CXO INSIGHT
programmes – Licence to Lead, GOLD and She Leads – combine hard and soft skills with live business exposure and peer mentorship.
Take the GOLD programme, for instance, which identifies highpotential talent and immerses them in strategy projects across markets. Participants are not only trained in resilience and critical thinking, but they are also actively solving cross-border operational problems and presenting to board-level executives.
The‘ Bidayati’ programme, meanwhile, provides early-career professionals with a crash course in digital leadership, often through AI assignments that require both technical rigour and people skills.
“ Learning doesn’ t end in the classroom,” Al Mansoori adds.“ It begins there.”
LEADERSHIP ISN’ T ABOUT BEING FOLLOWED. IT’ S ABOUT CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR OTHERS TO THRIVE.
youth councils and storytelling features ensure that diversity isn’ t just a recruitment statistic but a daily lived experience. Whether through peer-to-peer coaching platforms or digital collaboration on Viva Engage, the goal remains constant: to enable human connection at an enterprise scale.
Scaling inclusion across 38 markets Listening that leads to action
Inclusion isn’ t a sidebar – it’ s baked into the operating model. NoorAI, one of the company’ s innovation initiatives, integrates assistive technology for people of determination into mainstream digital platforms. Another, Wider Web, focuses on adaptive design and multilingual accessibility, ensuring platforms serve a broader user base – across age, ability and language.
“ We don’ t see inclusion as an initiative,” Al Mansoori says.“ It’ s a design standard.”
Internally, this mindset is reflected in a workforce representing over 90 nationalities. Initiatives such as cultural secondments, e & treats employee feedback not as sentiment analysis but as strategic insight. Through Microsoft’ s Glint and internal platforms like the Innovate & Hub, the organisation captures engagement trends, ideas, and concerns – and then acts on them.
With an engagement index currently at 79 % and voluntary attrition well below the regional average, the results suggest a simple truth: when people feel heard, they stay.
From national vision to talent incubator
As a UAE-headquartered group, e & aligns closely with national strategies, from Emiratisation targets to the AI Strategy 2031. The company’ s partnership with the Federal Youth Authority has led to the creation of Nukhbat Al Watan – a programme offering skills training to UAE nationals before national service begins.
This pipeline isn’ t symbolic. It is strategic.“ When we invest in national talent, we invest in the region’ s competitiveness,” Al Mansoori stated.
A leadership philosophy in practice
For Al Mansoori, whose career has spanned policy, people and technology, transformation must be ethical and intentional.“ We are building progress that people can believe in,” he says. His north star? Empathy, purpose and integrity.“ Leadership isn’ t about being followed. It’ s about creating the conditions for others to thrive,” he reflected.
As e & moves deeper into its global tech era, it is doing so with an unusual focus – less on disruption for its own sake and more on building a resilient, ethical and deeply human workplace.
And in a world where digital ambition often overshadows organisational soul, that approach may prove to be the most enduring advantage of all. x
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