Dr. Amal Al Malki, what did you want to be growing up? I neither had a career aspiration nor a clear path to follow. I grew up during a period in which girls’ personal and professional lives were predetermined according to specific gender roles. My peers either got married at an early age or worked as teachers in schools. However, I dreamt of a different life, one where I make up my own decisions, where I pave my own way and change. I knew I didn’t want to conform or fit a pre-existing frame. What are the 2 Leadership Principles you have discovered, changed and executed that have contributed to your success? To be a leader, you need to be a human first. Empathy is a great source of power in connecting with others. When you treat your team with humanity and empathy, they will replicate this, and thus you will be able to create a culture that is conducive to healthy human interactions. The second principle is shared causes and shared value systems. Once you identify your common values and attach them to a cause you are working for, the simplest of jobs become meaningful and turn into a life mission. And people put their heart and soul in it. What is your proudest achievement? And your biggest challenge? Becoming a mother is my proudest achievement, and yes, I want to claim it to myself. Some women don’t recognize the power they hold within their souls and bodies. My body has hosted, nurtured, and given birth to a human. Recognizing the power I have as a woman has changed my life. It is my biggest self-realization; it helped me plan for my life and believe in my ability to achieve anything I want. On a professional level, my whole trajectory in life is a challenge that I have chosen willingly. Advocating for women’s rights and equality defines my journey which I have started since I was only 15. That’s when I decided to have a voice of my own and write under a synonym, then through all my 17 years in academia. Building opportunities for other women is something that fills me with content. I have worked with the best minds to design then offer an MA in Women Studies in my college, that educates women and men about the role of women within our societies and the challenges they face.  Can you talk about one woman who has significantly impacted your life? Do you have a role model? I learned from all women surrounding me while growing up, especially the weak and disadvantaged. I learned from the struggles of the heroines in classical Arabic novels and their marginalization. Then I learned from women novelists east and west who articulated their struggles realistically or figuratively. Books, especially novels, exposed the injustices that women are subject to, and made me face my own insecurities and reflect on my surroundings. In our context, where women issues are always perceived within the conformation of honor and shame, books were my only window. They allowed me to see myself in other women’s experiences and learn and empathize with them. I am grateful to women writers like Huda Shaarawi, Fatema Mernissi and Nawal El-Saadawi, and novelists like Sahar Khalifeh and Assia Djebar, just to name few.   If you could introduce only one piece of legislation to further gender balance, what would it be? Feminizing Arabic. Although Arabic is a gender specific language, we see that the legal language of rights and responsibilities are written in the masculine form. I would rewrite our constitutions in gender specific language; turn citizens into (men and women). We need to reclaim our language as women and make it reflective of our rights as well. We see that citizenship in our part of the world is highly gendered and women are treated as second class citizens. So, I call for feminizing the language across all mediums of communication. I insist when referred to in media to be addressed by the feminine form of “dean” and all women should call for feminizing their titles, to set precedence and help make their positions mentally accessible to other women. What piece of advice would you give to women struggling with limiting beliefs set by their societies? Unfortunately, women internalize the dominant beliefs of their societies, especially these beliefs that have to do with their inferiority and subordination. No wonder most of the women at the top in our societies either suffer or have suffered from imposter syndrome. Therefore, I believe that it is imperative for every woman who has managed to break a cultural stereotype to make her story accessible to other women. And it is also important to create women support systems, call it sisterhood or not, we need to extend our feminist consciousness to all women and make them believe in themselves the way we believe in them. One thing we need to understand is that society changes only when we change. We must accept the responsibility of making the change instead of waiting for our societies to accept our roles and aspirations. What horizons and leadership experiences has your current position – as the Founding Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University – offered you, personally and professionally, that other positions have not?  Academic in general has provided me with the tools and the venue to grow as an educator and researcher. Getting into academic administration was a shift in my career, and combined two of my strengths, designing and building programs from the scratch. When I established the Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII), I tapped into one part of my psyche, who believed in a future that is multicultural and multilingual- one with no linguistic or cultural boundaries that usually inhibit healthy conversations between people and nations. Then when I was appointed as a founding dean for a college that didn’t exist yet, I had to look at what