GCC companies are growing fast in the wake of the pandemic and hiring for leadership has surged, hiring consultants and human resource experts said.
India continues to be a major market for leadership hiring by GCC-based companies, despite the travel ban as recruiters are increasingly comfortable with virtual meetings.
“We have seen demand for various leadership roles in the region going up by about 60 percent compared to last year and about 30 percent compared to 2019,” A Ramachandran, managing partner, EMA Partners UAE, a leading global leadership search and consulting organisation, told Arabian Business.
Ramachandran said the demand is seen across sectors and across the countries in the GCC region, though the highest demand is coming from the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Senior human resource executives Arabian Business spoke to said industrial manufacturing, technology, retail and life sciences are the major sectors which are seeing the highest demand for leadership roles.
“The sudden surge in demand for hiring for top organisational roles is also because of the pent-up demand,” said a senior human resources executive with a GCC-based corporate group.
“Most of the companies in the region – as also around the world – were in a standstill situation last year due to the pandemic. Having learnt to deal with such crisis situations now, organisations are now in an overdrive to implement their expansion and growth plans and are looking for dynamic leaders to manage it,” said the senior executive, who wished not to be identified.
Ashutosh Sinha is author of the book Breakthrough – The Framework for an Inspired Career and global HR leader and career mentor
Ashutosh Sinha, a human resource and business transformation leader, who is transitioning to a new leadership role in another Middle East-based organisation based, said after every crisis, there is a boom in business and consumer spending.
“The same is happening now, as the pandemic is becoming the new way to keep the business moving with the related uncertainties. To lead this change, the demand for the right new age leaders has shot up like never before,” said Sinha, who until recently was the group HR head of a GCC-based corporate group.
Sinha also said the impact of the pandemic had led to loss in leaders on key fronts – some planned and some unplanned.
Ramachandran said the current travel ban from India to the UAE and few other countries in the region did not have any impact on leadership role hiring from the South Asian country.
“As we speak, we are hiring seven or eight leaders from India for multiple leadership roles in the Middle East,” said Ramachandran, who is also a senior partner for EMA Partners India.
“We do not see any issues in hiring senior leaders across functions and sectors from India and the Indian market continues to be one of the sought after markets for recruiting leaders in the Middle East,” he added.
A Ramachandran, managing partner, EMA Partners UAE
Ramachandran said Western Europe, Australia and South Africa are the other markets for hiring for leadership roles for the GCC region.
Of the leadership roles EMA has finalised from India since April this year included three chief executive officer positions and the remaining for CXOs – a general term used in hiring parlance for leadership positions across functions.
These positions are understood to be for large companies in sectors such as manufacturing, retail and technology.
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