DOHA: ExxonMobil Qatar’s Professional Women’s Network, EMRA’A, held a stimulating workshop for over 150 female employees from ExxonMobil Qatar, RasGas Company Limited (RasGas) and Qatargas in Doha last week.

Ann Wilson, best-selling author, speaker, entrepreneur and financial empowerment activist, led the workshop, entitled Financial Intelligence and Empowerment. The workshop was designed to give women a chance to learn financial strategies in a fun and interactive way, teaching them to take control of their financial destinies by developing a positive relationship with money, establishing financial goals and tracking for success.

Known as The Wealth Chef, Wilson’s mission to inspire, empower and liberate people to create a positive relationship with money and provide them with simple, actionable and effective tools to build wealth developed from her own financial management challenges.

The workshop began with a welcome from Jumana Larri, Senior Business Analyst-Gas and Power Marketing, for ExxonMobil Qatar, who highlighted EMRA’A’s mission and the workshop’s purpose, saying, “EMRA’A is dedicated to creating activities and opportunities for our women colleagues at RasGas and Qatargas that promote personal and professional development. We want to encourage sharing and networking so we make the best use of everyone’s skills and enhance outcomes within our own companies and industry-wide.”

Attendees were presented with a few hypothetical financial situations and then discussed how they would handle them. They also took part in short quizzes and exercises aimed at helping them put their financial house in order.

Dana Al Mulla, RasGas Human Resources Manager who gave an inspirational opening speech at the event, advocated how women’s self-confidence can directly impact their financial progression by holding back from pursuing opportunities. In her speech, she encouraged women to overcome their fear of failure and self-doubt by having a clear purpose and by staying mindful of their emotions, strengths and goals. Dana stated the workshop was such a great success: “Today’s workshop was a remarkable learning experience for me and my colleagues from RasGas, Qatargas and ExxonMobil Qatar. We learned a valuable lesson on how to create financial security for ourselves and our families.”

“Ann helps you to understand where you are financially and helps build your confidence in personal financial management by teaching you effective strategies on how to move forward. These important lessons teach us how to use money as a tool to help achieve our goals,” added Al Mulla. “This was a great experience that is extremely relevant to the challenges working women face on a financial level both here in Qatar and elsewhere. I would like to thank ExxonMobil Qatar for inviting us to be part of this constructive exercise.”

Rana El-Hajjar, Treasurer for Qatargas, also spoke at the event and referred to her own experience. “In my role leading the Cash Management, Financial Risk, Treasury Operations & Compliance, and Insurance divisions at Qatargas, I am fully aware of the financial workings of an organization,” she said.

“I believe that we can apply the astute management techniques we learn at work to our family finances – just as we can apply the techniques we learned during today’s excellent workshop.”

The Peninsula