The Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, ranked a Top 5 global provider of executive development programs by the Financial Times, today announced the winners of its inaugural GCC Women’s Empowerment Scholarship. Recognizing the critical and growing role that women’s empowerment plays in the region, the scholarship aims to develop and enhance the leadership skills of GCC executives with a commitment to gender diversity and women’s empowerment.
The winners are Heba Sayed, Marketing Manager, Watson Customer Engagement, IBM Middle East and Africa and Ghita Mejdi, Marketing and Communications Director, Maserati Middle East and Africa, India and APAC.
“We’ve selected these women to receive Michigan Ross’ very first GCC Women’s Empowerment Scholarship because of their exemplary commitment towards inspiring and encouraging women business leaders and commendable growth and leadership within their respective organizations. They have both demonstrated to us that they will use the knowledge and skills developed through our programs to bring positive change both within their workplace and communities,” said Melanie Weaver Barnett, the University’s Chief Executive Education Officer.
Ms. Sayed frequently contributes to her community’s ecosystem of youth, start-ups and female leaders through mentorship, public speaking and knowledge sharing, including events with Young Arab Leaders, Emirates Foundation for Youth Development as well as the Women in Digital forum. She has helped hundreds of local talents develop their skills in areas like technology, Artificial Intelligence, personal branding, business planning and development as well as marketing and media, and has recently been selected by LinkedIn as one of 10 Top Voices in Gulf region for her contributions to sparking thoughtful conversations about the role of technology in transforming many industries and professions.
As a mentor of her community’s young leaders, Ms. Mejdi is often invited to speak about why working within large corporations should not be feared and gives advice on how to maintain your identity and integrity within those situations. Whether counselling fresh graduates in their career choices or supporting women racing drivers, Ms. Mejdi believes that any organization today should look at fair equity between genders, regardless of the nature of industry, to build a strong structure within the organization.
Both awardees will receive a scholarship to any one of the Michigan Ross Executive Education’s one week open-enrollment programs, which draws executive leaders from a wide variety of sectors and geographies. Covering a wide-range of leadership programs such as “The Positive Leader: Deep Change and Organizational Transformation” and “Emerging Leaders Program: Becoming a Transformation Leader.” The programs are carried out by the University’s world-renowned faculty who strive to create transformational learning experiences by employing a variety of action-based learning strategies and simulations.
A recent paper published by Michigan Ross explains how gender diversity in corporate governance is a highly debated issue worldwide. National campaigns such as “2020 Women on Boards” in the United States and “Women on the Board Pledge for Europe” are examples of just two initiatives aimed at increasing female representation in the corporate boardroom. Melanie Weaver Barnett commented, “Initiatives such as the GCC Women’s Empowerment Scholarship, which encourages career growth and advocacy for women in the workplace, is one part of a long list of approaches that will help drive measurable change.”
Michigan Ross was recently ranked as a Financial Times Top 5 Global Executive Education Provider, delivering more than 300 executive education programs in over 55 countries, and facilitating high-impact learning experiences for more than 5,000 managers and executives for companies around the world including Google, Amazon.com, Oracle, Toyota Group and more in the past year.
To learn more about Michigan Ross’s Executive Education, including its global open-enrollment and custom programs, visit http://www.michiganross.umich.edu/execed.
