13 October 2015, Abu Dhabi: 8th Edition MENA HR Summit commenced yesterday at Hotel Le Royal Meridien, Abu Dhabi – UAE. The summit, rotating around the central theme of “HR Innovation - New HR on Board to Gain Competitive Advantage”, witnessed distinguished HR professionals focus on innovations in the HR domain to help firms gain a competitive advantage.

The summit started off with keynote presentations from Hind Al Mualla, Chief of CHI at Knowledge & Human Development Authority - UAE, Jeff Turner, Learning & Development Manager EMEA at Facebook and Ahmed ElZoghby, Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer, Middle East & Africa at Pepsico.

Initial sessions at the summit saw focus on Talent War 2020 from representatives of Aujan Coca Cola and Saudi Airlines. Delegates at the conference also heard on case studies from Al-Futtaim Group Functions & Retail, Du and Cape PLC - among others who addressed the audience on leadership development. A panel discussion with some of these eminent HR professionals discussed about the workforce of tomorrow, trends, challenges and changing workforce expectations.

Tetros participated as the Platinum Sponsor, while Data Flow was the Associate Partner for the conference. Safa Hijazeen, CEO at Tetros Talent Consultancy FZ-LLC and Rolf Arndt, Sales Director MENA at Data Flow Group elaborated “Outstanding Organizations” and “Primary Source Verification” in their presentations respectively.
The day ended with a cocktail reception and networking session where participants interacted with each other and got to know the fellow participants.

Today, the second day of the conference, will witness intriguing presentations, case studies and panel discussions from HR experts from Panalpina, Goodyear, DP World, Gulf Bank, Mubadala and Technip.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Amann, Academic Director of Key Custom Programs at HEC Paris – Qatar and Dennis O’Donnell, CEO at Oakwood International UAE will interact with the audience on redefining engagement in their presentations.

Farrah Qureshi, CEO at Global Diversity Practice – UAE will share insights on “Business case for Diversity and Inclusion Amidst the Changing Demographics of the Middle East”, while Alexandra Pascu, JHR Consulting Manager - GCC Region at Jobmaster GCC will engage the audience on competency based HR.

HEC Paris is participating in the conference as a Silver Sponsor, Global Diversity Practice (GDP) as the Official Workforce Diversity Consulting partner, Oakwood International as the Official HR Consulting and Workshop Partner and Jobmaster is participating as the Associate Silver Sponsor.
Other sponsors for the conference include HireRight as Bronze Sponsor; Havas People, IE Business School and Santa Fe Group as Exhibitors; Hay Group as Associate Partner and Pinkerton as Visiting Partner.

Tomorrow, the final day of the summit, will include workshops led by industry experts. Janine Bunning, MD at Oakwood International - UAE and Farrah Qureshi will be leading the two workshops on “Understanding Employee Engagement” and “Demystifying Diversity & Inclusion” respectively.
The conference covers all the major challenges and issues being faced by the region's HR industry and provides a platform for the delegates to interact and learn from industry experts.