Nuha Safar

When and why did you decide to study at IE?

I was almost 40, I was shopping for postgraduate programs, and one of my former colleagues, who's coming from a financial background, recommended a specific program in IE, the Executive Master of Positive Leadership and Strategy. It got me intrigued and I after researching about the program I felt it was the program I wanted. I was able to see the impact the program had on him, and he also mentioned that this was a life-transforming program. So, I can’t thank him enough for telling me about this program, it was a life-changing experience for me as well.

In what ways do you think the program changed your life, professionally and personally?

It changed me personally. That's why it affected every other aspect of my life. The basic foundation of this program is being mindful, that’s where the whole thing gets started. I always say, if you start with your own self, when you are mastering your own body, soul, and mind, you can conquer it all.

It's all about the person.

Initially. Then it's how you would be able to apply this on your surroundings, on your environment, business strategy, they taught us the economics of happiness, all these things, but it all starts from you. It’s not a program for everyone, you need to be brave enough to know yourself, and it’s not easy knowing yourself and accepting yourself the way you are. Then, you learn to be true to yourself. Without being true to yourself, you wouldn't be able to go anywhere. You would always be walking in someone else's shoes. You know how it's like when you are not wearing the fit shoes for you? You wouldn't enjoy it. And our life is all about enjoying everything you're doing.

Is there one thing you wish you knew when you were a student?

I wish I would have appreciated more the time I shared with my classmates.

It was always in-and-out of Madrid for me, as this was a part-time program. I wish I spent more time in Madrid. The whole vibe… Right now that I’m back to Spain, I even booked in the same hotel I used to stay in when I was doing the Master. It's reminiscing of the past.

I miss being a student and interacting with people from different cultures. I had the opportunity to share with people from 10 different nationalities, or so. People from Colombia, Mexico, Jordan, Sudan. American people, European people, all of us interacting and discussing things. Forget about color, forget about religion, forget about genders, we all have the same foundations. I wish I would have appreciated that more. I miss classwork, I miss having the opportunity to share your true self with people who don’t even know you. Most of the time, when you have people around you, you try to pretend. But with this group of people, we had the opportunity to be ourselves, be the way we wanted to be. So, I wish I really focused more on spending time together. Because I really miss my classmates.

It's even more difficult when it's a part-time program, you were commuting between the Emirates and Madrid.

Yes. We used to come every quarter term for a week or ten days. The hardest thing is, again, going back to being a student. We started this program with breathing exercises, the whole course number one premise is mindfulness and meditation. Breathing, on its own, really made me be grounded. Right now when you I focus on my breathing it feels really good. But back when we started the breathing exercises, and when we started practicing meditation, I still remember many of us woke up, and most of us were crying.

We forget how to breathe. I was 40 when I learned how to breathe properly, although I used to do yoga and all these things, but it was different. Part of our master classes was mastering our own body through yoga, that’s a part of the program as well.

The last day of our program, with all the students, the 16 of us, all together. We were taking the classes, we were having our meals all together, without us really talking. That's why I wish I had enough time to talk, because that was the last day and everyone was leaving the very next day, and that was heartbreaking, because it was full of crying without talking.

When you stop one of your senses it enhances all the other senses you have.

What was networking like during the course?

We still have a WhatsApp group for the class. Some of the people dropped out, some people are still active. I'm not a social media person, or a person who's always hooked to the mobile phone, unfortunately. I try as much as possible.

I’m fortunate to be part of a generation that tries to enjoy the moment. It’s not about being on social media all the time. Most of the people nowadays try to take photos all the time for their feeds. I’d rather enjoy the moment. I love to capture the experience rather than shoot it. That made me not being attached to social media all the time. But as much as possible, I try to connect with my classmates on the phone. I like talking to people, so I just call from time to time to say “hi” to a few of the people I'm still in touch with. It's always weird for them.

