Summit Day One: Monday, 9 November 2009

07.15	Early Morning Registration And Refreshments
08.15	Chairman’s Welcome And Opening Address Coleman Peterson, Former Executive Vice President for People, WAL-MART STORES, INC, USA
08.30	Inauguration Of The Middle East HR Summit 2009 Impact Of Economic Situation And Its Effect On Talent Management, The Human Resources Function And Industries In The Region Overview of the recent trends in GCC related HRM, training and talent management industries in the region since 2000 The economic climate and its impact on HR and training activities worldwide and regionally Highlights of the recent growth of human resources and training segments in the region with reference to the regional HRM Hub – Dubai Knowledge Village (DKV) Effects of restructuring decisions and their impact on qualified talent and how this is affecting new corporate training needs and requirements Delving into the future outlook of HR within the GCC DKV’s move toward support and development of human resources and training segments: challenges and successes within the industry Dr. Ayoub Kazim, Executive Director, Dubai Knowledge Village (DKV) and Dubai International Academic City , UAE Dr. Ayoub Kazim is responsible for strategically steering the Dubai Knowledge Village and the Dubai International Academic City education clusters and further consolidating their status as leading centres of learning excellence in the region. Heading a proficient team of top-tier academic professionals, Dr Kazim has successfully ensured a consistent growth in the number of business partners at both the clusters. Under his guidance, DKV has channelled its focus on human resource development, human resource management and business consultancy.
	International Keynote Address: Harnessing Effective HR Strategies In Recessionary Times
09.00	The Geometry Of Leadership And Organisational Excellence: How To Get There From Here Cole Peterson captures his key learnings from his years as a HR professional, from his beginning as an entry-level college recruiter through to leading America’s Fortune #1 company’s (Wal-Mart Stores) People Division. He shares his view of business, people and success through the lens of a geometric model. Peterson describes this model as the cornerstone of his leadership style and his own success. Whether you are a domestic, international or global business leader, you will have some key “takeaways” from this unique session. See how a geometric model is used to highlight Peterson’s view of HR principles Learn how Wal-Mart’s strong global growth was influenced by Peterson’s geometric model Hear specific stories of the power of company culture and results oriented HR strategies Coleman Peterson, Former Executive Vice President for People, WAL-MART STORES, INC, USA Coleman has the distinction of being the Chief Human Resources Office for the world’s largest private workforce – Wal-Mart, America’s #1 most admired company by Fortune Magazine. Peterson introduced his Get, Keep and Grow strategy to help build the Wal-Mart culture and its employees using the three elements of attracting, retaining and developing.
	Performance Management Power Half-Hour
09.30	Sustaining High Performance And Preparing For Brighter Skies Ahead: What Can Companies In The Middle East Do To Sustain High Performance The Middle East has enjoyed two decades of economic growth, but things are now changing. It is time for organisations to look at how they can sustain their performance and be ready for the upturn. If performance is addressed now, business performance will be positively impacted. High performance is sustained by building a highly effective organisation aligned to strategy and an effective human capital management framework. Based on the Hay Group’s research coverin  over 70,000 employees in the region only 50 percent believe they work in a high performance culture. Companies have invested in the latest performance management systems but these alone are insufficient to positively impact business performance. This presentation shares Hay Group’s insights on how to work towards sustainable high performance through people, processes, structure, and reward systems. George Karam, Regional Director for the Middle East, Building Effective Organisations, HAY GROUP, UAE George’s expertise lies in the areas of business strategy implementation, organisation and process design, human capital frameworks and total compensation design. George’s career in management consulting began with Hay Group in the USA. He then moved to manage the World Bank Group’s Compensation, Benefits and Insurance functions to spearhead a compensation system reform and decentralisation model before returning to consulting as Regional Director for Hay Group in the Middle East.
	Market Spotlights
10:00	Reward Strategies For Internationally Mobile Employees Within The GCC Region The traditional focus in the GCC has been to provide mobile employees on local employment contracts with basic salaries and cash allowances. If compensation levels and their benefit plans are broadly similar to their home country terms & conditions, employees are likely to accept transfers. However, employees are unlikely to accept local market salaries if they originate from a high-paying country and the total compensation on offer is substantially lower than what they had originally received. This session will look at this issue and address: How companies are currently constructing pay packages for employees sent to work across borders Emerging trends in compensation and benefits philosophies and how they are shaping mobility policy and practice within the GCC region How the global economy is affecting international mobility and what companies are doing to make their pay packages competitive but also cost-effective David Remedios, Head of Consultancy, ECA INTERNATIONAL, UK David has worked in international assignment management for 15 years and has extensive experience with major multinational organisations developing, implementing and evaluating policies and procedures. During this time he also gained three years consultancy experience with some of Europe’s leading companies, when he worked as Manager Expatriate Compensation and Benefits at PricewaterhouseCoopers. As Head of Consultancy at ECA, David provides support and guidance on the development of global expatriate compensation and benefits strategy and programmes.
