Rory is an accomplished Managing Director with over 30 years’ international experience with sector leading organisations in Healthcare, Technology, FMCG, Executive Education and Organisation Consulting sectors. His career has evolved from a corporate background, having been on the regional board of Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) and has held several leadership positions in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Over the past 20 years, Rory’s focus and expertise has been working with senior executives and organisations on leadership, strategy and change, where his work received a Silver Class Award at the highly acclaimed Management Consulting Awards (UK). 

As the Associate Dean and Head of Sport and High-Performance Business at Hult Ashridge Executive Education (UK), a Premier Executive Leadership Coach with the J&J Human Performance Institute (USA) and an Advanced Neuroscientific High-Performance Coach. Rory works extensively with Boards and Executive team leaders, focusing on achieving peak performance in challenging and complex environments. 

His work in this area is informed by his research into the high-performance parallels between executive business and elite sports teams, highlighted in his TEDxTalk ‘The Reality of Winning’.

Rory earned an MBA from City University, London, during which time he led a project team for the globalisation of GlaxoSmithKline’s nutritional healthcare division, and holds an MSc in Organization Consulting and Change, where he researched into accelerated development processes for senior leaders. He is also the External Examiner for the MSc in Sports Leadership at Cardiff Metropolitan Universities, School of Sport.

John Whelan is a Director at Corporate Research Forum. Formerly UK HR Director of BAE Systems, the FTSE 100 defence, security, and aerospace company, John’s experience and strengths lie in business and HR Transformation, Organisation Development and Employee Relations. Prior to joining BAE, he held a variety of HR roles in engineering, technology and manufacturing businesses across the telecommunications and semi-conductor industries including Matra-Marconi Space where he was HR Director for the UK and, latterly, Group HRD.

Ali Abdulla been working for IOC and service providers for more than 37 years, started his career with American Oil Company in 1987 until 1998, he joined BP in 1998 until 2010 as integrity Manager, Y2K Manager, Marine LPG and condensate terminal Manager and finally as HSSE Manager. as a corporate HSSEIA Manager he worked For Petrofac Middle East North Africa and Commonwealth Independent States. Since 2010 his journey with Petrofac began with Engineering and Production Services (EPS) East as HSSIA Director, then Regional VP HSSEIA managing HSSEIA and support Petrofac to secure projects in the Gulf Region and globally including Iraq, in 2018 heading Petrofac global Engineering & Construction as SVP of HSSEIA. In June 2020 as UAE Country Chair, he was tasked to manage and support all Petrofac teams in current and new EPC projects, new energy service for renewable projects and supporting Petrofac operation/maintenance service provider team. Ali has been exposed to a wide range of Health, Safety & Environmental Systems Management along with Operation & Maintenance, Engineering, Projects, Integrity, and Marine.

Mike is an expert in Strategic Human Capital Management, Leadership, Transformation, and Talent Management, with more than 25 years of global Human Capital Leadership experience. As an Advisor and Executive Coach, Mike’s work is primarily focused on supporting organisations across the GCC.

Prior to his moving into advisory, Mike was Partner and head of Human Capital at Lunate, where he was responsible for leading the HC function, having led the integration of ADQ, ADG and Chimera through the merger announced in early 2023.

Before Lunate, Mike was responsible for leading Talent Management at ADQ, where he led the development and delivery of Talent and Rewards strategy and priorities. This includes Succession, Leadership, Learning, Performance Management and Rewards.

Mike spent more than 8 years at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) before ADQ. During this time, he held senior roles initially within Talent Management before taking responsibility for leading the delivery of HR to ADIA’s Capital Markets departments.

Dr. Belisa Marochi is faculty at Hult International Business School Dubai. Additionally, she has held positions at universities in Denmark, Sweden, US and UK. Her research focuses on sustainable development, diplomacy and gender-based agendas. Her experience includes consulting for companies such as Airbus, Kraft Heinz and Procter & Gamble and governments in the GCC, Europe and US. Dr. Marochi holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Roskilde University in Denmark and other degrees in Business Administration and Political Science from IE, Brown University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of California at Santa Barbara.

Tony is a global HR leader with a strong track record in directing people strategy and driving companywide transformational change. Tony spent over thirty years as a leading HR Executive at Shell ($28bn adjusted earnings in 2023, 103k employees) leading organic growth, integrations, turnarounds and globalising businesses. In his last job at Shell he led HR for Global Functions, India, The Netherlands and the Business Service Centres in total covering about 30K staff.

Tony is results-driven, pragmatic and is known for his depth of HR and business experience, his ability to build high performance teams and his wise judgment. He has lived and worked internationally for 18 years – in the UK, the Caribbean, South Africa, Thailand and the USA.

Tony is advising two start-ups and acts as faculty for Senior Leadership Development programs. He is serving as a sought-after mentor to other CHROs and senior executives.

Andreas has 20 years of experience from complex and international organisations in their journey to deliver, transform and optimise Business and HR capabilities – using technology as the foundation for new ways of working. He has international experience from leading transformation programs across EMEA, Americas and APAC.

Kristofor is a Talent and Learning Executive with 25 years of Digital HR product experience including professional services consulting, corporate learning and development, servicing and employee experience (UX) across a range of industries, countries and cultures. Successfully delivers the vision, architecture and implementation of award-winning solutions that drive business results and behavioural outcomes in large, global workforces. Experience with Fortune 500 companies including Accenture, HP, Avaya, Microsoft, Verizon, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase.