Middle East Talent & Leadership Podcast - Leadership. Executive Careers. Organizational Reality.

Middle East Talent & Leadership Podcast

Hosted by Ines Mokrani

The Middle East Talent & Leadership Podcast explores leadership, executive careers, talent, business, and the realities of today's workplace across the Middle East and beyond.

Hosted by Ines Mokrani, Founder & CEO of MatchMaker No.1, the podcast looks beyond headlines, corporate narratives, and comfortable assumptions to understand what is actually happening inside organizations, careers, and markets.

From leadership decisions and executive hiring to career strategy, transformation, AI, and changing labor markets, each episode examines the forces shaping how organizations operate — and how leaders and professionals need to respond.

Some episodes challenge conventional leadership thinking. Others examine what is happening in the market and ask whether the prevailing narrative actually matches the evidence.

Because business reality is rarely as simple as the headline.

The podcast explores four core perspectives:

Leadership Reality
How leaders make decisions, build influence, navigate complexity and create the conditions for performance.

Career Reality
What really shapes executive careers, professional value, visibility, opportunity and progression.

Talent & Hiring
How organizations identify capability, make hiring decisions and build the leadership and talent they actually need.

Market Reality
What economic, technological and regional developments mean for businesses, leaders, hiring and careers — with a particular focus on the GCC within a global context.

Topics include executive leadership, decision-making, Executive Search, global talent strategy, organizational psychology, executive careers, AI and the future of work, transformation, international expansion, and the changing business landscape across the GCC and beyond.

For CEOs, executives, managers and ambitious professionals who prefer clarity over corporate clichés and evidence over comfortable narratives.

No corporate myths. No manufactured optimism. No provocation for the sake of attention.

Just clear perspectives on how leadership, careers, talent and business really work.

New episodes every week.

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Episoder(59)

Episode 59 - Market Reality 2026: When the Owner Changes the Rules: What Investor Strategy Shifts Actually Do to a Company

A Board-approved 2026–2030 strategy shift at Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is the documented, current example — but the real subject of this episode is what happens inside any company when the...

22 Sep 11min

Episode 58 - Market Reality 2026: UAE Emiratisation: The Phase-In Ends, Nafis Doesn't

A graduated grace period on the UAE's employer pension contribution for Emirati employees reaches its final step this September—while the broader Nafis program expands, not shrinks. In this episode, I...

15 Sep 10min

Episode 57 - Market Reality 2026: UAE Recovery: Are We Calling It Too Early?

The UAE is showing encouraging signs of renewed economic activity. Business activity is strengthening. New orders are increasing. Companies are adapting. But does that mean the market has truly recove...

8 Sep 10min

Episode 56 — Market Reality 2026: The GCC Talent Market Is Being Rewritten

The GCC talent market is changing — but not simply because companies are hiring more or less. The market's rules are shifting. AI is changing the skills companies need. Nationalization strategies are ...

1 Sep 10min

Episode 55 — The Leader You Hired Is Not the Leader You Get

Finding the right executive is only the beginning. The interviews went well. The experience is there. The Board is convinced. The contract is signed. And then the new leader arrives. Many organization...

25 Aug 7min

Episode 54 — Your Best Performer May Be Hurting Your Team

What happens when one of your strongest performers is also one of the biggest problems in your team? High performers are often given more freedom, more tolerance, and sometimes even a different set of...

18 Aug 8min

Episode 53 - The Leader Everyone Depends On Is Often the Problem

What if everyone depending on you isn't a sign of great leadership — but a warning sign? Many highly capable leaders become the center of every important decision. Problems land on their desk. Teams w...

11 Aug 8min

Episode 52 - The Escalation Problem – Why Smart Leaders Keep Investing in Failing Projects

Why do intelligent leaders continue investing in projects that are clearly failing? It's rarely a lack of intelligence. More often, it's one of the most powerful psychological traps in leadership: Esc...

4 Aug 5min