Spotlight on Dr. Mona AlHebsi

Dubai based Thought Leader, Human-Centered Leadership - Workforce Transformation & Emiratization Strategist shares her HR journey

SPOTLIGHTS & INTERVIEWS

DR Mona AlHebsi, Dubai UAE

10/5/20266 min read

1. Let’s start with you. What brought you into HR, Learning, Talent or your particular area of expertise, and what has kept you passionate about it?

I often say that I didn’t simply choose HR; over time, HR revealed to me what I was genuinely passionate about: helping people become more capable, confident and fulfilled while helping organisations perform better through their people.

My career began more than two decades ago in the hospitality industry, working with leading international hotel brands. Hospitality was an incredible leadership school because you quickly learn that business performance and human performance are inseparable. A beautiful hotel, a strong brand or an ambitious strategy means very little if the people delivering it are disengaged, underdeveloped or unclear about what is

expected of them.

As my career evolved across different areas of HR, I became particularly drawn to talent development, performance, leadership, coaching and Emiratization. I wanted to understand not only how organisations manage people, but why some people flourish while others with equal potential struggle to find their place.

That curiosity eventually led me deeper into career coaching and counselling, leadership development and, most recently, doctoral research into the impact of training and career guidance on graduate employability.

My own career has also taught me that careers are rarely straight lines. I have experienced growth, reinvention, difficult transitions and returning to the workplace after stepping away from it.

Those experiences changed the way I practise HR. I don't look at a CV and see only jobs and dates; I see decisions, potential, circumstances and sometimes a person who simply needs someone to see what they can become.

After coaching and supporting more than 5,000 professionals and emerging leaders, that is still what keeps me passionate: seeing what happens when the right opportunity,environment and conversation unlock someone's potential.

2. If you could give one piece of advice to an HR or Learning leader trying to prepare

their organization for the next five years, what would it be?

Don't start with HR. Start with the business challenge and work backwards…

It is a principle I have increasingly applied in my own work.Instead of asking, “What HR initiatives should we introduce?”, ask: “Where does this organisation need to be in five years, what could prevent us from getting there, and what capabilities, behaviours and leadership will that future require?”

That completely changes the conversation. If the business intends to grow rapidly, for example, HR should already be thinking about leadership pipelines, critical skills, succession and organisational capability. If AI is

transforming the operating model, Learning shouldn't simply purchase an AI course; it should identify which roles will change, which skills will become obsolete, which human capabilities will become more valuable and how work itself needs to be redesigned. I have seen organisations invest heavily in training programmes that employees enjoy but which have very little connection to performance. The question I encourage leaders to

ask after every major people investment is: “What should people be doing differently

because of this?”

If we cannot answer that clearly, we may be creating activity rather than impact. The HR and Learning functions of the future will not earn influence because they runexcellent programmes. They will earn influence because they can demonstrate how people capability translates into organisational capability.

3. From your experience working with organisations across the Middle East, what are HR and Learning leaders getting right at the moment, and where are there still significant gaps?

There is a very positive shift happening across the region, particularly in the GCC. People development is increasingly being discussed at strategic and national levels rather than being treated purely as an HR responsibility. In the UAE especially, we are seeing tremendous investment in national talent, leadership

development, future skills, AI readiness, employee wellbeing and lifelong learning.

Through my work in Emiratisation and career counselling, I have also seen organisations becoming much more serious about attracting Emirati talent into the private sector.But I believe the next evolution must be from recruitment to sustainable talent development.

Emiratization is a good example. Hiring an Emirati employee may satisfy a numerical target, but successful Emiratization begins after the person joins. The real questions are:

Do they have meaningful work? Is their manager equipped to develop them? Can they see a career path? Are they being stretched? Do they feel that they belong and can succeed?The same gap exists in Learning. Many organisations have become very good at delivering programmes, but the connection between learning, behavioural change and measurable business performance is still inconsistent.

Another gap is management capability. We sometimes invest significantly in employees while underinvesting in the managers responsible for their everyday experience. Yet an excellent learning strategy can be undone very quickly by a manager who cannot coach, communicate, give feedback or create psychological safety.

So, I believe the region is getting the investment and ambition right. The opportunity now is to become equally rigorous about integration, measurement and impact.

4. What is one misconception about your area of expertise that you would like to

change?

One misconception I would love to change is that HR exists primarily to manage employees and Learning exists primarily to train them.Neither is enough anymore.Great HR is about creating the conditions in which people and the business can perform together. Great Learning is not about how many courses were delivered or how many certificates employees collected; it is about whether people became more capable of

solving tomorrow's problems.The same applies to career development, an area very close to me. People sometimes assume that career coaching means helping someone find their next job. In reality, some

of the most important conversations I have had with professionals were not about “How do I get promoted?” but “What kind of professional do I want to become?”

That distinction matters.

Over the years, I have worked with people who were objectively successful; good titles, respected organisations, impressive CVs, yet privately felt disconnected from their careers. Sometimes the answer wasn't another promotion. It was clarity.

That is why I believe HR and Learning professionals need to move beyond being providers of programmes and processes and become architects of capability, performance and meaningful careers.

5. Looking ahead, what is the one development, trend or change that you believe will

have the biggest impact on your profession or your business?

Without question, AI, but perhaps not for the reason people expect. AI will automate and augment many activities currently performed by HR, Learning and knowledge professionals. But I believe the more interesting consequence will be that it forces us to redefine what makes human contribution valuable. When information becomes instantly accessible and many technical tasks can be automated, capabilities such as judgement, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, curiosity, creativity, ethical decision-making, adaptability and the ability to build trust become even more important.

For Learning leaders, this means moving away from the traditional idea of periodically “sending people for training.” Learning will increasingly happen inside the flow of work; personalised, technology-enabled and continuously adapted. For HR, AI also creates a significant responsibility. We will need to ask not only “Can we automate this?” but “Should we?” How do we protect fairness, human judgement and dignity when algorithms increasingly influence decisions about people? I don't believe the future belongs to AI instead of people. I believe it belongs to people who know how to work intelligently with AI without surrendering the qualities that make their contribution uniquely human. And that makes HR and Learning more important, not less.

6. And finally, outside of work, what is something your colleagues or clients might be

surprised to learn about you?

People who know me professionally often see the structured side of me i.e. the HR professional, coach, speaker and someone who is very serious about excellence and continuous learning. What they may not expect is how much I enjoy reflecting on human behaviour and turning everyday experiences into lessons.

I am naturally very curious about why people make the choices they make, why some people recover from setbacks while others remain defined by them, and why two people can experience almost the same circumstances yet create completely different outcomes.

That curiosity is actually what eventually led me to write my career guidebook Beat The Odds. The book came from a very personal belief that our difficult chapters do not have to become the final definition of our story.

And perhaps that is the connection between my professional and personal worlds.Whether I am having a conversation with a senior executive, coaching someone through a career crossroads, speaking to young Emiratis entering the private sector, or simply reflecting on my own journey, I am fascinated by one question:

“What enables a person to become more than their circumstances predicted”?

After more than twenty years working with people, I am still looking for that answer and perhaps that is why I have never stopped loving this profession!

Dr. Mona AlHebsi’s profile: linkedin.com/in/monaalhebsi

Website: monaalhebsi.com