Beating The Odds with Mona AlHebsi What did you want to be growing up? I’ve always been fascinated by powerful women who have their own presence, authority, and impact in their surroundings. I remember roleplaying using any chair and table I could get hold of, talking on the phone, and then signing papers as important business deals during my early childhood years as an influential businesswoman. That used to get me very excited and make me feel powerful and vital.   What is your secret to achieving excellence? Self-awareness and the constant drive to become a better human. I’m a life-long learner and an avid reader & writer; regular practice of reading and writing provides me with the opportunity to reflect and imagine various scenarios to a challenge that I may be facing currently then make a better judgment on people and scenarios and that’s quite exhilarating. This gets me to overthink at times but I try to self-manage as soon as I become aware of this tendency. I’m also quite a spiritual person and I have a strong sense of direction or intuitive urges that rarely fail me. Overall, I think achieving excellence is possible for anyone once you are true and aligned with yourself, your inner world, and your outer world, then when put the necessary efforts in the right direction. What are the two Leadership principles that you have discovered and executed that have contributed to your success? Two principles that I have constantly lived by and have always given me great results are Character and Competence. I’ve discovered these principles through my own experience; however, these have become very clear to me specifically during a phase of my career when I started managing teams and working with more people as a leader. Effective leaders can build trust with their teams or other people they deal with only if they have both good character (inner) and competence (outer) aligned. If any of these two is missing or compromised at any point, this can lead to mistrust in the leader and can end up affecting his/her credibility, reputation and impact. Character without Competence is unproductive, while Competence without Character is futile. What was your role in the execution of the Emiratization Strategy in one of the most reputable institutions in the hospitality industry in the UAE? Well, I am considered a leader in the field of Emiratization in hospitality because I’ve acquired so much in-depth understanding about the challenges that impede Emiratization in the hospitality industry over the past 16 years through working for various hotel brands both local and international, and interacting with different individuals and entities to understand their perspectives and motives about the subject. During my working years in the industry, I’ve always achieved commendable results when it comes to executing successful Emiratization initiatives and was usually benchmarked by other hotels and institutions. Subsequently, I’ve received many reputable awards for the same like the HR & Training Person of the Year 2015 by Hotelier Middle East Awards and several appreciation certificates from Dubai Tourism. Based on your expertise in the HR field, what steps should any organization in general, the Hospitality field in particular – take towards attracting fresh & high-scale talents? Employers, in general, should be more flexible and adaptive to the new changes in how they manage and mobilize their people. The new world of work will bring about unique scenarios that require HR leaders to be proactive, knowledgeable, and influential to anticipate and respond to such situations or even lead the way in introducing new solutions. Organizations must consider employing their people and other resources effectively and efficiently without draining them out or violating ethical practices because the coming period will be all about observing fairness and ethics in all human dealings and transactions. Employee Branding and Employee Experience will be the keywords for businesses across sectors but more so for service-driven organizations like travel, tourism, and hospitality to attract and retain high-scale fresh talent. What are your thoughts on Women’s Empowerment? Moreover, what has been your role in empowering women & youth in your respective field? First, this is a term that I do not prefer using anymore. As we don’t have a term called “Men Empowerment”, we shouldn’t also use the same for women. Such small mindset adjustments can go a long way and – in my opinion – constitute the first step towards achieving gender balance. I’m proud to say that over the past 16 years of my career, I’ve been a strong believer in talented and driven people and provided them with all types of support within my capacity, be it through constructive feedback, sincere coaching & guidance, or actual sponsorship or recommendations of their work to others to help them get the recognition and exposure that they need. My efforts have been the catalyst in increasing the diversity and inclusion rates in the organizations I’ve worked with, in terms of nationality, gender, or any other aspect. In your opinion, what can more women inclusion bring to the table of the world of Hospitality? What new corporate laws can be adopted and enforced to push for more inclusion & diversity at the workplace? We hear many businesses talking about diversity & inclusion, however, the problem is that many misinterpret both terms or use them interchangeably. While diversity means having a variety of people in terms of ethnicity, backgrounds, religions, nationalities, genders, orientation, ages and the like, inclusion means what policies or practices you have as an organization to ensure all varieties – especially minorities – are treated with dignity and have fair access to all opportunities the company has to offer, based purely on merit and without discrimination. Women can bring more creativity, empathy, intuitively driven decisions, and perspectives to the table. Women leaders in hospitality can relate more to people and balance the inputs used in the decision-making process which is mostly commercially driven if you have only men making decisions. A lot of men also