	Regional Keynote Address
10.30	Moving In The Right Direction: Exploring HR And Regional Employment Ethics This timely topic will show a realistic but balanced view, one which asks HR professionals to start thinking about their corporate social responsibilities, as our labour markets mature and as governments both locally and in expatriate home countries begin to work more actively towards better labour and human rights standards. Peter Kelly, Senior VP, ABU DHABI COMMERCIAL BANK (ADCB), UAE Peter has extensive experience in the UK, Ireland and the wider Middle East region with over 20 years in both commercial and state sectors. He has steered organisational development in project manager, consultant and executive leadership roles across the full Human Resource life cycle. Peter will focus on HR and Employment Ethics, which is a new topic that is growing in exposure across the region.
11.00	Mid-Morning Networking And Refreshment Break
	International Insights
11.30	Organisational Excellence: Utilising The Capabilities And The Leaders Within How can you ensure that you raise organisational excellence in this economic climate? Which leaders will rise above others? This presentation looks at HR best practice that can be applied to any industry and covers: Maximising on leaders: How to facilitate HR strategies through line managers Keeping morale high while running a lean and flexible organisation Re-engineering and re-designing the organisation to motivate staff through succession planning Neil Roden, Group Director, Human Resources, ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND, UK Before joining RBS, Neil was General Manager, Human Resources, Europe for National Australia Group. He was, during his time with NAG, Head of Human Resources for Clydesdale Bank and NAG Services. Prior to this, he spent time in HR for Lloyds Bank. Neil has an honorary doctorate from Glasgow’s Caledonian University, is a board member of the council of the Institute of Employment Studies and Vice President, Organisation and Resourcing of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, as well as various networking groups.
	Engagement Mini Clinic
12.00	Organisational Culture And Its Impact On Employee Engagement And Organisational Performance Understanding the motivation and expectation of your local staff and how best to integrate, engage and retain them Developing proactive interdepartmental partnerships to align company values with external and internal brand engagement that will drive company loyalty Being the employer of choice: Finding the unique aspect of your business that will embed itself in the minds of your employees Building and delivering the 7 step process to your now loyal employees throughout your organisation Hany Mahmoud, Regional Human Resources Development, Central Europe and Africa, VODAFONE GROUP, UK The majority of his successful career has been spent with Xerox in Egypt and the Middle East where he has held a number of key management positions in customer service, finance, manufacturing, marketing and human resources. He will share his knowledge from his experience, where he managed the merger process between Hoechst and Rhone Poulenc to form the pharmaceutical giant Aventis.
12.20	Maximising The Power Of Non-Financial Rewards Against Budgetary Constraints: Rethinking Your Reward And Benefits Packages Considering the impact of non-financial rewards Looking at different ways of maximising the reward offering whilst minimising the cost of the organisation Effective use of non-financial reward and recognition schemes, non-cash incentives and creating values based cultures to increase engagement within minimum spend of your organisation Tom Raftery, VP Human Resources International Division, ARC INTERNATIONAL, UAE Tom is responsible for operations stretching from China through to South America. Prior to this he was at Watson Wyatts. Tom has worked on various HR and compensation projects for such companies as ADNOC, Kuwait Oil Company, SABIC, Riyad Bank and Kuwait Investment Authority.
12.40	Re-Structuring HR: Learn How To Track The Effectiveness Of Your Organisation By Measuring What’s Important Right Now Planning, forming, developing and implementing a coherent leadership programme Developing various leadership styles for different groups i.e. technical and operations staff David Swavley, HR Director, EEMEA Aviation, DHL INTERNATIONAL, Bahrain David is an internationally experienced HR leader with proven ability to implement and manage HR programmes on a multi-country basis. He has significant expertise in both specialist and generalist HR roles, encompassing HR development, compensation and benefits, ER & IR, talent management and HR operations.
