Irene is a talent management, assessment, and development expert with over 20 years of experience gained working in a variety of industries including water and power, oil and gas, consultancy, education, automotive, hospitality, and non-profit sectors. Professionally, her last 2 years were based in the UK and before that 10 years based in the UAE (Abu Dhabi and Dubai), and 4 in Egypt, where she held regional and corporate talent management roles that spanned the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and parts of Asia. Her experience in talent involved the design and execution of various HR and Digital change projects that have positively impacted recruitment, learning/development, performance, succession, and organizational development.
Irene is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) by the International Coach Federation (ICF) and an Emotional Intelligence Certified Coach (EQCC) by Six Seconds. She is a Senior Certified Professional (SCP) by SHRM and holds a Masters in HRM from the University of Phoenix in the USA. She is an expert on identifying and developing leaders with global potential and work scope through authentic coaching conversations and deepening their emotional and cultural intelligence, not only impacting their own world but also their multi-cultural team performance. Irene believes that leaders need to be conscious of applying systemic wide practices that cuts through the silo work of teams or individuals to engage their various management, functional, and technical perspectives to achieve higher and stronger levels of performance organization wide. She is currently completing her Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) at UCLAN UK exploring the learning journey of global leaders and the extent to which this builds emotional and intercultural competencies. Irene is also an MBTI Practitioner, and licensed to run leadership/talent assessments by Hogan (HPI, HDS & MVPI), KornFerry Hay Group (KFLAP, KFLA, ILS, OCS, & TalentQ), SixSeconds (SEI, VS, BTP, BBP, BDP), Cultural Intelligence Center (CQ, CV) and run Assessment & Development Centers.
Having lived her earlier life between Saudi Arabia, UK, and Egypt while educated through American educational systems, she is culturally tuned to the different values and cultures of the world. She speaks fluent Arabic and English, with conversational French and describes her purpose as making a difference in people’s lives by focusing their sight on their dreams and sparking their curiosity and boldness to step forward.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irene-riad/
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