Nelly Boustany is the Senior Director HXM Value Advisory EMEA South at SAP, the world’s leader in Enterprise Application Software. In her role, Nelly connects with Executive HR leaders as well as HR communities, boards and advises on their HR digital transformation readiness and challenges, journey to success, best practices and lessons learned.

Nelly has 20 years of HR experience of which 15 years of leadership experience overseeing HR for global companies in the MENA region during periods of business transformation, strategic expansion, optimization & M&As. Prior to her current role, Nelly was the HR Director for SAP across the Middle East & North Africa region, responsible for ensuring business success through developing and executing on its people strategy, while transforming the business as well as HR organizations in alignment with the global company strategy. Nelly has brought a clear focus to the people agenda and has been instrumental in driving SAP’s growth as well as successfully transforming the HR organization across the region.

Nelly is passionate about enabling business transformation through people. She strongly believes in building corporate cultures that allow organizations to thrive and attract, nurture and retain the best and most diverse talent. She was the executive sponsor and still is a core member of the first SAP Business Women’s Network in the MENA region, the SAP Early Talent Community as well as and SAP’s Young Thinkers Program in MENA.

Nelly received her Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Haigazian University in Beirut as well as an MBA from Notre Dame University in Lebanon.

Tom is passionate about helping companies to transform by engaging and developing their employees through digital learning.

Based in Ireland, Tom leads the LinkedIn Learning Solutions business for Middle East. His teams are responsible for helping customers solve their most pressing talent development priorities by leveraging e-learning.

In his eight years at LinkedIn, Tom has led teams across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Emerging Markets regions. His journey saw LinkedIn grow from 300m to 750m members and from 4,000 to 16,000 employees as well as the acquisitions of Lynda.com and Glint and the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft. This has given Tom a rich understanding of the Talent Ecosystem and LinkedIn’s increasingly broad and deep role within it.

Prior to LinkedIn, Tom spent seven years working for Michael Page, a FTSE250 Recruitment Consultancy.

He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Bristol in Chemistry & Law.”

Since April 2019, Mayank is the Market Leader for Asia, Africa & the Middle East at EdCast, a USA headquartered PE funded SaaS company driving the internationalization strategy including direct, indirect sales and market development efforts. 

Having navigated multiple financial cycles, geopolitical events and the recent pandemic, Mayank has emerged a stronger, more seasoned leader.

Over the course of his career, he has held several leadership roles at prominent organizations including Grant Thornton (Partner – Advisory & Market Leader – North), Amrop International (Partner), Hay Group (Director – India & SAARC), Reliance Big Entertainment (Regional Business Head – North & East), Mercer (Director – Market & Client Development) and Aon Hewitt (Market Leader – West).

With over two decades of experience in areas of business leadership, general management, business transformation & market development, Mayank has worked extensively across industries and geographies including key markets such as the USA, UK, Middle East, Africa & Asia Pacific. Having partnered with global multinationals, promoter led companies and public sector enterprises to drive growth and sustainability reforms, his areas of expertise have spanned across SaaS solutions, learning transformation, change blueprint development, family business transformation, operating model design and leadership.

His strengths lie in architecting solutions, building partnerships, strategic sales, market development and complex project management. 

Over the years, his pioneering work and thought leadership has been widely recognized by both the business fraternity and the media. He has actively communicated through key industry platforms including GITEX (Dubai), SHRM (Dubai), Business World, CII Economic Forum & Business France. In 2019 & 20, his speaking engagements included SHRM (Dubai) and GITEX (Dubai) and various virtual events with partners

Mayank holds a Master Degree in Management (1996 – 98) from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune. He is a Graduate from Delhi University with a Bachelors Degree in Economics (1992 – 95).

As the Group Head of Human Resources for GCC region, Kunal oversees management of over 4500 employees.

Kunal holds a Master’s Degree in Human Resources. With 20 years’ experience in linking human capital to business results, he is highly adept at planning & directing Employee Relations, Reward & Talent Management Strategies. Kunal has led multiple award-winning HR interventions which not only increased the shop floor productivity, but also enhanced the organizations brand image.

He is a keynote & panel speaker in various HR Forums, including Work 2.0 HR Summit, HR MENA C&B Forum, HR Digital Transformation, HR Tech MENA, Marketing & Sales Show, World HRD Congress & ATD Middle East. He also partners with universities, across Middle East & India, to conduct keynotes with student groups to share insights on leadership, conflict, stress management & how to incorporate fun in your modern-day corporate life.

In his spare time, Kunal competes as a professional ten-pin bowler & enjoys his scuba diving routine.

