Business Excellence Virtual Forum

With over 30 years in private and public sectors, Basem combines the hands-on experience gained while working in power generation and manufacturing companies with the art of professional third-party auditing and consultancy services, with deep knowledge of organizational resilience, business excellence, management systems and customers experience.

As the CEO of PDCA Group, Basem leads one of fastest growing and most regarded consultancy firm in Middle East based from the regional office in United Arab Emirates, focused on working with customers to implement smart consultancy solutions for their tomorrow’s challenges.

Before joining PDCA Group, Basem worked for Lloyd’s Register for more than 20 years, during which he progressed his career from a lead auditor and tutor of management system standards to a Regional Director for South Asia, Australia, Middle East & Africa area, and the last position held was the Global Head of Training & Improvement Services.

Capt. Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi is the Group Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Ports. In his role, he oversees the development of Abu Dhabi Ports’ portfolio of assets and activities as well as directs their strategy and operations. Under his leadership, the transition from a project-focused organisation to a fully operational, customer focused ports and industrial zones business has been a remarkable success.

Capt. Al Shamisi is an experienced maritime executive with almost 20 years of industry experience, working to ensure Abu Dhabi Ports continues to hold a prime position in the region’s commercial maritime whilst boosting the profile of Abu Dhabi globally.

He joined Abu Dhabi Ports in 2008 and has held key leadership positions within its portfolio, including the Executive Vice President for the Ports Unit, where he was instrumental in restructuring this unit and rationalising its assets. He also oversaw the completion and commissioning of the first phase of flagship port, Khalifa Port and adjacent KIZAD.

During his management, Abu Dhabi Ports has won more than 40 prestigious local and international awards, including five categories of Abu Dhabi Award for Excellence in Government Performance 2017 which granted the company the Main Award.

Capt. Al Shamisi is Chairman of Aramex and Chairman of Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Company (ADNEC), he is also a Board Member of Etihad Rail DB and MAKE A WISH Foundation UAE. He also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees to the Emirates Maritime Arbitration Centre. He is currently the Chairman of KIZAD Board of Directors, and has served as a Board Member of Etihad Airways. He was recently appointed the Vice Chairman of Arab Sea Port Federation.

He has received the Peter Morris Prize from the Australian Maritime College (AMC) for his significant contributions to the maritime industry, as well as the AMC Baird Publication Prize for Best Performance in Navigation Studies. He is also the recipient of the Sheikh Rashid Award for Academic Excellence.

In 2012, he was named Young Personality of the Year at the Seatrade Middle East & Indian Subcontinent Awards and in 2018 and 2020 he was ranked number 1 in the Logistics News Middle East CEO Power List.

Capt. Al Shamisi was recently chosen by Forbes as one of the top CEOs in the Middle East.

Dr Lway Nackasha, has a long standing career in the field of Orgaisational Excellence and Quality Management. He is the Quality & Excellence Adviser at Abu Dhabi Ports since 2016 to date. In his long career, Dr Nackasha has directed two prestigious excellence awards in the UAE: The Dubai Quality Award (DQA) and the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award (SKEA). He also advised on other awards such as Sharjah Economic Excellence Award, King AbdulAziz Excellence Award and Hamdan Award for Educational Excellence. Other positions held by Dr Nackasha are Adviser on Services Quality Assurance at Al Ain City Municipality, (UAE), and General Manger at Quality and Operations at High-Grade Computers PLC in the UK.

Dr Nackasha holds a PhD in Quality Management form the Queen’s University of Belfast (UK). He was the recipient of the Best European Doctoral Award from the European Foundation for Quality Management, (EFQM) in 1991. He was also the recipient of the KANO Medal for his work as an Excellence Catalyst in the UAE.

Dr Nackasha was a member of the board of directors of Dubai Quality Group, the Middle East Quality Association, and the Emirates Quality Association. He was also a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management in the UK (CIM). He contributed to the introduction of a number of leading initiatives in the UAE such as Dubai Service Excellence Scheme, the Investors in People standard (IIP), the annual Share Best Practice Conference and others. His recent interests are in Innovation Management, Future Foresight, and Sustainability.

Dr. Mansoor started, built and led several innovative enterprises. He founded Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University (HBMSU), the region’s first university with smart learning approach. He established the first Quality Department at Dubai Police, in addition to his major roles in building the Middle East eLearning Association (MEEA) and the Middle East Quality Association (MEQA).

Dr. Mansoor served as a chair for several awards related to innovation, leadership, education and excellence. For example, he served as a chair of jury for the Minister of Interior Excellence Award since it was launched in 2011 (UAE); a chair of jury for Egypt Government Excellence Award since 2019, Egypt; a judge for the Innovators under 35 Awards (IU35), by MIT Technology Review Arabia.

Dr. Al Awar has published several books on innovation management, leadership, higher education and quality.

For more: http://www.mansooralawar.ae/

Dr. Souraj Salah is currently a Process Improvement Manager at Abu Dhabi Ports, in the Excellence Management Division. He earned his PhD from the University of New Brunswick in Canada.

He has published one book on company-wide management systems and more than 30 papers in various international journals and has over 20 years of experience as a professional industrial engineer in the field of process improvement in manufacturing, retail, contracting, services and logistics sectors.

He taught post graduate courses such as Quality tools and techniques, Japanese quality, operations management, and TQM sustainability. He is the winner of the UAE Quality Professional of the Year 2015 by ASQ.

