ESOMAR Connect | Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Director of the Future Energy Department and Head of the COP 28 Energy Task Force, and Head of Maritime Transport Competitiveness and Quality in the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure - Dubai. She is the deputy head of the happiness and wellbeing team and a member innovation team in the ministry.

Her area of speciality is Transportation, and she has experience and contributions in making strategic plans and studies for the improvement of public and customer services, managing big projects and environmental protection, as she is one of the core team in Fujairah 2040 master plan.

Rafik has been in the industry for over 20 years and with PepsiCo for the majority of that time in various roles including Insights, marketing, strategy and commercial. He currently leads an incredible team in Insights and Analytics for Africa, Middle East and South Asia for PepsiCo. He and the team identify territories to drive growth, raises the bar on marketing and innovation to enable growth and fuels commercial excellence to optimize for growth! 
 
Rafik is Egyptian / Canadian. Is married with two teenagers. Outside work he enjoys endurance sports. He is a proud finisher of a full Ironman!

Mohamed H. Has 15 years of Energy Industry Experience and is Microsoft’s Energy Industry and Sustainability Director for MEA region. He joined Microsoft in February 2020 to launch and operate Energy Core as Microsoft’s first global center of Excellence for AI, Cloud & IOT in energy sector, Mohamed is responsible for driving Energy business growth and supporting Energy Customers Digital Transformation through Cloud & AI adoption while doing sustainable business leading to net zero targets achievement.

Mohamed’s experience is mainly around O&G digital transformation and Sustainability, prior to joining Microsoft, he held various technical and business leadership roles across MEA with multinational organizations like Emerson and Schneider Electric leading strategic transformation projects

Mohamed H. holds a Bachelor in Electronics and Communications Engineering.

Ankesh Agarwal, manages the Group CX strategy and CX center of excellence at Majid Al Futtaim.

He is a top 250 global insights professional, top 100 global CX thought leader and a CX award judge with over 16 years of CX experience. Ankesh drives business value creation by creating memorable customer experiences via consumer understanding, digital transformation, and organization alignment.

A visionary and creative strategist with almost 3 decades of International business & cross sector expertise; Acting as a trusted advisor to board and executive-level stakeholders towards the building and the realization of their strategic vision; Mona will soon launch her consulting firm; ‘The eXecutive Lens’.

Member of Women led & empowered communities in the Middle East, her belief in and passion about WOMEN; Led her to obtain the patronage of the UAE government for the first edition of the ‘L’Oreal Unesco For Women in Science’ on the verge of the new millennium.

Innovation and Digital culture leader, Purpose-driven digital transformation

Practice Director Innovation (D-Lab) at GHD across EMEA, Digital Leader Middle East.

Strategic advisor to the United Nations on Human rights and the SDGs

Mum-preneur, co-founder and co-CEO of youforher, a social enterprise dedicated to giving back to women education

She has led significant transformations, with a focus on purpose-led transformation across People, Planet, Profit, innovation, and leadership and culture.

Hind has been appointed in the Board of Governors of Citizens School Dubai, a school with the purpose to reimagine education, bringing sustainability as a core theme for the kids curriculum.

With 33 years of research and planning experience, Nisha is a pioneer as a female business leader in the region. She is  Co-founder of market-i, and co-founder and CEO of buzzParade Technologies, a web and mobile application development company.

Her career includes heading research for Fortune Promoseven and the MCN group and has worked with clients across several industries, including, food and beverage, tourism, financial services, telecommunications, and FMCG. She holds an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University; and a BSc Chemistry, Sophia College, University of Mumbai. Nisha was the 2015 winner of the MENAP forum ESOMAR best paper award. 

I started my career at Vlerick Business School, where I spent more than 15 years taking on roles as Associate Marketing Professor, Partner, and Member of the Board. I co-founded Human8 (as InSites Consulting) in 1997, alongside my business school colleagues Tim Duhamel, Joeri Van den Bergh, and Niels Schillewaert and stepped into the role of CEO in 2012.

TEDx speaker, Master Marketer (Belgian Association of Marketing), blogger for MarketingTribune, author of +15 peer-reviewed international articles, member of different advisory councils, driving force behind the “CEO Change League Community”, agency Researcher of the Year (2011, MOA), Ghent University Alumnus of the Year (2014).

She oversees the company’s operations, finance, human resources, business alliances, research, and strategic communications efforts. Hala strongly believes in the importance of mentoring talented professional women and has helped create the diversity that makes Babylon a stronger organization.

During her time with Babylon, Hala has successfully led large-scale projects including the development of an animated television series in Yemen, aimed at promoting tolerance and girls’ education, and at preventing early marriage, and several communications campaigns aimed at countering misinformation, disinformation, and malign foreign influence

Founder and CEO of market-i research services, and ESOMAR UAE National Representative. He brings 35 years of international research and consulting to the region. He has worked with clients across a variety of industries including public diplomacy, strategic communications, food & beverage, and tourism.

Prior to founding market-i in 2007, John held various senior positions in international research and corporate development, with LRW Europe, Synovate Research, and MEMRB International.  John holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business; a Masters and Bachelors in Electrical Engineering. John was also the 2016 winner of the ESOMAR MENAP forum best paper award.

Zahia Boumaiz is ESOMAR National Representative for Middle East, Co-Founder of the collective Responsible Growth and Strategic Advisor for few companies in Dubai like RightFit (Exclusive Fitness Experience).

She previously worked for Ipsos and other French boutique insight agencies helping leading brands in the luxury and cosmetic market on a global level, like L’OREAL, KERING, and LVMH groups, to name a few  for more than 14 years.