SAP SuccessFactors Certified Application Associate and HR Professional with over 15 years of comprehensive end-to-end HR & HR Technology experience within diverse markets developing & delivering people strategy in line with organization goals. Currently supporting customers in the Middle East in driving enterprise wide HXM digital transformations.

For the past 14 years Ehab was privileged to lead a successful and progressive HR career in the Healthcare, FMCG, and Telecom industries, complemented with strong management consulting experience.

In his current role, Ehab drives and supports the advancement of J&J’s global TA technology stack, stepping up the global reporting capabilities, shaping and activating the talent access and resourcing strategies, as well as expanding the TA diversity and equity efforts.

Prior to that, He spearhead the Talent Acquisition function for all Johnson & Johnson’s businesses across Africa, Middle East, and Turkey, when he led the design of strategies and tactics for the acquisition of executive, professional, and university talents, as well as strengthening Johnson & Johnson’s EVP in the region.

Before joining J&J, Ehab spent almost 10 years with PepsiCo where he assumed various HR leadership roles in Talent Acquisition and as HRBP, across several geographies including US, Middle East, North Africa, and Asia Pacific.

Currently, Ehab is completing his Executive Ph.D. in Management at ESCP school of business with a focus on employee experience and engagement. He holds a MSc. degree in Organizational & Business Psychology with a focus on Assessment and Leadership Development from the University of Liverpool and a Bachelor degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Cairo University.

As Managing Partner of Global Training Transformation, Giselle is dedicated to building learning and development strategies that help clients target, motivate and engage employees to increase performance and productivity. She is a sought after resource to industry leaders, having worked with 11 of the top Fortune 100 companies, including Cisco, Chevron, Freddie Mac, Home Depot and TJX as well as federal government agencies and not for profit organizations. Over 75,000 people globally have attended her workshops or presentations. With over 20 years of experience in learning and development, she has devoted more than eighteen years to researching the motivations and expectations that different generations have regarding learning, development, career growth and performance improvement. 

Giselle is a sought after keynote speaker, master facilitator and performance consultant in all areas related to organization and people performance. She has co-authored two books: Loyalty Unplugged: How to Get, Keep & Grow All Four Generations and Upgrade Now: 9 Advanced Leadership Skills and completed Canada’s first national survey on Generation Z. 

As a talent development expert, Giselle is regularly quoted in national publications and appears on television and radio. Giselle has a Master’s degree in Communication Studies from the University of Windsor, where she focused on instructional design, adult learning and cross-cultural communication. She is a board member of the Institute for Performance & Learning and member of the Association for Talent Development and The Society for Human Resource Management.

Kamshat Baizhanova is HR professional with more than 18 years of the experience in the field. She has MBA degree from Kazakh-British Technical University and holds numerous professional certifications: ILM from London School of Management, GRP, Leader of Teams from Shell Open University, etc..

Kamshat started her career in recruitment and progressed through HR leadership roles of increasing responsibility in major Oil and Gas companies. In her roles she was responsible for change management and digitalization streams in HR, providing strategic direction to business and implementing transformation projects.

In 2019 Kamshat was appointed as the General Manager of Human Resources Department in Tengizchevroil LLP, the leading Oil and Gas company in Kazakhstan. Overseeing all aspects of human resources management in the company Kamshat successfully led the team of HR professionals through the organizational transformation introducing new operating model in 2020.

For the incredible efforts to withstand the pandemic, she has been recognized by Partners and General Director. Under Kamshat’s excellent leadership in 2020 and 2021 Tengizchevroil has been awarded as “Employer of Choice” in Kazakhstan by the independent Randstad employer brand research.

Kamshat is a happy wife and mom of 3 kids.

Tara is a Managing Director of MaxtarGO, based in Ankara, Turkey.

For the last 17 years, Tara has specilaised in all aspects of Learning and Development, from graduate development to leadership, talent management, graduate and competency development, and learning design and delivery.

Having studied languages and teaching, drawing on her core competencies of building relationships, critical thinking, communication, Tara has led projects in the private sector and government entities in different countries prior to establishing her own consultancy business in Turkey this year.

Tara’s industry experience mostly includes Oil & Gas, Financial Services & Regulation.

Tara is an associate member of CIPD and is an BPS certified Occupational Test User.

Professor Jonathan Smilansky is an international expert on management development and employee engagement and a consultant to leading organizations.

He is the Academic Director of the Career Management Center at the Tel Aviv University Business School and a leading lecturer in the field of Human Resource Management.

Previously, he was the Global Human Resources EVP at Universal (New York) and at the Meridien hotel chain (London), VP Internal Services at Visa International EMEA (London) and a Partner at Hay Management Consultants (London).

He published numerous professional papers including one of today’s leading books in the field of management development: “Developing Executive Talent” (Wiley).