13.00	Revolutionising The Strategic Partnership of HR & Business Transformation Your business faces constant and rapid change, but there must be a balance between managing business daily operations and simultaneous planning for the next wave of change that is mandated in order to stay competitive. It is a necessity for companies to continuously transform and reinvent to remain viable in their markets. Managing transformation defines the ultimate winners in today’s business environment. The demands of transformation for speed, innovation, and execution need not be a daunting challenge when you: Know your role as an HR leader in planning for the transformational change required to ensure the competitiveness of your organisation Identify what skills and knowledge you need to be successful for execution Discover the insights and innovation of others who have been part of leading successful business transformation Kamal Hassan, President and Chief Executive Officer, INNOVATION 360 INSTITUTE, UAE Kamal is responsible for leading the company global operation and customer acquisition. He brings more than a decade of experience to his role as CEO, helping clients in source creativity, execute personal and business plans, increase organisational growth potential and deploy breakthrough business transformation initiatives. His counsel and executive coaching is invaluable during the strategy deployment phase of any business transformation, performance management, 360 leadership development, or innovation initiative and he has become a trusted advisor for executives in a variety of industries.
13.30	Networking Lunch For Delegates And Speakers Speed Networking Session: Speed Networking is a unique feature at the Middle East HR Summit and guarantees heightened networking for all participants. It’s a great way, within a few minutes of talking to someone new, to work out if you want to them meet again, whether there is the possibility of a future business relationship, or simply to understand more about what your new contact does. Past delegates have found this to be one of the most valuable parts of the conference.
14.45	Specialist Streams Commence
STREAM  A : Reward In Recessionary Times
14.45	Moderator: Charles Cotton, Executive Remuneration Director, CIPD, UK Understanding And Aligning Your Flexible Benefits Strategies: It’s Not Just About Anticipating Disasters This session will analyse the benefits of flexible benefits as an approach to business management in its own right, helping to create leaner, fitter and more responsive organisations. Hot desking reduces the demand for office space; the freedom to work from home can improve worker satisfaction and conferencing can reduce business travel budgets by millions of pounds. This is the future, listen very carefully. Charles is responsible for leading the development of practical tools, products and services for reward and HR professionals. He is responsible for managing the CIPD’s annual Reward Management Survey, which highlights developments in practice for practitioners, consultants and public policy makers.
15.15	How Expert Advice Can Help You Achieve The  Best Value Financial Benefits Package For Your Employees This session will address how sound financial benefit packages can increase your companies attractiveness to new staff, plus how a well structured plan can help retain those key staff who may be starting to look for new opportunities now that the economy is starting to pick up. Philip will address: What local market research says at this present moment? Some local and regional case studies that will show the various ways local companies are maximising their financial spend to achieve a higher level of staff engagement An example of a specialist scheme to aid a company in achieving its Emiratisation goals Philip Story, Head of Employee Benefits, FRIENDS PROVIDENT INTERNATIONAL (FPI), UAE Philip works with all of FPI’s distributors and clients to ensure the best possible financial solutions to their HR issues. He has over 15 years of experience within the financial services industry, more than 10 of which have been spent specialising in international business with FPI in both Asia and the Middle East. His experience of coming from a finance background, where dealing with people was crucial to his success and has enabled him to link the needs of both HR directors and finance directors when planning their companies strategies.
15.45	Networking And Refreshment Break
16.00	How To Deliver The Best Return On Your Spend: Delivering The Correct Pay Options For The Best Positions The pay-performance sensitivity across different cultures can make it difficult to design a reward package that works for all employees Understanding local versus central considerations Working with line managers to communicate intent and rationale of the reward programme to employees Taking advantage of the relationship that exists between line managers and employees Speaker: Rhyan Anderson, HR Director MEAS, HALCROW INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP, UAE Ryan will offer you insights on creating a centralised human resources function, as well as how organisations can add value to the recruitment and retention process in a fiercely competitive environment. Demonstrating ROI to ensure continued investment in HR is his forte.
