AMBA & BGA EXCELLENCE AWARDS WINNERS
The WoB Observatory is sharing its experience to help countries create similar consortia relevant to their context, including for example Tunisia and Bahrain
including the Ministry of Public Enterprise, the National Council for Women, the Central Bank of Egypt and the National Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. “One of the main objectives of these partnerships is to increase the presence of women on boards at affiliated companies and banks using AUC School of Business’ database of board-ready female professionals and its board-placement services. Another is to encourage policies designed to improve the representation of women on boards through laws or binding decisions.” Why are external partnerships such as these so important for tackling gender inequality? “In addition to the government organisations mentioned above, the WoB Observatory has also partnered with regional and international organisations. These external partnerships are vital as they help support advocacy and visibility, offering society-wide communication campaigns to support the achievement of the observatory’s targets. “These partnerships also help provide capacity building and joint professional development and training programmes designed to prepare women to be active and influential board members who can achieve better KPIs for their companies and banks. Furthermore, they can provide funding, such as the UN Women grants funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.” What plans does the school have for the WoB in the next few years and do you think winning this award can help the initiative achieve its aims? “The WoB Observatory is sharing its experience regionally to help countries create similar consortia relevant to their context, including for example Tunisia and Bahrain. Furthermore, we are planning to initiate an Arab Women on Boards Observatory (AWoB) in partnership with the Arab International Women’s Forum, the 30% Club MENA, the Pearl Initiative and the World Bank.
“This region-wide project will be committed to improving diversity and inclusion in institutions throughout MENA, aiming to increase the representation of women on boards and in executive leadership roles. The project will cover all the major business sectors, providing region-wide information for research and developing a database of board-ready professionals. “It requires a lot of preparation, involvement and commitment from different stakeholders in each country. However, we are determined to scale up the experience of the Egypt WoB Observatory and disseminate it at a regional level.”
Biography Sherif H Kamel is a professor of management and dean of the School of Business at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Previously, he served as AUC’s vice- president for information management. Before joining AUC, Kamel was the director of the Regional Information Technology Institute and managed the training department of the Egyptian cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Centre. His research interests include digital transformation, IT transfer to emerging economies, decision support systems and entrepreneurship. Kamel is an Eisenhower Fellow and holds a PhD in information systems from the London School of Economics, as well as an MBA, an MA in Islamic art and architecture and a BA in business administration from AUC
38 | Ambition | MAY 2023
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