Henley Centre for Leadership Learning Event: Strategic Contextual Leadership - Decoding of Sustainable Success for Executives and Top Teams

This webinar will explore the sustainable success of executives and top teams. Day to day, the job of executives, top management teams and boards is navigating and balancing pluralistic organisations and demanding, shifting and multicultural environments. They face ever more scrutiny on lasting performance, rightly so with the footprint they can create in thriving businesses and societies. But how can we assist strategic leaders to keep growing?

Developed from deep research during the Henley Business School DBA and decades of practice, the Strategic Contextual Leadership (SCL) is a bold and practical leadership framework that redefines how we understand strategic effectiveness in and how to get there. The SCL framework challenges the long-held belief that leadership success is primarily driven by personality traits or cultural factors. Instead, it reveals that the impact of the dynamic context on strategic leaders and top teams is far stronger and that focusing solely on culture oversimplifies the complex reality of leading across systems, institutions and societal expectations.

The webinar will introduce key practical elements of SCL framework, with the Context Matrix mapping the cultural, economic and institutional dynamics shaping strategic decision-making. The four imperatives for achieving sustainable success within the framework are: strategic contextual intelligence (SCI), strategic finance for all, innovation, technology and agility and integrative communication.

Dubai Ports (DP) World is a key learning partner and a global benchmark of sustainable success. They have a proven track record of integrating innovation, financial excellence and societal leadership expectations.

This webinar will be held on 10 December 2025 at 12:00pm via Microsoft Teams and is open to all. To register for this event, please submit the booking request form here.

The event will be hosted by Dr Sinem Bulkan, Associate Professor in Leadership and Organisational Behaviour at Henley Business School and Henley Centre for Leadership Alumni Learning Event Organiser. You will have the chance to hear from our speakers as they illuminate the following learning outcomes:

• Understand how external and external context, not traits alone, drives strategic leadership effectiveness

• Learn to apply the Context Matrix and SCL imperatives in organisational settings

• Develop practical insight into balancing economic performance and community impact

• Gain tools to decode the meaning of sustainable success in complex and fast-evolving environments

Dr Ergham Al Bachir is the founder and Managing Partner of Organisation LAB, a people and leadership strategist and practitioner whose work bridges research and practice in serving CEOs and top management teams to lead effectively within complex, pluralistic environments. Through Organisation LAB, she partners with CEOs and executives to forecast the strategic leadership skills of the future, increase team effectiveness and alignment and master the balancing act of leading both inside and outside their organisations.

A Henley Business School alumna from the DBA programme in 2022, Ergham is the creator of the SCL Framework, a bold model that challenges conventional leadership theory by demonstrating that context, more than traits or culture alone, shapes strategic effectiveness. Her framework integrates SCI, strategic finance, innovation, technology, agility and integrative communication to help leaders achieve sustainable success.

With over 20 years of experience in strategic talent management and structuring executive teams across the United Arab Emirates, Gulf Co-operation Council and North America, Ergham helps organisations to decode the meaning of sustainable success and thrive through contextual, collective and strategic leadership. Alongside Professor Bernd Vogel, she is also the co-author of Strategic Contextual Leadership: the Blueprint for CEOs and Executives to Lead Effectively (De Gruyter, 2025).

Noor Altamimi is an accomplished Emirati entrepreneur and the CEO and driving force behind the SHELEX Investment Fund, which has the mission of empowering women-led initiatives and fostering their growth. She has extensive experience as a successful businesswoman and is committed to creating opportunities for women in the Gulf Co-operation Council region, comprising of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Having previously served as the CEO of Bedashing Beauty, Noor revolutionised the beauty services industry, opening up 23 branches, receiving numerous international awards and gaining a position as an industry leader. Prior to that, she earned her degree in banking and finance.

Beyond her business ventures, Noor is recognised as a thought leader and highly respected figure in Abu Dhabi's business community, dedicating her time to mentor a diverse group of SMEs and start-ups. She is a board member of the Abu Dhabi Businesswomen Council, the Emirates Association for Franchise Development and the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce, contributing her expertise to shape and support the growth of aspiring entrepreneurs, foster economic development and drive positive change.