STREAM B: The Retention, Talent Management And Succession Planning Suite
14.45	Moderator: Riham El Hawary, Founder & Director, Persona International, Egypt How Can HR Lead Companies Out Of The Global Crisis Why leadership qualities are required Developing HR leadership capabilities The future role of HR: Expectations and responsibility
15.15	Case Study: How National Commercial Bank (NCB) Dealt With Their Talent Management Challenges Capitalising on staff redeployment as an alternative to workforce reduction and employee dissatisfaction with career development opportunities Case Study: NCB Redeployment Project Managing the layoff process to protect the employer brand and engage survivors Rawan A. Jalal, Head of Recruitment, NATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANK, KSA Dr. Mahmoud M. Khan, Human Capital Management Consultant
15.45	Networking And Refreshment Break
16.00	Business Restructuring, M&A, Shut-Downs, Disposals, HR And Organisational Priorities Sixty percent of the M&A and restructuring failures are due to the wrong handling of the human factor (H.F.).The first H.F. failure happens in the preparatory stages, when the prospective parties don’t issue timely and effective retention policies for the people key to leading those stages. Some key people leave for better or more secure alternatives, especially the good ones with a marketable value. The second failure is in not addressing the wider people issues likely to emerge already in the transition period, such as changing head office location, which affects many employees and their families. The third failure is in not establishing the new organisation structure and the key people in the key positions. The fourth failure is in not having stand-by people-driven, well coordinated communication plans. The fifth failure is due to the venture partner’s wrong attitude to retain their practices and culture, hoping to “merge” them. Speaker: Massimo de Rose, HR Advisor, KUWAIT PETROLEUM INTERNATIONAL, Kuwait Massimo strives to create a culture of excellence through structured training and development initiatives. He believes in the importance of senior management’s commitment to training across the entire organisation and engagement through career development paths.
16.30	Finding The Distinction Between Employee Satisfaction And Engagement What is the distinction between employee satisfaction and engagement? Using your surveys to eradicate the bad tomatoes What are the options for analysing survey data, both with and without statistical support? Speaker: Lesley Harvey, HR Specialist and Research Correspondent, UK Lesley was formerly Director, Human Capital Solutions, with Innovative HR Solutions in Dubai. She has in excess of 12 years experience in HR in both design and implementation of HR processes and systems. Lesley’s experience in managing large scale change projects brings skills which are well honed both in the GCC and internationally and delivers tangible results quickly and effectively.
17.00	Engaging Geographically And Culturally Diverse Workforces And Ensuring Tangible Business Benefits Through Employee Engagement Does your company have a strategy to build and maintain a talent mindset? This session will focus on: How you can enhance the talent review process Learn how to establish a big picture view of your leadership talent How to hone your skills on identifying trends impacting your leadership team Ensuring that you tie the talent review process to business priorities Speaker: Meredith Taraghi, Human Resources Specialist, Afghanistan, Iraq, DHL INTERNATIONAL, Bahrain Meredith’s expertise stems from having worked both in operations management and strategic HR where she has learnt the true value to organisations of employee engagement, leadership, and performance management.
STREAM  C: Human Capital Management And HR Metrics
14.45	Moderator: Adrian Furnham, Professor of Psychology, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE: LONDON, UK Defining The Value Proposition To Design Metrics: Making The Case For The Need For Metrics. How To Deploy Your Knowledge Of HR Metrics In Recruitment And Payroll Services Not every HR professional is a friend of metrics. This session will help your deliver a sound benchmarking strategy. Make the case for the need for metrics Learn practical tips for selecting the right metrics for your company Create value for all constituencies from the metrics you measure Adrian is a mould-breaking academic, a leading consultant on organisational behaviour, writer, raconteur and broadcaster. He writes a regular column in The Financial Times, The Sunday Times and is a regular contributor to BBC radio and television. His witty insights into human behaviour provide an excellent foil for the seriousness of his subject.
15.15	Strategies To Overcome Structural Transformational Challenges During Mergers And Acquisitions The importance of forming a M&A team leader, selecting a partner, planning and managing the process Creating practices for learning and knowledge transfer Planning for the merger to decrease further departmental problems and a smooth partner integration strategy Keeping track of human issues in all the three phases of M&A through employee communication, retention of key employees and cultural integration activities Selecting your best people to take charge while implementing M&A’s Speaker: Nevine Kamel, Human Resources Manager, EL SAYED EL AYOUTY & CO., KSA Nevine deals with restructuring, organisational development, talent management, as well as performance management within El Sayed El Ayouty. She has worked at Electronic Data Systems, Nilesoft International & Sainsbury’s Egypt. Nevine has shared in the M & A process when EDS Group acquired CITYMAX group. She was selected to be in charge of the stakeholders’ communication team.
15.45	Networking And Refreshment Break
16.00	Strategic e-HR: Maximising The Value of HR Through Technology By Planning And Deploying e-HR Initiatives? Aligning your HR goals with technology implementation Winning strategies for e-recruiting Using technology for talent and human capital management How technology can measure and improve employee performance Speaker: Scherazade Jamali, Reward and Human Resources Specialist, GULF BANK, Kuwait Scherazade has been working on several international HR issues which are unique to the GCC i.e. Nationalisation, harmonisation of pay and benefits and international recruitment. She believes that the secret to HR success in the Gulf is due to taking Western best practices and fine tuning them to the Middle Eastern culture.

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