Riyadh, 24 February 2016: With a history of 3 successful annuals, 4th Edition Kingdom Human Asset Management commenced yesterday at Novotel Riyadh Al Anoud, Riyadh - Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia. The event gathered the leading HR experts to discuss the trends, challenges and strategies for the region.

Tom O‘Byrne, KSA GM at Mercer announced the start of the event, welcoming the participants with the opening speech as the chairman of the day. The inaugral session was presented by Mohammed Al Sellemi, HR Director at Saudi Aramco, as he explained “An Integrated HR Model - Important Components for Success”.

Local Commitment for Globally Recognized Saudization, was the prime focus for the presentation by Bassam Al-Bokhari, Vice President of Industrial Relations - Petro Rabigh, while Mazen Khalefa, Head of Learning and Development at SABB, engaged the audience with a presentation on building the pipeline of key position holders and tomorrow‘s leaders.

Paul Lalovich, HR Transformation Segment Leader - Mercer Middle East, in his presentation, elaborated on the importance of leadership and employee engagement. Mercer participated in the conference as the Associate Workforce Consulting Partner.

The morning sessions ended with a panel discussion on “Are fat pay cheques and positional advancements the right way to manage your talent?”. Along with Dennis O‘Donnell, CEO, Oakwood International Ltd,this panel was joined by Bassam Al-Bokhari, Paul Lalovich, Mazen Khalefa and moderated by Tom O‘Byrne.

Post lunch, Ahmad Saleem, Executive Manager Learning Programs-Mobily conducted a session where he engaged the audience by his presentation on “ Recognition and Performance: Two sides of the same coin”.

“Building Talent Managers: The Path to Employee Engagement”, was the elaborated by Dr. John Read, Succession Planning and Leadership, Development Senior Manager from Saudi Telecom Company, where he probed the participants with questions like
• What works best and how can HR help? Focus, focus, focus
• What about the national management development eco-system?

The concluding session of the first day of the event was the Panel Discussion on “Encouraging new businesses to compensate for the increasing pool of fresh graduates”. The panel was joined by Dr. John Read, Ahmad Saleem and Steve Cottle, Regional Business Development Director – Europe, Middle East & Africa - Morneau Shepell.


The event sponsors- Mercer(Associate Workforce Consulting Partner ), Oakwood International Ltd ( Silver Partner), HEC Paris ( Associate Silver Partner) and Morneau Shepell ( Associate Partner), provided insights and solutions to enhance and role of innovation and technical support to boost the region's HR sector.

Tomorrow, the second day of the conference, will feature several more presentations, round table sessions and panel discussions by senior executives from Arabian Bemco, Nesma Holdings, Dr. Sulaiman Al-Habib Medical Group, Alfaisal University, Gulf Monetary Council and Abdul Latif Jameel.