and retain female talents and educates on the importance of gender parity.

The Pandemic

Elizabeth started her entrepreneurial journey in April 2020. She stepped out of corporate life into a global lockdown, which was nerve-wracking. She was also solo parenting three kids at home while running focus groups online and putting together the vision and plan for the tech. While looking back, Elizabeth realizes it was all possible due to the available technology. However, the lack of human contact made it harder to build Ludo’s team.

As the founder of Ludo, Elizabeth believes the pandemic has terribly affected working mothers, and it single-handedly pushed back women’s development in the workplace by more than ten years.

Getting Ready for the Future

Elizabeth says, “We are launching Ludo Health, Ludo Fertility, and Ludo Parents in 2023. We have plans for an HR Mastermind group too, and we run Ludo Red Tent events. A red tent is a women’s circle to allow women to have a voice and share in a safe environment.”

Ludo is working to create a future workplace where employees can tune into their inner compass and be their authentic selves. The organization can achieve this by creating a safe, inclusive culture, raising self-awareness, guiding and supporting employees through their life journeys. Presently Ludo is raising investment, and it is the firm’s second investment round that will help it expand the business globally, grow the team, and develop the tech with several new features.