Fostering talent

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Huda Al-Ghoson, director of Saudi Aramco's HR Policy & Planning Department, speaks exclusively to Oil & Gas Middle East at the Women's Global Leadership Conference.

Are leadership events effective in recruiting talent?

I think it is very important because it is a good opportunity for networking, learning from experiences of others, especially if it includes companies from different industries. These events can showcase private companies, state companies and not for profit agencies. It gives a better platform for networking and learning about the best practices in the market, and sharing concernand sharing ideas. The effect lasts longer than the conference because I found I was able to build really strong relationships with some of the participants, even after I go back to the office.

How have things changed at Saudi Aramco since you joined?

Things have changed big time. When I started with the company 28 years ago, there were only a few Saudi ladies working, although the company was encouraging college graduates to join the organisation. We wanted to have a lot of professional jobs to be filled by Saudis, but Saudi women did not at that time really have the courage to work in a work environment like Aramco. But now I see it is changing more, the new generations are more passionate about work, about seeing change, energetic and patient, if they want something they want it now.

This also helps the company move towards change rather than maintaining the status quo; whether that is the way we do business, our strategies, our technologies. So that opened the door, and on top of that the company also started sponsoring high school students - men and women - and sent them abroad to different parts of the world to study in key areas where we needed to build expertise, and the pool of women increased for the company to draw from.

It really has been a big change. Also we find more women now keen and accepting to work in technical areas and engineering areas such as petroleum specialist areas, much more so than before, so that has been a big change.

What more that could still be done to encourage women?

In the intake and the sponsoring, career development, learning and the training it is equal, but we are yet to see it penetrating in the board room, to see at the top of the leadership areas, so that area is lacking. But again, the number of women is very small compared to men, so if you have a few candidates for a certain job you will find more men with longer experience in the industry than women.

Having said that, I think it will change. We see that leaders at the top they realise it is very important to have that other perspective of running the business, men and women they have different things to offer to the business, and they look at things from different angles. If you have both, you get a well rounded approach to any issue. Management is putting a lot of emphasis on accelerating the development of women at the training level, so they become qualified and can compete on an equal footing.

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