EMA Partners’ Leadership and Market Insights Evening

It was a great pleasure to be invited to participate in a panel to the discuss the theme ”Think global, act local” at the EMA Partners’ Leadership and Market Insights event organised to celebrate their 30th anniversary on March 28, 2019. Powered by Khaleej Times, the event brought together top C-suite professionals from across various industries and shed light on a number of topics such as talent management, mentorship and disruption.

Keynote speaker Joy Ajlouny, Founder and CMO of Fetchr emphasised that businesses in today’s day and age cannot afford to take it easy, unless they want to be disrupted by younger and more agile competitors. You cannot afford to think traditionally,” she stressed. “In today’s fast paced economy and age of disruption, unless you are comfortable with change, then you are not built to last. Do not sit on your laurels or you will be obsolete before you can even understand what happened.”

The panel reviewed a number of important points. In my capacity as President and CEO of Gulf Analytica, I pointed out that, in order to be successful, corporate culture has to allow a person the freedom to fail when they try something new. This can be a very difficult concept for many organisations to grasp, since they are trained to view failure as something that is always negative, but it is actually is one of the best ways to encourage people to be innovative and think like an entrepreneur. In fact the term intrapreneur is often used for a person who can innovate within a larger corporation. One of the best places to look for innovation is the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector. “Develop the SME sector to create the global companies of the future.”

Well done EMA Partners and Khaleej Times for organising such an absorbing and relevant event!