Wardah Harharah
Leadership and Transformation Expert | Former C-Suite Executive | 20+ Years in the GCC, 10+ in the US, Canada and APAC
Wardah Harharah brings decades of senior leadership experience in the GCC and globally to every organisation she works with. She has been on both sides of organisational, culture and leadership transformation. Wardah has held C-suite and senior leadership roles inside global brands such as Royal Jet, Airbnb, PIF and Louis Vuitton, across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the US, Canada and Asia Pacific. Today, as an organisational transformation practitioner, she partners with CEOs, CHROs and executive leaders across the GCC and beyond.
Her executive career spans luxury, hospitality, travel-tech, aviation and government. Today she works with organisations in banking, healthcare, energy and beyond. That range gives her a rare view of how leadership and culture really work across sectors, cultures and boardrooms. Over 20 years she has driven transformations and shaped decisions affecting more than 30,000 employees worldwide.
As Founder and CEO of The Human Experience Management Consultancy in Dubai, Wardah combines in-depth global experience with research-based evidence across organisational design, culture transformation, leadership development and executive coaching. Recent work includes a culture transformation for a federal bank in Abu Dhabi, where she developed more than 400 employees and over 50 senior leaders. She also coaches senior executives across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, India and beyond, from government entities and from the oil and gas, healthcare and defence sectors.
Her talks draw on decades of designing and running leadership programmes from the inside. She has found that about 95% of organisations lack a real feedback culture, and that most leadership frameworks reward the “outer game” of strategy and analysis while ignoring the “inner game” of emotional intelligence, empathy and courage. Wardah shows audiences why the inner game decides results. Leaders leave with a sharper view of their own leadership and practical tools to build cultures where people perform at their best.
Wardah is the author of And So We Lead: How Values, Beliefs and Purpose Shape Our Leadership. She is a Fellow of the CIPD, an ICF Professional Certified Coach and a certified psychometrist in Hogan, EQ-i 2.0 and other leading tools. She holds a Master’s in International Business from the University of Wollongong and is currently completing a BPS-accredited Master of Science in Applied Psychology at Brunel University London. Wardah is also a PhD candidate researching the leadership identity of women leaders in the UAE.