Speakers during the ‘Break the Bias’ panel discussions yesterday.
Doha: Gender equality within the oil and gas industry, or the energy sector in general, is inevitable, said Maryam Al Bishri, Board Member of the Qatar Society of Petroleum Engineers (Q-SPE) who also chairs the Women in Energy chapter. She was among the panelists addressing the ‘Break the Bias’ discussions yesterday organised by the French Embassy in Doha and the French Business Council in collaboration with HEC Paris in Qatar to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Sponsored by HEC Paris in Qatar, L’Occitane, Paris Saint-Germain, and TotalEnergies, the women’s event held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, featured the success stories and contributions of eight female leaders from Qatar’s business, education, culture and art sectors during two-panel discussions moderated by Professor Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj, Associate Professor at HEC Paris in Qatar and an expert in innovation, leadership, and diversity.
Al Bishri, who was among a number of women promoted at QatarEnergy last year, is now the Company’s Head of Subsurface Asset Planning. During the event, she narrated that a few decades ago, there was still a dearth of women role models in the country’s oil and gas sector.
“But gender equality within the oil and gas industry, or the energy sector is just inevitable. It’s how things are going to progress. And one of the biggest factors that would help accelerate that support for women in the sector or even other industries, is having more women in the management. We now see women in leaderships, in teams, and in executive levels, because change is usually easier done from top to bottom. But having men supporting us is also invaluable,” Al Bishri said.
Marie Planckaert, VP of Geoscience and Reservoir at TotalEnergies, went on to highlight the female mentorship and sponsorship programmes at the Company to help women progress in their careers. While Dr. Bothaina Al Ansari, a prominent Qatari businesswoman, highlighted the need for setting quotas for women in leadership, and narrated the program she started at Ooredoo when she was still head of its human resources department which helped increase the number of women in senior management at the Company today.
Fatma Al Remaihi, CEO at Doha Film Institute (DFI), spoke about overcoming the impact of COVID-19, and said that grants and funding for filmmakers have still continued at DFI despite the pandemic. “Today, the DFI chairperson and CEO are females; women represent 50 percent of our senior management, while 40 percent of our employees are women,” she added.
The importance of women supporting each other was also stressed during the discussions, which also included HEC Pairs alumna Abeer Al Hammadi, Director of Innovation and Economic Development at Qatar Foundation; Abeer Hassan Abuhelaiqa, Reservoir Engineer, Founder & Vice-Chairperson of Qatar Women Engineers Association; Dana Al Fardan, contemporary composer, songwriter and symphonic artist; and the French-Guinean journalist Folly Bah-Thibault, Founder of ‘Elle ira à l’école’ which promotes education of young girls from disadvantaged families in Guinea.
Janjuha-Jivraj said: “The range of our panelists today demonstrates the diversity of female leadership and present a wider profile of role models to strengthen the pipeline of female leaders within Qatar. As we have witnessed during the pandemic the involvement of women across all aspect of decisions generates innovative solutions serving all sectors of society. These are values reflected throughout HEC Paris programmes which embrace the impact of women in leadership in business and society”.
Sandrine Lescaroux, Managing Director of French Business Council in Qatar added: “We know that representation matters, so hearing these amazing Qatari and French women who have succeeded in their careers is key to inspiring the younger generations. But it is not enough to fight for yourself, women must support each other if we really want the situation to evolve rapidly”.
