Tell us about your time in the Middle East?
I arrived in Dubai in 2010 from New York and the US where I had lived for 8 years following the completion of my Masters degree in political science from Uppsala University in my home country of Sweden.
I moved to Dubai as part of a company transfer that was supposed to last for 2 years. After only one year in Dubai but about 10 years of work experience in international business out of about half were in conference production and executive professional training I co-founded Innoverto in 2011 in order to provide the region with better access to international best practices and executive training through certified programs led by international experts.
For instance, Innoverto is the official provider of training for internationally revered and recognized institutes and training programs such as the New York Institute of Management and BMTG in the UK. As such Innoverto acts as the local representative and provides a long list of public and in house certified training programs but also industry events such as the Retail Leaders Circles – a CEO Forum now in its 4th year.
The topic areas we are known for are Leadership & Management, Procurement, Contracts, Bid & Tender Management and Supply Chain, Operations, Process & Procedure and Data Management & Analytics.
As our trainings are being requested globally we deliver several executive programs such as the Advanced Certificate for Executive Assistants in Toronto, Washington DC and Singapore and will continue to launch other public courses in new locations in 2018. Most rewarding is to receive such positive feedback from participants which create a natural catalyst for us to grow and to do so on a wider and more global scale with each passing year.
How would you describe the culture of your business?
We are a small, young, energetic and flexible team able to produce and facilitate tailor-made programs on a broad range of topics. As a result, we have been able to establish long term partnerships with trainers and clients in the region and internationally.
What are some of the common requests for training from the L&D industry
We are seeing a lot of requests for Experiential Workshops and Business Simulation programs. To meet this demand, we are offering among other trainings something we call Business Games which we develop as either a ½ or full day workshop. The games represent a simulation of the real business world and when teams are conveyed to an attractive business world that serves as a metaphor for your own business context, you create a ‘safe’ distance from the working environment for your employees, but you can still easily translate the ‘outcome’.
The workshop is a perfect balance of traditional team building on topics ranging from Management, Ownership, Communication, Strategy and Leadership combined with the unique objectives of the client involved. We find them to be an excellent way to round out the year and prepare corporate teams for specific skillset challenges for the upcoming year.
What are your biggest challenges in the next 5 years?
As a dynamic region in constant flux, organizations continue to adapt to this change so we focus on growth and constant customization. For instance, online learning is increasingly prevalent, so we are currently exploring how to best offer this service while complementing our current model. We don’t believe that executive training will be replaced by online learning but can see that it can be very effective when technology and in person programs are combined. We predict that more innovative methods of training will come online in the next few years and we will continue to strategize how best to incorporate them with our successful program to best suit our clients’ needs.
On the topic of technology and in line with the newly launched UAE Artificial Intelligence strategy, we anticipate an enhanced demand for training in Artificial Intelligence tools. Companies and the public sector are just starting to implement AI technologies and the sector is constantly evolving but ultimately will change both the government and private companies’ way of working and we aim to assist in this change by providing timely and practical trainings.
