Professor Dave Ulrich to lead The Middle East HR Summit

The five day summit, which will start on November 4, will take place at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and will highlight key Human Resource issues to assist the growth of organizations across the region.

The event will be led by Professor Dave Ulrich who was recently ranked as the most influential person in HR by HR Magazine in a poll of influential HR thinkers. Professor Dave Ulrich has also been rated as the No. 1 management educator and guru by Business Week and listed by Forbes as one of the "world's top five" business coaches. His one day workshop at HR Summit will focus on the value that HR creates for employees, line managers, customers and investors.

The Middle East HR Summit will also feature a host of multinational organizations who will share their experiences, challenges and solutions in human resource management.

Human resource management in the Middle East is beginning to gain appropriate recognition in a region where diversity and transience are dominant elements governing organizational growth. The cultural variants across a unique demographic coupled with an ever growing population and booming economy, mean that HR issues need to be addressed more carefully than ever.

"The Middle East HR Summit 2007 is a great opportunity to meet the regional and international leaders in the human resources profession and network with peers from the GCC, the Middle East, the Levant, Europe, the United States, North Africa and Asia. It is also an opportunity to participate in high level discussion and shape the future of HR in the Middle East. Delegates will hear the latest HR developments across industries and gain valuable insights into the most common mistakes made by leaders,"

explained Michelle Boyd, HR Summit Director at IIR Middle East.

Meanwhile, sponsorship for the event is also booming with a number of key sponsors, such as the SP Jain Center of Management, Mawaride, ORC Worldwide, Grafton Recruitment, Focus Learning, Gulf Talent, Bayt, Source, Career MidEast and Human Assets all supporting the event.

"We have had an amazing response from a variety of organizations supporting such a crucial summit and we are happy that we can now move forward and present the remaining packages to interested parties," stated Mihaela Dimitru, Business Solutions Manager for the HR Summit.

Another major feature of the event is the Middle East HR Summit Excellence Awards 2007, which culminates in a Gala Dinner on Monday, November 5th at the Emirates Palace Hotel. Last year, Adrian Samms, Vice President of HR for Showtime won the "Outstanding Contribution to HR" award.

"It was a real honour and a great boost to the Showtime HR team to win the 'Outstanding Contribution to HR' award last year. Last year's Middle East HR Summit addressed some of the major issues facing our profession in the region and demonstrated how business is meeting the challenge of getting the most from human capital. I expect this year's conference to be equally engaging" commented Adrian Samms.

Meanwhile, the winner of the "HR Professional of the Year" award in 2006, Amro Rashad, Group HR & Training Manager for Ali Bin Ali Group, Qatar, also eagerly anticipates the start of the summit.

"Winning HR Professional of the Year, in front of many of my peers, at last year's Middle East HR Summit Gala Dinner was a great honour. I know that Middle East HR Summit 2007 will deal with some very important issues from an organizational and societal perspective so this year's event is crucial for all companies," said Amro Rashad.

This year also sees the launch of the inaugural Najah Exhibition, which is set to become the most comprehensive Education, Training and Careers Exhibition to be held in the United Arab Emirates. The Najah Exhibition will also run from 4th to 6th November at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and with a variety functions from careers advice to job profiling, the exhibition is destined to become an annual landmark event.