A Day In The Life Of...
KARA SHOEFFLING, DIRECTOR
Tell Us More About Your Background?
My name is Kara Schoeffling and I am the director of Partnerships and Communications at Nabbesh.com. I am an American, originally from the East Coast of the US and have a background that's very eclectic spanning from policy to executive recruitment and corporate communication. I have now been in this role for a few months.
Tell Us More About Millennium Nabbesh.com?
Nabbesh.com is a online platform that connects companies and entrepreneurs with freelance talent online. We were founded in 2012 to help address the Middle East unemployment crisis and initially our target market was the women in the region.
We've since grown to a community of 40,000 and provided over 5,000 freelance opportunities for people in the region. We are the place for people to search for work, find work and apply for work and freelance jobs and get paid securely online.
How Did You Get Into This Role?
What first attracted me to Nabbesh.com was the story of the founders and the Arab women in this region who face the challenge of finding work. The platform was designed with the aim to get beyond the 9- -5 jobs for people here in the Middle East.
We now provide opportunities for people in over 100 cities in the Arab world and beyond.
What Current Industry Trends Do You See?
The idea of moving beyond the typical traditional 9-to-5 job is something that is very appealing to the millennial generation. We know that half of the population in the Arab world is in that generation so we are seeing a lot of young people and a lot of people that didn't particiapte in the labour market here really interested in online work.
We also know that online work is one of the fastest growing trends globally with a 700% increase since 2008, so we are at the forefront of a very global trend here in the Arab world.
What Interesting HR Projects Have You Implemented at Nabbesh.com?
The intensive projects that we have launched recently target the youth and women in particular. We know that they make up a large proportion of the unemployed workforce here in the Arab world and we know that they are all online.
We have a couple of programs in place to help students to go straight from University to working online.
Tell Us More About Your Background?
Beofre moving to Dubai, I worked in sales for an advertising agency in London. My background is predominantly in Telesales.
Tell Us More About Biz-Group
Biz Group started two decades ago when I first came to Dubai. We are a training and development company, predominantly like your magazine. We also have a team building division and a strategy division that helps small businesses.
Everything we do is about improving performance. For example, how do we improve the performance of teams, the performance of people and the performance of businesses?
What Made You Originally Set Up A Training Business In Dubai?
I originally came here two decades ago to launch a product for a client from the training industry and just fell in love with Dubai in early 1992. Dubai was entrepreneurial, optimistic and sunny. Every time I landed back in the UK it wasn't sunny and the 90's was quite a depressing time for UK business.
So, I looked at an opportunity to start a new business. I didn’t have enough funds to start an advertising agency, so I started a training company which grew from an initial idea and a passion, to what you see today, with 46 people in the company and a very passionate team helping companies improve performance.
How Do You Help Companies?
From a training and development perspective, traditionally we work with an organizationt o find out what their business objectives are, what strategic issues they want to improve and how we can provide training and development solutions tailor made for them, or alternatively implement some of the international programs we have that help get companies from A to B. We also help individuals, whether it’s leaders, front line customer service employees or the general population through professional development. We help companies improve their business results.
Take Us Through A Typical Day As CEO?
Having just read Arianna Huffington’s new book 'Thrive', what I shouldn’t be doing first thing in the morning is checking my iphone to find out what emails have come in overnight from our overseas partners, but I’m still doing that.
Then my day is pretty much mapped out intensively, sometimes I think I’m like a doctor, my PA manages to fill in appointments back to back. If im not in the office, I am in a training room first thing in the morning .
So, a typical day of mine may start with introducing a new concept, like multipliers for senior leaders, followed by running an 8 hour workshop.
But. I don’t think there really is a typical day in my diary, I could either be in the office supporting the team, I could be delivering business keynotes internationally or even delivering a training
NABBESH.COM
50 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST NOV 2014