In addition to that, with IE alumni or IE staff in general, I love being in touch with them through the offices in Dubai. I love when I get a message on LinkedIn from random IE graduates, alumni, or students who want to connect and catch up, maybe have a coffee because they are visiting Dubai. I do that all the time. I love this type of community.

How have these connections benefited your career?

I have never looked at it this way. I believe in gratitude. When you’re grateful for what you have, and share such a gratitude, and share this gift of sharing, this gift of joy, this gift of hope, you will get things in return. One way or another. I do believe in karma. So, for me, I never really thought how would it be adding to my career or any of these things. But I know eventually it will.

When you know yourself, and you know what you're passionate about, you will be enjoying what you're doing. You will be paid for doing what you love doing. So, I don't see it as a career, I see it as a life mission. I see myself as a public servant. A public servant not just for my country, but for humanity, for the universe. I'm here to help others. So anything I do is to help humanity. And I get paid for it, can you imagine? It's really inspiring, and I think that's something we all should be looking towards, having the opportunity to work for something we love and not even caring about getting paid. I mean, getting paid it's a good thing. But it's only money, it's only a byproduct.

I have worked in the private sector. I have worked in government, both local and federal level. I have traveled private jet. I have traveled economy. I have lived it all. I have had it all. But the only thing that has really given me peace of mind is just doing what I enjoy doing. It's not the extra thousand or ten thousand dollars in your salary. You can also live with fifty thousand dollars, but you can live with one thousand dollars. Same thing happens with the way you spend the money, the way you invest it, the way you enjoy it. I love experiences, I'm not too materialistic compared to people from my generation; but I also love living a good life. The things that we really love and enjoy, we’d be investing more in them.

So, I don’t think of work as a career. Because I have a sense of purpose, it's more of a life mission for me.

The Emirates, and Dubai especially, have an agenda to pursue happiness and wellbeing of its inhabitants.

But having the happiness is not a target, it’s the journey. And it’s the most important thing. It’s not a destination we need to reach. It’s an evolving journey and destination. I work in public sector.

What are the main differences between working in the public sector and the private sector?

In the private sector, it depends whether it's a company owned by a person or by a group of companies. Sometimes you are limited with the impact you can make. Because of my life mission, I feel like I need to make a bigger impact. So, working for the private sector helped me a lot. It helped me especially to make sure that I can be a very efficient person. That translated into my work in the public sector, I'm very efficient in terms of times, in terms of money, in terms of productivity, in terms of impact. These things I learned more in the private sector, not because it doesn’t exist in public sector, but because in the private sector you put a dollar in everything. And that makes me tackle things in a different way now in that I’m working in the public sector, even though we operate more like a startup. So, I’m lucky enough to be reshaping everything as we move onwards. It’s not easy, it involves finding the right team with the right mindset, and they need to acknowledge they’ll be working in the public sector but being able to move quickly, being agile. It was a bit challenging in the beginning, but I’m enjoying every minute.

How has your experience shaped your understanding of effective communication in driving business and corporate social responsibility initiatives?

First thing: most people think communication is one-way. The truth is communication is always two-ways. Second thing: a major part of communication is listening. What we've done at work is that we created an operating model: step one, we listen; step two, we unify; step three, we magnify. You can’t serve your different stakeholders without really listening to them, and engaging with them. We unify efforts. We deal with so many different public entities, private players, and NGOs. So, by listening to all of them, we help them by unifying their efforts, streamlining what's going on. That's part of the communication, too, trying to tailor a win-win agreement for everyone. Third thing is magnifying the efforts of everyone, or the impact of everyone. This is how I see effective communication happening.

What's your measure of success?

Contentment, and different stakeholders’ satisfaction. If you ask me as a daughter, I will tell you that if my parents are happy with me, I'm happy. This is success. At work, if I'm getting such a thing from my leadership or my board or from my own team, that means success. It’s difficult to explain in English; in Arabic, it's like it's being in a state of contentment and having all your stakeholders satisfied.

If you have a billboard that you could display to the world, what would you write on it?

Together we thrive.