Business & Money | Sunday 2 December, 2018 6:54 am |

Alawwal bank has launched a ‘Women’s Leadership Program’ designed to help young Saudi women to progress into leadership roles. 

 

The three-day program offers talented women in the early stages of their career a chance to learn some of the skills required to succeed. The participants worked through sessions addressing key pillars of effective leadership including time management, building trust, handling critical conversations and the role of self-belief. The program also offers a good networking opportunity to meet women across different industries.

 

Soren Nikolajsen, Managing Director of Alawwal bank, said, “As a large employer in the Kingdom it’s part of our responsibility to make sure we facilitate and support women in their ambitions - and make it possible for them to compete on equal terms with their male colleagues and have great careers. Creating better gender diversity in the workforce also has enormous upside and makes good business sense. Good for companies in general and good for the Kingdom overall.’

 

The first edition of the Alawwal bank ‘Women’s Leadership Program was attended by 22 women from 13 different companies, including Alawwal bank and representatives from the public sector, and key industry players. 

 

,One of the participants in the program, Sarah Bin Dekhail, Sr.Supervisor-Business Development, Acwa Power, said: “The reliance on technical skills solely as a primer factor to get into leadership positions whilst overlooking interpersonal skills is scientifically proven to be impractical and heavily unviable in multiple industries - that’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned on this course. I would like to thank Alawwal bank for bringing such a niche group of professional women together from different corporate backgrounds, this made for some really interesting discussions.”Nikolajsen added: “Increasing the proportion of women in the workforce is an important element of Vision 2030. With our new ‘Women’s Leadership Program’ we hope to help not only our valued female employees, but also some from other institutions.” 

 

Additional sessions of the program are being scheduled over the coming months in different parts of the Kingdom.