He is also certified as a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt Johnson Controls Intl, as a Six Sigma Black Belt by the Juran Institute in the USA, and as a QHSE Lead Auditor by BV.

Biography to follow

Dr. Tahboub recently commenced his role as President of MENA College of Management. Just before taking this role, he established a new consulting house for designing future systems ”Dar AlSinah-Arsenal.”

He worked 11 years as the Chief Advisor for the Government of Dubai in the aviation sector. He has contributed to the Dubai Plan 2015-2021, the Aviation Strategy 2009-2015, Logistics Competitiveness 2016, the Dubai Industrial Strategy 2017 and many other key strategies and programmes.

Dr. Tahboub enjoys challenging problems and requirements and has served many years in a combined role of industry and academia from 1978-2007 and is still active in research with special interest in AI, 4IR, UAVs and Future Engineering.

Serving as the Director of Crisis and Business Continuity Management for AD Ports Group, Mohamad Al Hosani holds over 17 years of experience working in the field of Health & Safety and emergency, crisis management, as well as business continuity across a wide variety of government entities.

Prior to his joining AD Ports Group in 2016, Mohammed spent two years with Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHAD) as Senior HSE Auditor for the emirate of Abu Dhabi.

From 2010 to 2013, while working for Abu Dhabi Municipality and the Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA), he held numerous roles overseeing HSE activities within the emirate’s building and construction sectors.

These positions included Project Manager, Acting HSE Division Manager, and Head of HSE Inspection Section. During this time, he honed his skills at developing emergency and crisis management systems.

In 2001, Mohamed began his career in the oil and gas sector with ADNOC Distribution where he served as Acting HSE Team leader until 2010.

Mohamed graduated from Abu Dhabi University with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Health and Safety. He also holds a Diploma of Environmental Health and Safety from Abu Dhabi’s Abu Dhabi Vocational Education and Training Institute (ADVETI), and a Diploma in Business Administration and Computer Information Systems from Emirates College of Technology (ECT).

Holding over 20 years of strategic project management experience, Sanad Jarulla currently serves as the Director of Merger Integration at Abu Dhabi Ports.

As part of his role, Sanad is responsible for driving the development of the corporate scorecard and the transformation of Abu Dhabi Ports’ organisation towards a multi-cluster model. He also led the design and implementation of the Group’s corporate and subsidiaries operating model and structure.

More recently, he was instrumental in leading the integration of ZonesCorp into Abu Dhabi Ports’ Industry Zone cluster, MICCO, Abu Dhabi Maritime and SAFEEN FEEDERS.

Over the course of his career, Sanad has also served as a member on several government committees, such as the Abu Dhabi Strategic Plan Team, Abu Dhabi Transportation Perspective, Abu Dhabi Economic Development Perspective, one of the leaders that assisted in developing the Abu Dhabi Maritime 2021 Plan and the Abu Dhabi Logistics Committee.

Sanad holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and and received an M&A, Strategy Execution and Post Merger degree from the Harvard Business School. He also holds several career development qualifications, such as the Kaplan-Norton Balance Scorecard Certification and is also an EFQM Certified Assessor.

Shouqi Al Yousuf has been active in the business excellence model implementation and training for the past 20 years.

He gained experience in establishing the Total Quality Management department in one of the most reputable Dubai Government departments. In his tenure, Shouqi was instrumental in achieving many local and international recognitions; such as Dubai Government Excellence Program Awards, Dubai Quality Award, Investors in People, Dubai Human Development Award, British Safety Council (5 Star rating and Sword of Honor), Hall of Fame for the Balanced Scorecard implementation, and the list goes on.

Shouqi Al Yousuf has put his practical experience into training and consulting, and helped many reputable organisations to realise a paradigm shift in performance and outcomes.

Shouqi Al Yousuf has personally developed many training programs, of which is a 23-days training program (Diploma in Business Excellence). Shouqi took charge of translating the EFQM Models (2013 & 2020) and training programs to the Arabic language, thus opening the door for many Arabic speaking organisations to learn and adopt the EFQM model.

One of Shouqi Al Yousuf latest achievements is the development of the Abu Dhabi Chamber Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) Award along with the training for the applicants and assessors.

Mr. Sunil Thawani is an Author, Speaker, Board Member and Fellow, American Society for Quality (ASQ) & CEO Quality Indeed Consulting Ltd., U.A.E.

Sunil has assisted many organizations from diverse sectors of the economy including Governments to improve performance, customer experience, governance etc. using principles of quality, excellence and corporate governance.

Sunil is recipient of prestigious ASQ Lancaster Medal for his dedication and outstanding contributions to the International Fraternity of Quality Professionals. He has served as Member, ASQ Board of Directors, Member of the Jury for Dubai Quality Award, SKEA etc.

His current focus and passion is helping public sector organizations focused on supporting vulnerable segments of the society. He actively promotes United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030. He has been invited by United Nations, ITC (UN & WTO Agency), CAFRAD (Pan Africa Association) to share his knowledge & experience.

He has the honor of meeting Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, U.A.E and several other Ministers of India, U.A.E., Ecuador, Lebanon, Slovenia, South Africa etc.

Sunil has travelled all over the world on motorcycle (www.worldwideonwheels.com). He lives in United Arab Emirates and can be reached at +97155-5900182/ contact@qualityindeed.com.