Business Pledge – Bahrain Islamic Bank & University of Bahrain

The Pearl Initiative launched the Business Pledge to call upon senior business leaders in the Gulf Region to make a public commitment to adhere to principles of ethical and responsible conduct when carrying out business and interacting with society.

The Business Pledge allows business leaders to showcase their best practices in ethical business conduct while uniting students and business leaders to discuss the four pillars of the Pearl Initiative’s Business Pledge programme.

Acknowledgements 
The Pearl Initiative would like to thank the following organisations and individuals for their valuable input, time, and engagement with our programme:

Bahrain Islamic Bank
Dawood Khalil, Assistant General Manager – Human Resources, Bahrain Islamic Bank
University of Bahrain and Dr. Naglaa Fathy 
University of Bahrain students

The Pearl Initiative team would also like to extend our gratitude to PepsiCo as supporters of the programme and the Business Pledge Initiative. 

Event Summary  

Event Location: Bahrain Islamic Bank, Manama

The Pearl Initiative held a collaborative event between University of Bahrain and Bahrain Islamic Bank on 8 May 2019. This event was a Business Pledge session, held as part of the Pearl Initiative’s student engagement initiative.

The Business Pledge is designed to connect students with business leaders, affording them the opportunity to learn about the practical aspects surrounding the implementation of sustainable best practices in business.

This particular session was delivered by Mr. Dawood Khalil, Assistant General Manager – Human Resources, Bahrain Islamic Bank, on the pillar of ‘A more inclusive workplace’. Mr. Khalil began this interactive session by asking the students what diversity and inclusion meant to them, and offered his thoughts on the same.  

Mr. Khalil noted that diversity and inclusion should be in the DNA of every organisation. BisB backs the initiative to empower women in the workforce by designing a development program to target all women employees, who constitue 34% of BisB’s employee pool. To support this initiative, BisB promoted an experienced woman employee to the Head of Central Operations role, and also promoted a woman to head the Sharia’a Audit function for the first time in Bahrain.

Mr. Khalil additionally spoke about a training and development program called ‘Shine’, which aims to build core capabilities in value-based leadership, effective team performance, coaching skills, time management, delegation, ownership, and diversity management. 

Another program called ‘High Potential Proposition – HiPos’ is designed to identify and enable individuals who display high potential to operate at leadership and succession levels. This program takes into consideration individual development needs and the future leadership capabilities required by the bank. 

Mr. Khalil concluded the session by entertaining questions from the students, and then spoke at length about the pros of accepting diversity and inclusion in the workplace and how it enhances productivity, profits, and employee satisfaction.