(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) UAE women are key partners in leading the drive towards sustainable development and occupy the highest positions in the executive, legislative and judicial authorities, said Rafiah Ibrahim, president and head of Ericsson, Region Middle East and Africa.
With a keen interest in telecommunication, Ibrahim began her career from the bottom, imparting her great insight into the engineering side of the business which enabled her to gain a perspective on where the industry was headed.
In 2014, Ibrahim was appointed as the president and head of Region Middle East and Africa at Ericsson, a leading provider of telecommunication technology and services.
She has been in the telecommunication industry for 34 years, starting in 1981 with Telekom Malaysia where she spent 16 years in several areas such as technology, sales and marketing and international acquisitions.
"At the time, they were looking for candidates who could understand the language of operators, to help them better achieve their needs. I have worked my way up the ranks of Ericsson since, working across a number of interesting countries, each going through different stages of ICT maturity," said the graduate from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, with a master's degree in digital communication engineering.
Challenges
"I am very passionate about the work I have been doing in the Middle East. Passion for your job is just one way to overcome challenges and to motivate yourself to perform better. My experience in the region spans the last decade and I have held a variety of roles in that time. This has prepared me to take on region-specific challenges and deal with them in the best way I know."
Ibrahim said the biggest challenge in the region is to work in diverse markets - ranging from frontier to rapidly growing ones. However, the way the organisation measures its success is constant: the shareholders need to be kept happy and the business has to make a difference to the society while remaining profitable.
"We will continue to listen to our stakeholders and evolve our offerings in tandem with their growing requirements. While this remains the biggest challenge, it is also our greatest opportunity for growth," added Ibrahim.
The MEA head said that women can achieve whatever they set their minds on. "I believe that companies who have strong inclusion policies are witnessing greater business cohesion and success."
"The UAE leads by example. It has a balanced view on gender which is witnessed through the creation of the Gender Balance Council, as well as the fact that parliamentary representation is well balanced," she explained.
"At Ericsson, we are a large team of people with diverse experiences, perspectives and ideas. It is our diversity that brings us closer together and helps us make a difference. It is Ericsson's mission to ensure that diversity and inclusion are some of the most important building blocks of our company," informed Ibrahim.
Career development
"We have a target to not just hire women, but to also help develop them and offer growth opportunities so that they will continue to work with Ericsson as their careers develop. We have implemented a gender diversity and inclusion programme across the organisation. It is essential to monitor the performance of the programmes and I have asked my team to ensure we do."
Through this programme, Ericsson aims to boost the number of women in its workforce to 30 per cent by 2020.
Under Ibrahim's leadership, Ericsson aims to boost gender equality. She said: "We will be able to reach gender equality as soon as we learn to embrace our differences and appreciate everyone's equal value while at the same time spread equal education opportunities."
At a corporate level, the company is working to adjust internal HR processes to allow more flexibility, particularly for parents. "Our HR department is continuously working to address diversity in its evaluation process while hiring new employees," said Ibrahim.
She explained that effective transformation is about building new competencies. It's about the growth potential driven by the availability of smart, ambitious men and women who are the critical success factors for this transformation.
"This approach will enable us to contribute to close the gender gap and create a competitive environment. One key solution is to increase female participation in the ICT workforce, as gender equality liberates not only women but also men from prescribed social roles and gender stereotypes."
Ibrahim concluded: "Let's keep working together to empower and bring talented women to our sector."
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Sandhya D'Mello Journalist. Period. My interests are Economics, Finance and Information Technology. Prior to joining Khaleej Times, I have worked with some leading publications in India, including the Economic Times.