National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) launches a series of mentoring sessions within the Girls For Girls (G4G) training program, which is held in partnership with the Women’s Cultural and Social Society in Kuwait.
G4G is a global initiative spanning 28 countries. It is originally a Harvard Kennedy School born program when in 2017, a group of their postgraduate women leaders from across the globe recognized that women are being held back from leadership positions around the world. Inspired by each other, they decided to close the gap by creating a group of girls who are capable to occupy leadership positions in the key areas of various fields including government, business and civil society.
The discussion sessions were held at NBK’s headquarters and focused on many important topics including “Courageous Leadership” presented by Professor Nancy Koehn of the Harvard Business School, “Communication” and “Negotiation” among other topics. This session discussed what it takes to become a fearless leader and make a meaningful impact on the world, offering examples of leaders throughout history and how these lessons can be applied in your own life.
The aim of this development intervention is to offer tools to help employees identify their goals and interests and gain support for their cause by understanding the needs and concerns of others, Each session, the employees will be joined by several speakers from within the organization as well as guest speakers from different industries to share their experience and enrich the mentoring journey.
Commenting on this occasion, Najla Al-Sager, Head of Talent Management, Group Human Resources at National Bank of Kuwait, said: “NBK is keen on extending utmost support to all the initiatives and unwavering endeavors made by the active players to promote women’s economic empowerment.”
She noted that NBK is committed to promote the culture of women’s empowerment at the group level, as seen in appointing females as top executives as well as board members in the bank’s overseas branches. To this end, NBK promotes gender equality as a key consideration for talent management. It also takes various actions towards advancing women into future leadership positions by providing them with the required guidance, mentoring, and career development opportunities.
NBK prides itself in being one of the first private sector institutions in the region to endorse UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). The bank was proactive in adopting a more systematic approach towards gender equality, which contributed to comprehensive adoption of these principles, the fact that provided us with a framework to work on the overall UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) including gender equality as one of its key pillars.
